The Best American Magazine Writing 2014

Our annual anthology of finalists and winners of the National Magazine Awards 2014 includes Jonathan Franzen’s eloquent rumination in National Geographic on the damage we continue to inflict on the environment and its long-lasting consequences; William T. Vollman’s blackly comic reflections in Harper’s magazine on being the target of an extensive FBI investigation into whether he could be the Unabomber, an anthrax mailer, or a jihadi terrorist; and Ariel Levy’s account of extreme travel and great escape to a remote land—while pregnant— in the New Yorker. Other essays include Wright Thompson’s bittersweet profile of Michael Jordan’s fifty-something second act (ESPN); Jean M. Twenge’s revealing look at fertility myths and baby politics (The Atlantic); David Kamp’s poignant portrait of a small town recovering from one of the nation’s worst mass shootings (Vanity Fair); Janet Reitman’s controversial study of the Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Rolling Stone); Ted Conover’s eye-opening account of working undercover in a commercial slaughterhouse (Harper’s); and Wells Tower’s wild tale of bonding with his father at a notorious art and music festival (GQ). The collection also features a short story by the critically acclaimed author Zadie Smith (The New Yorker). Other contributors: Steven Brill (Time); Emily DePrang (Texas Observer); Kyle Dickman (Outside); Steve Friedman (Runner’s World); J. Hoberman (Tablet Magazine); Stephen Rodrick (New York Times Magazine); Witold Rybczynski (Architect); Matthew Shaer (The Atavist)

This year's selection includes William Langewiesche's probing investigation in *Vanity Fair* of the slaughter of twenty-four Iraqis in Haditha; C. J. Chivers's chilling account in *Esquire* of the 2004 hostage crisis in Beslan, which killed 331 people, 186 of them children; Susan Casey's revelation in *Best Life* of a virtually unknown, Texas-sized garbage dump resting at the bottom of the Pacific ocean; and Andrew Corsello's harrowing portrait in *GQ* of Robert Mugabe's mad rule and two men-a white farmer and a fiery black priest-who strive for forgiveness instead of hate.

The collection also includes Vanessa Grigoriadis's hilarious portrait of fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld in *New York Magazine*; Christopher Hitchens's profile of survivors of Agent Orange in *Vanity Fair*; Sandra Tsing Loh's coverage of the stay-at-home-mommy debate in the *Atlantic Monthly*; Paul Theroux's thoughts on the dangers of anthropomorphism and our misconceptions about birds in the *Smithsonian*; Janet Reitman's unraveling of the mysteries of Scientology in *Rolling Stone*; and the work of nine other exceptional writers.