Virginia Quarterly Review makes a splash

The finalists for the 2006 National Magazine Awards have been announced, and the big surprise publication (at least to those who don't read it) is the Virginia Quarterly Review, which has received an impressive six nominations. Kudos to the Review, which has done an amazing job under young editor Ted Genoways (read more about the Review's rise here.)

Some other publications I'm glad to see honored this year:

REPORTING
Rolling Stone: Jann S. Wenner, editor and publisher; Will Dana, managing editor, for The Man Who Sold the War, by James Bamford, December 1.

PUBLIC INTEREST
Mother Jones: Russ Rymer, editor-in-chief, for Climate of Denial, a special report on global warming, big money and junk science, May/June.

The New Yorker: David Remnick, editor, for The Climate of Man, a three-part series by Elizabeth Kolbert, Part I, April 25; Part II, May 2; Part III, May 9.

Texas Monthly: Evan Smith, editor, for Hurt? Injured? Need a Lawyer? Too Bad!, by Mimi Swartz, November.

ESSAYS
Harper's Magazine: Lewis H. Lapham, editor, for The Christian Paradox, by Bill McKibben, August.

SINGLE-TOPIC ISSUE
The Oxford American: Marc Smirnoff, editor & publisher, for its Southern Music Issue, Summer.

(Someone asked: did we nominate any stories for Southern Exposure? Not this year. We missed in 2004 for "Banking on Misery," although that did win the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. Our last NMA awards were winning in the 1990 Public Interest category for our investigation into the poultry industry; a 1994 expose of predatory lenders was a finalist)