The Best American Magazine Writing 2015

This year's Best American Magazine Writing features articles on politics, culture, sports, sex, race, celebrity, and more. Selections include Ta-Nehisi Coates's intensely debated "The Case For Reparations" (The Atlantic) and Monica Lewinsky's reflections on the public-humiliation complex and how the rules of the game have (and have not) changed (Vanity Fair). Amanda Hess recounts her chilling encounter with Internet sexual harassment (Pacific Standard) and John Jeremiah Sullivan shares his investigation into one of American music's greatest mysteries (New York Times Magazine). The anthology also presents Rebecca Traister's acerbic musings on gender politics (The New Republic) and Jerry Saltz's fearless art criticism (New York). James Verini reconstructs an eccentric love affair against the slow deterioration of Afghanistan in the twentieth century (The Atavist); Roger Angell offers affecting yet humorous reflections on life at ninety-three (The New Yorker); Tiffany Stanley recounts her poignant experience caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's (National Journal); and Jonathan Van Meter takes an entertaining look at fashion's obsession with being a social-media somebody (Vogue). Brian Phillips describes his surreal adventures in the world of Japanese ritual and culture (Grantland), and Emily Yoffe reveals the unforeseen casualties in the effort to address the college rape crisis (Slate). The collection concludes with a work of fiction by Donald Antrim, exploring the geography of loss. (The New Yorker).

The Best American Magazine Writing 2020 brings together outstanding in-depth reporting and incisive criticism. It features extraordinary globe-spanning journalism and showcases the work of remarkable stylists.

Chosen from among the winners and finalists of the 2009 National Magazine Awards, this collection features a mixture of reviews, profiles, and reporting that caught both readers' and critics' attention.

Showcases articles written by a variety of journalists judged as finalists or winners in a contest sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors, and addresses topics ranging from reporting to feature writing.

Published: New York, NY: Perennial, 2002-

This year's Best American Magazine Writing features outstanding writing on contentious issues including incarceration, policing, sexual assault, labor, technology, and environmental catastrophe. Selections include Paul Ford's ambitious "What Is Code?" (Bloomberg Businessweek), an innovative explanation of how programming works, and "The Really Big One," by Kathryn Schulz (The New Yorker), which exposes just how unprepared the Pacific Northwest is for a major earthquake. Joining them are Meaghan Winter's exposé of crisis pregnancy centers (Cosmopolitan) and a chilling story of police prejudice that allowed a serial rapist to run free (the Marshall Project in partnership with ProPublica). Also included is Shane Smith's interview with Barack Obama about mass incarceration (Vice). Other selections demonstrate a range of long-form styles and topics across print and digital publications. The imprisoned hacker and activist Barrett Brown pens hilarious dispatches from behind bars, including a scathing review of Jonathan Franzen's fiction (The Intercept). "The New American Slavery" (Buzzfeed) documents the pervasive exploitation of guest workers, and Luke Mogelson explores the purgatorial fate of an undocumented man sent back to Honduras (New York Times Magazine). Joshua Hammer harrowingly portrays Sierra Leone's worst Ebola ward as even the staff succumb to the disease (Matter). And in "The Friend," Matthew Teague's wife is afflicted with cancer, his friend moves in, and the result is a devastating narrative of relationships and death (Esquire). The collection concludes with Jenny Zhang's "How It Feels," an unconventional meditation on the intersection of teenage cruelty and art (Poetry).

