March 20, 2009 — The Virginia Quarterly Review is a finalist in the 44th annual National Magazine Awards, the magazine industry's equivalent to the Pulitzer Prizes.
VQR, a literary and current affairs magazine published at the University of Virginia, was honored as a finalist in two categories, General Excellence (circulation under 100,000) and Fiction. It was among 24 magazines nationwide receiving multiple nominations.
The National Magazine Awards, the magazine industry's highest honor, are sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors in association with Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism to honor editorial excellence. The finalists were chosen by more than 200 editors, art directors, educators and online media experts.
This marks the fifth consecutive year in which VQR has been named a finalist in the General Excellence category. Over the past five years, under the editorship of Ted Genoways, VQR has garnered 15 nominations, an unprecedented number for a magazine its size. VQR has won three awards in that time, with wins in the General Excellence and Fiction categories in 2006 and for Single-Topic Issue in 2008.
"We're very excited and honored by this year's nominations," Genoways said. "Receiving this recognition is confirmation that we're maintaining our overall excellence and continuing to publish literary work of the highest merit — difficult under any circumstances, but especially now with tighter budgets. This is five years running with multiple nominations, which puts us in a select group with such heavyweights as the New Yorker, New York magazine, GQ and National Geographic."
The General Excellence category recognizes overall excellence in magazines and honors the effectiveness with which writing, reporting, editing and design all come together to command readers' attention and fulfill the magazine's unique editorial mission. Also named as finalists are American Scholar, Aperture, Bidoun and Print.
The fiction category recognizes the quality of a publication's literary selections. Along with VQR, the other finalists are American Scholar, the New Yorker (two nominations) and Paris Review. VQR was nominated for two short stories published in its summer 2008 issue: Sana Krasikov's "Asal" and Kanishk Tharoor's "Tale of the Teahouse".
This is the fifth nomination for fiction that VQR has received in the past five years.
"The most exciting thing about our fiction nomination is how young and new these writers are," Genoways said. "For Kanishk Tharoor, this was his first published piece of fiction. He won our annual fiction prize and now has been nominated for a National Magazine Award; that's an exciting start to his career. And Sana Krasikov has had an amazing year; since we published her story, her book was published and she was chosen by the National Book Foundation as one of five young writers in America to watch.
"I've always said that the true measure of our success is how well we spotlight and promote new writers," Genoways said.
The award ceremonies will take place April 30 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. More information can be found at the ASME's Web site.
About The Virginia Quarterly Review
The Virginia Quarterly Review was founded at the University of Virginia in 1925. Over the years it has published the work of such luminaries as H. L. Mencken, Bertrand Russell, Katherine Anne Porter, D. H. Lawrence, Robert Penn Warren and Marianne Moore. Recent issues have featured essays, stories, poems and art by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rita Dove, Cormac McCarthy, Adrienne Rich and Art Spiegelman, among others. VQR's spring issue will be on newsstands in early April.
VQR, a literary and current affairs magazine published at the University of Virginia, was honored as a finalist in two categories, General Excellence (circulation under 100,000) and Fiction. It was among 24 magazines nationwide receiving multiple nominations.
The National Magazine Awards, the magazine industry's highest honor, are sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors in association with Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism to honor editorial excellence. The finalists were chosen by more than 200 editors, art directors, educators and online media experts.
This marks the fifth consecutive year in which VQR has been named a finalist in the General Excellence category. Over the past five years, under the editorship of Ted Genoways, VQR has garnered 15 nominations, an unprecedented number for a magazine its size. VQR has won three awards in that time, with wins in the General Excellence and Fiction categories in 2006 and for Single-Topic Issue in 2008.
"We're very excited and honored by this year's nominations," Genoways said. "Receiving this recognition is confirmation that we're maintaining our overall excellence and continuing to publish literary work of the highest merit — difficult under any circumstances, but especially now with tighter budgets. This is five years running with multiple nominations, which puts us in a select group with such heavyweights as the New Yorker, New York magazine, GQ and National Geographic."
The General Excellence category recognizes overall excellence in magazines and honors the effectiveness with which writing, reporting, editing and design all come together to command readers' attention and fulfill the magazine's unique editorial mission. Also named as finalists are American Scholar, Aperture, Bidoun and Print.
The fiction category recognizes the quality of a publication's literary selections. Along with VQR, the other finalists are American Scholar, the New Yorker (two nominations) and Paris Review. VQR was nominated for two short stories published in its summer 2008 issue: Sana Krasikov's "Asal" and Kanishk Tharoor's "Tale of the Teahouse".
This is the fifth nomination for fiction that VQR has received in the past five years.
"The most exciting thing about our fiction nomination is how young and new these writers are," Genoways said. "For Kanishk Tharoor, this was his first published piece of fiction. He won our annual fiction prize and now has been nominated for a National Magazine Award; that's an exciting start to his career. And Sana Krasikov has had an amazing year; since we published her story, her book was published and she was chosen by the National Book Foundation as one of five young writers in America to watch.
"I've always said that the true measure of our success is how well we spotlight and promote new writers," Genoways said.
The award ceremonies will take place April 30 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. More information can be found at the ASME's Web site.
About The Virginia Quarterly Review
The Virginia Quarterly Review was founded at the University of Virginia in 1925. Over the years it has published the work of such luminaries as H. L. Mencken, Bertrand Russell, Katherine Anne Porter, D. H. Lawrence, Robert Penn Warren and Marianne Moore. Recent issues have featured essays, stories, poems and art by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rita Dove, Cormac McCarthy, Adrienne Rich and Art Spiegelman, among others. VQR's spring issue will be on newsstands in early April.
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March 20, 2009
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