Athens, Ga. – The internationally regarded Georgia Review, founded at the University of Georgia in 1947 and published there ever since, is a finalist for a 2008 National Magazine Award in the General Excellence category. The National Magazine Awards, now in their 42nd year, are given by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) and administered by the Columbia University School of Journalism. The 2008 competition drew a record 1,964 entries from 333 print and on-line magazines.
The winners in all NMA categories will be announced at an Academy Award-like gala event on May 1 at New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center. Each winner receives an “Ellie,” a reproduction of the Alexander Calder stabile “Elephant.”
The Georgia Review has been a finalist 18 times in various categories since first entering the NMA competition in 1985, and no other university-supported journal has come close to matching this consistent success. Still, this year marks the journal’s first chance at the General Excellence prize, which, according to ASME, “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.”
In 1986, The Georgia Review won the Fiction award for stories by Lee K. Abbott, Gary Gildner, and Mary Hood; in 2007, the Essays award came home to the University of Georgia because of Michael Donohue’s “Russell and Mary,” which appeared in its fall/winter 2006 60th-anniversary issue.
At the 2007 ceremony, Stephen Corey, editor of The Georgia Review, accepted the Ellie from actor and screenwriter Carrie Fisher, who was on hand along with Kevin Bacon, Edie Falco, and numerous other celebrities from the entertainment and arts worlds.
The General Excellence award, by its inclusive nature, honors all staff members of The Georgia Review and all contributors to the spring, fall, and winter 2007 issues. Highlights from these issues include a special 60th-anniversary feature, “The Commerce Between Us: Correspondence from the Archives of The Georgia Review, 1977-2000;” National Book Critics Circle Award-winner Albert Goldbarth’s essay, “Everybody’s Nickname;” David Wagoner’s play “Mr. Thoreau Tonight;” the photography feature “Eye Level in Iraq” by Thorne Anderson and Kael Alford; a multi-part special feature on Georgia native Harry Crews, including a lengthy excerpt from his previously unpublished autobiography “Leaving Home for Home;” stories by Lee K. Abbott, Kevin Brockmeier, Jack Driscoll, Janisse Ray, and George Singleton; poems by Pulitzer Prize-winner
Stephen Dunn, Margaret Gibson, Jane Hirshfield, Sydney Lea, and Linda Pastan; reviews by Jeff Gundy, Greg Johnson, Judith Kitchen, Kathleen Snodgrass, and Paul Zimmer; and photography by Thomas Allen and Pentti Sammallahti.
The National Magazine Award for General Excellence, unlike the single awards in all other categories, is given according to several circulation levels. The Georgia Review is in the under-100,000 group, where the other finalists are Aperture, Metropolis, Print, and The Virginia Quarterly Review.
Barnes & Noble is the exclusive sponsor of the awards. There will be a reading of winning and finalist articles at a Barnes & Noble location in Manhattan in early May.
For further information, contact David Ingle at 706/542-0397 or davidi@uga.edu, or write the main offices of The Georgia Review at garev@uga.edu.
