Best American Newspaper Narratives 2024

From the Mayborn School of Journalism and the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference

The 2024 Best American News Narratives (BANN) awards were announced at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference on Saturday, Oct. 26. BANN is an annual national competition from which some of the finest works of narrative journalism are selected for awards and republication. The 2024 awards honor long-form stories published in newspapers in 2023.  Entries may consist of single stories or a series of stories. 

There are eight BANN winners: First, Second, and Third place, followed by three “Runners Up” and two “Notable Narratives.” The first-place winner will receive a $1,500 prize, and all the winning stories will be published in the Mayborn School of Journalism’s annual anthology, The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 12, to be released in fall 2025. Last year’s winners were recently published in Volume 11, available for purchase in print or as an e-book from a variety of retailers through UNT Press.

The BANN contest is coordinated by JoAnn Livingston for the Mayborn School of Journalism. Veteran journalist Gayle Reaves, a George Polk Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, served as the competition judge.  

TOP WINNERS

First Place

“The Butterfly Effect”
By Bridget Grumet for the Austin American-Statesman
The series examines both the problem of teen dating violence and the operation of the Texas prison system through the lens of three women whose lives were changed by the 2003 murder of 15-year-old Ortralla “Tralla” Mosley on her high school campus.  

Second Place

“The Dungeons & Dragons Players of Death Row” 
By Keri Blakinger for The Marshall Project and The New York Times
Blakinger unspools a deeply reported, one-of-a-kind story of how some prisoners have dealt with the extreme isolation of Texas’s death row by developing their own version of the hugely popular fantasy game. The reporter spent more than three years writing to prisoners and interviewing them in person, eventually receiving prison-made maps and drawings for the game, which one inmate had created in the years before his execution. 

Third Place

“Two Children, a Burst of Gunfire and the Year That Came After”
By Edgar Sandoval, for The New York Times
Sandoval’s story creates a moving depiction of the ongoing recovery of two fourth-graders seriously wounded in the Uvalde school massacre. Sandoval’s earlier coverage of that tragedy was named a “notable narrative” in last year’s contest.

RUNNERS-UP

“The Revolt of Christian Homeschoolers” 
By Peter Jamison, for The Washington Post
The story is an intimate profile of a Virginia couple who had been homeschooled according to conservative Christian beliefs but made the tough decision to enroll their own children in public schools, putting them at odds with the culture and beliefs of their families and the Christian homeschooling community.  

“Lost Patients” 
By Sydney Brownstone for The Seattle Times
Brownstone chronicles the search for the graves and identities of patients whose bodies were buried on or near the grounds of a long-abandoned psychiatric hospital — or cremated and their remains left in discarded food cans.  

“American Contagion” 
By Suzette Hackney, for USA Today
“American Contagion” is a series about local heroes who fought back against the epidemic of gun violence in their communities and paid for it with their own lives.

NOTABLE NARRATIVES

“From a one-way flight to sleeping in a parking lot: Diary of a California dream gone sour” 
By Connor Sheets for Los Angeles Times 
The story is a gritty and eloquent narrative of one homeless man’s struggle to survive on the streets of California cities, his efforts repeatedly sabotaged by his own mental health problems, a broken system for homeless services, and deeply flawed mental healthcare systems.

“We Don’t Seem to Learn” 
By Rick Jervis for USA Today
Jervis takes readers back to the 2013 explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant that killed 15 people. The story, told in part through the experiences of one of the first responders, examines the ongoing failures of governments to take meaningful action to prevent future such tragedies.

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About the Contest

In an effort to foster narrative nonfiction storytelling at newspapers across America, the annual Best American Newspaper Narratives writing contest is conducted by the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference.

Each year, we invite submissions of extraordinary long-form narrative nonfiction that were published the prior year in a daily U.S. newspaper or a U.S. newspaper website. Writers and editors may submit up to five narratives, including narratives that are part of a series. A series will count as one entry. Individuals whose work was published the prior year in a daily U.S. newspaper or a U.S. newspaper website may enter. The Best American Newspaper Narratives writing contest jurors, a pool of award-winning narrative writers and editors from around the country, will select three winners, three runners-up and four notable narratives.

Our Best American Newspaper Narrative winners (representing work published in the previous year) will be published in the anthology, Best American Newspaper Narratives.

• First place winner will receive $1,500 (awarded after the conference)
• Second place and third place winners receive a plaque
• All 10 placings are published in the annual anthology Best American Newspaper Narratives
• All placings are announced at the conference awards ceremony

If the winning narrative is co-authored by more than one writer, the Mayborn will divide the award among all authors. The three winning narratives, the three runners-up and the four notable narratives will be published by the University of North Texas Press/Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism in an anthology called the Best American Newspaper Narratives. Rights are granted non-exclusively and the newspaper retains copyright (see entry agreement/release form for additional details).

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Details for entering the contest:

• Entries must have been published between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 of the year prior to the conference.
• Entries must be submitted electronically via email to mayborncontest@unt.edu.
• Each emailed submission should be in Word format and be capable of printing out on 8.5X11-inch paper. Entries submitted as PDFs also must be capable of printing out on 8.5X11-inch paper. If submitted as a PDF and selected for publication in the anthology, the entrant MUST then provide the submission in Word format to facilitate the anthology's publication.
• Type “BANN Writing Contest” in the subject line of the entry email.
• Entries must be submitted to the contest no later than 11:59 p.m. CST July 15. A complete entry includes the entry; the completed, signed entry agreement/release form; and entry fee payment.
• Cost is $50 per entry. An online, secure portal is provided for credit card payment. The maximum number of entries is five from a daily U.S. newspaper or U.S. newspaper website. A series is considered one entry. Individuals whose work has appeared in a daily U.S. newspaper or U.S. newspaper website may also enter with a signed entry form from their editor.
• Entry agreement/release form per entry requires signatures of editor(s) and all authors on a story. Entrants are responsible for securing all required signatures.

Editors and writers are strongly encouraged to submit a short, one-page cover letter for each entry explaining the challenges involved in producing the narrative and readers’ reaction to the story after it was published.

Entrants must read, fill out, sign and return a completed entry agreement/release form with each entry.

Contact:

Jo Ann Livingston: mayborncontest@unt.edu for contest questions