Monday, May 12, 2008
The monthly sweeps five National Magazine Award nominations, but its resurrection is still a work in progress.
Mar 16, 2000 | The American Society of Magazine Editors announced the finalists for the 2000 National Magazine Awards Wednesday. Usual suspects included the New Yorker (which received 11 nominations), such general-excellence perennials as the Sciences (in the under-100,000 circulation category) and Vanity Fair (hitting now in the over-a-million league).
While these nominations may be old hat for editors like David Remnick (the New Yorker was nominated for eight awards last year -- and received none), they are the stuff of heart attacks for such relative newbies as Zoetrope: All Story, the Francis Ford Coppola-funded fiction quarterly. The four-year-old publication is nominated in the fiction category alongside Harper's, the Georgia Review and, naturally, the New Yorker.
"Those are magazines I've read all my life and I'm just so honored to be in their company," said editor Adrienne Brodeur, moments after hearing her magazine (and its Web site) had been nominated. Coppola himself was supposed to be dropping by their offices any minute and the mood was buoyant, if a little incredulous.
Things were a little heady over in the Esquire offices as well: The men's magazine had been nominated in five categories (though not general excellence or fiction). Back in the days of its legendary editor, Harold Hayes, Esquire was a regular at the NMA, but the magazine has gone through some unfortunate incarnations since then. Its resuscitation has been a protracted and public process, beginning with the appointment of David Granger to the editor's post two-and-a-half years ago. Do people still confuse his magazine with some of its more specious versions?
"It does take a while to change perceptions, especially since the magazine had been in something of a tailspin for a while," allows Granger. "I think it takes any editor a considerable amount of time to get anyone, writers and staff, to buy into what you want to do with a magazine. Especially when it's a monthly and it takes a while to evolve. It's not like fruit flies; they evolve pretty fast, but their life span is only a couple of days."
Among the stories nominated, Granger was most surprised by Richard Dooling's "First Immortal Man" in the personal service category. In that essay, the writer imagined the pros and cons of immortality and offered sidebars with advice on topics like personal finance for eternal life. "What's the new definition of fuck-you money when you're going to live to be 250 or 300 years old?" asks Granger.
Esquire's Cinderella story has to be the nomination of "Blood Runs Likes a River Through My Dreams" by Nasdijj. The first-person account arrived over the transom, addressed to no one in particular. "The cover letter was this screed about how Esquire had never published the work of an American-Indian writer and never would because it's such a racist publication," recalls Granger. "And under it was this essay about the death of this guy's son, one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I'd ever read." By the time the piece was published in the June issue, the writer (who lives on an Indian reservation) had a book contract.
The awards will be presented May 3 at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.
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