The Best American Newspaper Narratives of 2012

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference has become a kind of Mecca for narrative nonfiction writing in America. Over the past 10 years, the Mayborn has conducted writing contests and workshops to encourage journalists and nonfiction authors across the country to produce “original” nonfiction literature in the form of reported narratives, personal essays and book manuscripts. The Mayborn’s writing contests are now attracting writers from around the country in search of new literary plateaus—staff writers for The New York Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, freelancers for GQ and Outside magazine, and other journalists and authors dedicated to the narrative craft. And we’ve awarded major cash awards and publishing opportunities in our literary anthology, Ten Spurs, for the ten “best of the best” submissions to the Mayborn. Literary agents and publishers have taken notice. Robert Atwan named Ten Spurs, Vol. 4, a “notable special issue” in his nationally acclaimed anthology, 2011 Best American Essays. Now, you’re holding in your hands a new anthology, aptly named The Best American Newspapers of 2012. It grew out of the vision of Jim Moroney, publisher of The Dallas Morning News, who urged us to launch a writing contest for narratives previously published in the nation’s dailies. He even offered to fund it. How could we say no? The contest was a smashing success. Nearly every major daily in America participated. First-place winner was Eli Saslow, a national enterprise writer for the Washington Post for “Life of a Salesman.” Saslow 14 TheBestAmericanNewspaperNarrativesof2012 received $5,000 and free registration to attend last year’s conference. “It’s an honor to be recognized along with some of the writers I admire,” Saslow said. “It’s also heartening to see evidence of so many newspapers supporting narrative journalism.” Saslow also was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. Second place and $2,000 went to Kelley Benham of the Tampa Bay Times for “Never Let Go,” an emotionally wrought narrative about the birth of her daughter, Juniper, born more than 12 weeks premature. Benham was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing in 2012, and she and her husband, Tom French, were presenters at our last conference . Third place and $1,000 went to the Post’s Anne Hull for “Breaking Free,” about a teenage girl’s climb out of poverty. “These awards reflect not only the extraordinary gifts of Eli Saslow and Anne Hull but also the Washington Post’s unwavering commitment to ambitious narrative journalism ,” said Kevin Merida, the managing editor of the Washington Post. Our judges selected three runners-up and four notable narratives for publication in this anthology, The Best American Newspaper Narratives of 2012. The runners-up were John Branch of The New York Times for “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”; Dan Barry of The New York Times for “Donna’s Diner”; and Rosalind Bentley of The Atlanta JournalConstitution for “The Nation’s Poet.” Four “notable narratives” were also selected by our judges: Mark Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, for “I Boy”; Monica Rhor of the Houston Chronicle for “Young Houstonians Go from Homelessness to College”; Louis Hansen of The Virginian-Pilot for “Girl Who Took Down a Gang”; and Martin Kuz, formerly of Stars and Stripes, for “Soldiers Recount Attack.” “With the focus on narrative journalism that these awards represent,” said Moroney, the Dallas Morning News publisher, “we hope they will Acknowledgments 15 encourage more compelling, important and interesting narrative stories that attract and retain subscribers.” A few minutes spent with the dazzling prose and reportage represented inside The Best American Newspaper Narratives of 2012 should remove any doubt that Jim’s hope will be realized. As you read the stories in this compendium, I hope you’ll agree that our highly acclaimed journalists and authors who spent weeks reading, evaluating and finally selecting the 10 best narrative submissions pouring in from around the country gave us a collection of stories that we’ll want to turn to over and over again for years to come. Our contest judges were Maria Carrillo, managing editor at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk; Roy Peter Clark, a former dean at the Poynter Institute; Roger Thurow, a former foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal; Michele Weldon, assistant professor of journalism at Northwestern University; and Mike Wilson, the former managing editor of The Tampa Bay...