Sid Holt (editor) - The Best American Magazine Writing 2020

1. Jonathan Dorn, president, American Society of Magazine Editors
2. Sid Holt, executive director, American Society of Magazine Editors
3. Pamela Colloff
4. New York Times Magazine in partnership with ProPublica
5. WINNERReporting
6. Piper Kerman
7. Washington Post Magazine
8. WINNERSingle-Topic Issue
9. Keri Blakinger
10. Washington Post Magazine
11. WINNERSingle-Topic Issue
12. Erika Fry
13. Fortune
14. FINALISTReporting
15. Jordan Kisner
16. The Believer
17. FINALISTFeature Writing
18. Sarah A. Topol
19. New York Times Magazine
20. WINNERFeature Writing
21. Nick Paumgarten
22. New Yorker
23. FINALISTFeature Writing
24. Jacob Baynham
25. Georgia Review
26. WINNERProfile Writing
27. Rebecca Traister
28. New York
29. FINALISTProfile Writing
30. John Lee Clark
31. Poetry
32. WINNEREssays and Criticism
33. Arundhati Roy
34. The Nation in partnership with Type Media Center
35. FINALISTEssays and Criticism
36. s.e. smith
37. Catapult
38. WINNERColumns and Commentary
39. Jia Tolentino
40. New Yorker
41. FINALISTColumns and Commentary
42. Ligaya Mishan
43. T: The New York Times Style Magazine
44. FINALISTColumns and Commentary
45. Nikole Hannah-Jones
46. New York Times Magazine
47. WINNERPublic Interest
48. T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose, and Robert Faturechi
49. ProPublica
50. FINALISTPublic Interest
51. Jonathan Escoffery
52. Paris Review
53. WINNERASME Award for Fiction

G reetings from the Before Time. Its spring 2020, and the specter of 7 million virus-plagued Americans remains distant and incomprehensible. The West Coast isnt burning, RGB is hanging in there, and theres little worry about a peaceful transition of presidential power. The days are getting warmer, and hope is growing that a few weeks of mask wearing will bring the economy roaring back. And somewhere in Minneapolis, theres a forty-six-year-old guy shooting hoops on a cracked blacktop court, unknown to the world, and still breathing.

From our vantage point in these early days of May, we couldnt possibly predict the calamities that will make this year unlike any weve experienced. Not the Second Surge, not 50 million unemployed, not the murder of a young EMT in Louisville, not the hellfire that will permanently eliminate any reasonable doubt about global warming. And certainly not the shaky street-corner video that is going to ignite antiracism protests from coast to coast.

Or maybe, sitting here in May, we could predict it all. George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. An economy in shambles. Thousands upon thousands of lonely deaths cutting short robust lives without respect to age or station.

After all, weve had ample warning in the stories featured in this compilation of 2019s best magazine writing. No matter that theyll be a year old by the time this book reaches you, or that their lighter moments will seem a bit quaint (in-person interviews, how precious! mask-free socializingwas that a thing?). No matter that they lack the underlying bewilderment so pervasive in the journalism well read months from now. The writing in this collection is shockingly prescient for a Before Time collection.

Take Nikole Hannah-Joness tour-de-force essay from The 1619 Project, a special issue of the New York Times Magazine. A previous National Magazine Award winner, Hannah-Jones incisively crystallizes the modern-day relevance of a 400-year legacy of racial injustice in her introduction to this issue. Like the rest of the issue, a towering work of journalism that spurred (and advanced) national debate, shes looking back while looking forward. Its impossible to read her words and not recognize that a national reckoning on race is right around the corner.

Similarly, three stories reporting on deep inequities in Americas prison system are threaded with meaningful insights about the pernicious impact of a bent judicial process on marginalized communities. Piper Kerman and Keri Blakinger in separate articles in the Washington Post Magazine and Pamela in a ProPublica / New York Times joint investigation, each in their own way call our attention to the daily effects of institutional racism on incarcerated people of color.

And dont forget Erika Frys timely telling of another virus story in Epidemic of Fear. This Fortune feature and National Magazine Award finalist is a disconcerting tale of vaccine blunders and misinformation that should serve as a pressing reminder of how complex your challenge will be this fall in trusting the word of pharmaceutical companies racing for a cure in a heated political environment.

Together, these powerful stories and the others in this collection remind us why magazine journalism matters so much. The medium is uniquely equipped to synthesize current events and historical realities into thoughtful outlooks on the road ahead. It enables writers to make the past present and to warn us, directly or indirectly, of the challenges we will face as individuals and as a nation. And magazines provide an important and nuanced counterbalance to the attention-deprived blurb economy of Twitter and Facebook.

Read these stories, relish their insights and relevance, and lets hope that next years volume of Best American Magazine Writing is all about the After Time.