"We've already had quite a lot of people making applications, we've had a good look at that and we need to shortlist down to whatever.
A poet, playwright, spoken-word performer, winner of a Ted Hughes award for her "spoken story" Brand New Ancients, and a rapper whose debut album, Everybody Down, was shortlisted for the Mercury music prize.
The entries were whittled down to 24 shortlisted poems that each have the chance to make the final top three.
This month, the book we're talking about is Nick Hornby's latest novel, A Long Way Down, which was shortlisted for this year's Whitbread novel prize.
Then his team revealed the shortlist was down to three people, or possibly five.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its nine-strong shortlist, slimmed down from the 85 entries for the category put forward by individual national award committees.
Matteo Garrone's production was notable by its absence on the nine-film shortlist, whittled down from an earlier longlist of 65 contenders.
Meet the teachers who make up the Final Ten shortlist (narrowed down from 8,000 nominations in 148 countries around the world) in the Varkey Foundation's Global Teacher Prize 2016.
The shortlist, whittled down from a sizable 76 submissions, is compiled by the voting of a committee of several hundred Los Angeles-based Academy members, whose top six choices are augmented by three additional selections from an executive committee.
There are 18 films shortlisted for the awards across 12 categories, whittled down from 130 entries in total.