The Best American Magazine Writing 2019 presents articles honored by this year’s National Magazine Awards, showcasing outstanding writing that addresses urgent topics such as justice, gender, power, and violence, both at home and abroad. The anthology features remarkable reporting, including the story of a teenager who tried to get out of MS-13, only to face deportation (ProPublica); an account of the genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar (Politico); and a sweeping California Sunday Magazine profile of an agribusiness empire. Other journalists explore the indications of environmental catastrophe, from invasive lionfish (Smithsonian) to the omnipresence of plastic (National Geographic). Personal pieces consider the toll of mass incarceration, including Reginald Dwayne Betts’s “Getting Out” (New York Times Magazine); “This Place Is Crazy,” by John J. Lennon (Esquire); and Robert Wright’s “Getting Out of Prison Meant Leaving Dear Friends Behind” (Marshall Project with Vice). From the pages of the Atlantic and the New Yorker, writers and critics discuss prominent political figures: Franklin Foer’s “American Hustler” explores Paul Manafort’s career of corruption; Jill Lepore recounts the emergence of Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and Caitlin Flanagan and Doreen St. Félix reflect on the Kavanaugh hearings and #MeToo. Leslie Jamison crafts a portrait of the Museum of Broken Relationships (Virginia Quarterly Review), and Kasey Cordell and Lindsey B. Koehler ponder “The Art of Dying Well” (5280). A pair of never-before-published conversations illuminates the state of the American magazine: New Yorker writer Ben Taub speaks to Eric Sullivan of Esquire about pursuing a career as a reporter, alongside Taub’s piece investigating how the Iraqi state is fueling a resurgence of ISIS. And Karolina Waclawiak of BuzzFeed News interviews McSweeney’s editor Claire Boyle about challenges and opportunities for fiction at small magazines. That conversation is inspired by McSweeney’s winning the ASME Award for Fiction, which is celebrated here with a story by Lesley Nneka Arimah, a magical-realist tale charged with feminist allegory.

In the magazine world, no recognition is more highly coveted than an "Ellie," presented by the American Society of Magazine Editors. The finalists and winners are chosen from more than a thousand submissions, and the stories in this anthology represent the very best of those outstanding works by some of the most eminent writers in the country. Among them are: "The Most Dangerous Beauty" Michael Paterniti, GQ "A Piece of Cotton" Anne Fadiman, The American Scholar "Lying in Wait" Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated "Horseman, Pass By" John Jeremiah Sullivan, Harper’s "In the Party of God" Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker "Jewish Power, Jewish Peril" Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair "The Fifty-first State?" James Fallows, The Atlantic Monthly "Terminal Ice" Ian Frazier, Outside The American Society of Magazine Editors is the professional organization for editors of consumer magazines that are edited, published, and sold in the United States. It sponsors the National Magazine Awards in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

The Best American Magazine Writing 2023 offers a selection of outstanding journalism on timely topics, including inequalities and injustices pressuring families, especially mothers. Rozina Ali tells the story of a U.S. marine who unlawfully adopted an Afghan girl and her family’s efforts to bring her home (New York Times Magazine). A Mother Jones exposé confronts the imprisonment of women for failing to protect their children from their abusive partners. “The Landlord and the Tenant” juxtaposes the lives of a poor single mother convicted for her children’s deaths in a fire and the man who owned the fatal property (ProPublica with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). Caitlin Dickerson investigates the history of the U.S. government’s family-separation policy (The Atlantic). Jia Tolentino’s New Yorker commentary considers abortion in a post-Roe world. The anthology features pieces on a wide range of subjects, such as Nate Jones on the “Nepo Baby” and Allison P. Davis’s essay about a decade on Tinder (New York). Natalie So recounts how her mother’s small computer chip company became the target of a Silicon Valley crime ring (The Believer). Clint Smith asks what Holocaust memorials in Germany can teach the United States about our reckoning with slavery (The Atlantic). Esquire’s Chris Heath examines the FBI’s involvement in a plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan. Courtney Desiree Morris takes a queer psychedelic ramble through New Orleans (Stranger’s Guide). Namwali Serpell reflects on representations of sex workers (New York Review of Books). An ESPN Digital investigation uncovers Penn State’s other serial sexual predator before Jerry Sandusky. Profiles of the acclaimed actress Viola Davis (New York Times Magazine) and the self-taught artist Matthew Wong (New Yorker), as well as Michelle de Kretser’s short story “Winter Term” (Paris Review), round out the volume.