While it doesn’t exactly make for light lunchtime reading, the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) has published a list of this year’s National Magazine Awards finalists, and we were happy to see that it includes some of our favorite writers, including Wells Tower, Christopher Hitchens, and Jerry Saltz. The New Yorker received the most nominations (nine!), followed by New York, The New York Times Magazine, and Virginia Quarterly Review, which all received six nods a piece. The winners will be announced at a dinner on May 9th, where the perennially dapper Tom Wolfe will be presented with the Creative Excellence Award for being “one of the most influential magazine journalists of our time.” Click through to peruse a list of the nominees in the public interest, reporting, feature writing, profile writing, and essays and criticism categories, including links to the articles and essays that are available online.
PUBLIC INTEREST Honors magazine journalism that illuminates issues of local or national importance
The Atlantic “God Help You, You’re on Dialysis” by Robin Fields
Marie Claire “Still Waiting After All These Years … ,” by Ralph Blumenthal
The New Yorker “Letting Go” by Atul Gawande
OnEarth “What’s the Catch?” by Bruce Barcott; photographs by Corey Arnold
Texas Monthly A two-part series by Pamela Colloff: “Innocence Lost” and “Innocence Found”
REPORTING Honors reporting excellence as exemplified by one article or a series of articles
Harper’s Magazine “The Guantanamo ‘Suicides’” by Scott Horton
The New York Times Magazine “The Desert War” by Robert F. Worth
The New Yorker “Covert Operations” by Jane Mayer
Rolling Stone “The Runaway General” by Michael Hastings
Virginia Quarterly Review “Digging Out” essay and photographs by Elliott D. Woods
FEATURE WRITING Honors original, stylish storytelling
The Atlantic “The Wrong Man” by David Freed
GQ “The Suicide Catcher” by Michael Paterniti
Los Angeles “The End” by Ben Ehrenreich
Mother Jones “For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question” by Mac McClelland
The New Yorker “The Mark of a Masterpiece” by David Grann
PROFILE WRITING Honors news or feature stories focused on individuals or groups of closely linked individuals
The Atlantic “Autism’s First Child” by John Donvan and Caren Zucker
Harper’s Magazine “Own Goal” by Wells Tower
New York “Joan Rivers Always Knew She Was Funny” by Jonathan Van Meter
The New York Times Magazine “The Man the White House Wakes Up To” by Mark Leibovich
The New Yorker “The Unconsoled” by George Packer
ESSAYS & CRITICISM Honors long-form journalism that presents the opinions of the writer on topics ranging from the personal to the political
The American Scholar “Solitude and Leadership” by William Deresiewicz
The Antioch Review “The Physics of Speed” by William Giraldi
The New Yorker “The Fun Stuff” by James Wood
The Paris Review “Mister Lytle: An Essay” by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Virginia Quarterly Review “Lust, Devotion, and the Binary Code” by Kamin Mohammadi
COLUMNS & COMMENTARY Honors short-form journalism that presents the views of the writer or publication
Esquire Three “A Thousand Words About Our Culture” columns by Stephen Marche: “What’s Your Favorite War?”; “Why Is Clint Eastwood Still the Man?”; “Why Can’t Kanye West Shut the Hell Up?”
New York Three reviews by Jerry Saltz: “Less Than the Sum of Its Parts”; “A Grand Tour”; “Judge Jerry”
The New Yorker Three “Talk of the Town” columns by Hendrik Hertzberg: “And The Oscar Goes To”; “Puppetry”; “Iran and the Bomb”
Vanity Fair Three columns by Christopher Hitchens: “Topic of Cancer“; “Unanswerable Prayers”; “Miss Manners and the Big C”
Vanity Fair Three columns by James Wolcott: “The Norman Conquests”; “Barbarians at the Shore”; “The Sound of Sanity”
[via Capital]