In the magazine world, no recognition is more highly coveted or prestigious than a National Magazine Award. Annually, members of the American Society of Magazine Editors, in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, select the year's most dynamic, original, provocative, and influential magazine stories. The winning and finalist pieces in this anthology represent outstanding work by some of the most eminent writers in America as well as rising literary and journalistic talents.

This prestigious collection includes stories that cover a variety of subjects from Elizabeth Kolbert's investigation into global warming in the New Yorker and James Bamford's look at the PR campaign behind the Iraq War in Rolling Stone to Chris Heath's remarkable profile of Merle Haggard in GQ and Bill Heavey's hilarious account of teaching his daughter to fish in Field and Stream. Other writers include David Foster Wallace ( The Atlantic Monthly), Joyce Carol Oates ( The Virginia Quarterly Review), Priscilla Long ( The American Scholar), Jesse Katz ( Los Angeles Magazine), Marjorie Williams ( Vanity Fair), Hendrik Hertzberg ( New Yorker), Sven Birkerts ( The Virginia Quarterly Review), Erik Reece ( Harper's), Wendy Brenner ( The Oxford American), John Jeremiah Sullivan ( GQ), James Wolcott ( Vanity Fair), and Wyatt Mason ( Harper's).

Wide-ranging in their style and subjects, these writers' stories inform, surprise, entertain, and provide new perspectives on our world. They also reflect elements that distinguish the best in magazine writing: moral passion, investigative zeal, vivid characters and settings, persistent reporting, and artful writing.

"The best magazine articles, writes Carter (editor of Vanity Fair), offer a winning combination of access into a new world, disclosure into its secrets and a narrative that transforms information into a compelling story. It's a standard most of these finalists for the American Society of Magazine Editors' annual awards meet with ease. The most sprawling example is David Foster Wallace's profile of talk radio personality John Ziegler (loaded with Wallace's trademark footnotes), but there are also little gems, like Field & Stream columnist Bill Heavey's account of teaching his young daughter to fish. The late Marjorie Williams is represented by her prize-winning essay about learning that she had an inoperable form of liver cancer; other winners include James Banford's reporting about the image consultant who handled the Iraqi invasion for the U.S. government, Elizabeth Kolbert's investigations into global warming and a short story from Joyce Carol Oates. For many readers, though, it's the profiles and feature stories that may hold the most interest, from the prose portrait of Merle Haggard as 'The Last Outlaw' to John Jeremiah Sullivan's relating his misadventures at a Christian rock festival. If this anthology were a magazine, everybody would want to subscribe." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

This collection celebrates excellence in investigative reporting, features, profiles, criticism, and essays. Wide-ranging in their style and subjects, these writers' stories inform, surprise, entertain, and provide new perspectives on the world.

In the magazine world, no recognition is more highly coveted or prestigious than a National Magazine Award. Annually, members of the American Society of Magazine Editors, in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, select the year's most dynamic, original, provocative, and influential magazine stories. The winning and finalist pieces in this anthology represent outstanding work by some of the most eminent writers in America as well as rising literary and journalistic talents.

This prestigious collection includes stories that cover a variety of subjects from Elizabeth Kolbert's investigation into global warming in the New Yorker and James Bamford's look at the PR campaign behind the Iraq War in Rolling Stone to Chris Heath's remarkable profile of Merle Haggard in GQ and Bill Heavey's hilarious account of teaching his daughter to fish in Field and Stream. Other writers include David Foster Wallace ( The Atlantic Monthly), Joyce Carol Oates ( The Virginia Quarterly Review), Priscilla Long ( The American Scholar), Jesse Katz ( Los Angeles Magazine), Marjorie Williams ( Vanity Fair), Hendrik Hertzberg ( New Yorker), Sven Birkerts ( The Virginia Quarterly Review), Erik Reece ( Harper's), Wendy Brenner ( The Oxford American), John Jeremiah Sullivan ( GQ), James Wolcott ( Vanity Fair), and Wyatt Mason ( Harper's).

Wide-ranging in their style and subjects, these writers' stories inform, surprise, entertain, and provide new perspectives on our world. They also reflect elements that distinguish the best in magazine writing: moral passion, investigative zeal, vivid characters and settings, persistent reporting, and artfulwriting.