National Magazine Awards winners make a fine reading list for writers

The American Society of Magazine Editors and Columbia Journalism School handed out the National Magazine Awards Monday night in New York.

As with any awards, it’s hardly a slam dunk that the winners were the most deserving. But it’s a good bet that the winners make up a reading list of top-notch magazine writing. Handy to have when you remember one of the best pieces of advice any writer can get: Read, read read.

Here is a list of the winners, leaving out photography:

Multimedia: Texas Observer-Guardian partnership, Beyond the Border by Melissa del Bosque

Video: Vice News, The Islamic State by Medyan Dairieh

Public Interest: Pacific Standard, Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet by Amanda Hess

Personal Service: O, The Oprah Magazine, Ready or Not: The Caregiver’s Guide

Leisure Interests: Backpacker, The Complete Guide to Fire edited by Casey Lyons

Reporting: GQ, Inside the Iron Closet: What It’s Like to Be Gay in Putin’s Russia by Jeff Sharlet

Feature Writing: The Atavist, Love and Ruin by James Verini

Essays and Criticism: The New Yorker, This Old Man by Roger Angell

Columns and Commentary: New York for Zombies on the Walls: Why Does So Much New Abstraction Look the Same?, Taking in Jeff Koons, Creator and Destroyer of Worlds and Post-Macho God: Matisse’s Cut-Outs Are World-Historically Gorgeous by Jerry Saltz

Fiction: The New Yorker, The Emerald Light in the Air by Donald Antrim

For even more reading, check out the full list of nominees, which includes the best piece of magazine writing I read this year, The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic.