The American Society of Magazine Editors released its nominees for the National Magazine Awards (otherwise known as the Ellies) and the Virginia Quarterly Review is up for two. One for photojournalism, for Ruxandra Guidi and Bear Guerra’s grim photographs of "The Young Mothers of Port-au-Prince." The meager competition is Foreign Policy, National Geographic and New York magazine.
One of Haiti’s young mothers. See more at VQR’s site. More words below.
They’re also up for honors in fiction for two stories they published last year: “The Vanishing American,” by Leslie Parry—the writer’s first published story, written from the perspective of a character named Indian #9—and “Fauntleroy’s Ghost,” by Vinnie Wilhelm. The laughable competition here includes The Antioch Review, McSweeney’s, and The New Yorker.
That means that VQR has been nominated for the magazine world’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize 18 times in six years. Chill, VQR. Here’s what editor Ted Genoways has to say about the future of literary journals, which provides some insight into why the magazine is an industry leader.
