This anthology collects the ten winners of the 2014 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest, run by the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. The event is hosted by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. The contest honors exemplary narrative work and encourages narrative nonfiction storytelling at newspapers across the United States. First place winner: Dan Barry, "The Boys in the Bunkhouse," published by The New York Times, exposed thirty years of physical and mental abuse of intellectually disabled men living in an Iowa group home. Second place: Christopher Goffard, "The Favor," published by the Los Angeles Times, describes the plea bargain sentence of the son of a former California assembly speaker, after the son pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and whose prison sentence was later reduced by then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Third place: Stephanie McCrummen, "A Father’s Scars," published by the Washington Post, about a Virginia state senator one year after he was stabbed multiple times by his mentally ill son before the son killed himself. Runners-up include Nathan Bomey, John Gallagher and Mark Stryker, "How Detroit was Reborn" (Detroit Free Press); Monica Hesse, "Love and Fire" (Washington Post); Sarah Schweitzer, "Chasing Bayla" (Boston Globe); Sarah Kleiner Varble, "Then the Walls Closed In" (The Virginian Pilot); Joanne Kimberlin and Janie Bryant, "Dangerous Minds" (The Virginian Pilot); Molly Harbarger, "Fred Nelligan" (The Oregonian); and Mark Johnson, "Murray's Problem" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).

Book is a collection of the 9 top winners of the annual Mayborn Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest.

This anthology collects the ten winners of the 2022 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First place winner: Jason Fagone, “The Jessica Simulation: Love and Loss in the Age of A.I.,” about one man’s attempt to still communicate with his dead fiancée (San Francisco Chronicle). Second place: Jenna Russell, Penelope Overton, and David Abel, “The Lobster Trap” (The Boston Globe and Portland Press Herald). Third place: Jada Yuan, “Discovering Dr. Wu” (The Washington Post). Runners-up include Lane DeGregory, “Who Wants to Be a Cop? (Tampa Bay Times); Christopher Goffard, “The Trials of Frank Carson” (Los Angeles Times); Evan Allen, “Under the Wheel” (The Boston Globe); Mark Johnson, “A Wisconsin Mom Gave Birth in a COVID-19 Coma before Slipping to the Brink of Death” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel); Annie Gowen, “A Dance, Not a War” (The Washington Post); Peter Jamison, “They’d Battled Addiction Together. Then Lockdowns became a ‘Recipe for Death’” (The Washington Post); and Douglas Perry, “The Obsession” (The Oregonian / Oregon Live).

This anthology collects the twelve winners of the 2013 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest, run by the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. The event is hosted by the Frank W. Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism at the University of North Texas. The contest honors exemplary narrative work and encourages narrative nonfiction storytelling at newspapers across the United States. First place winner: Eli Saslow, "Into the Lonely Quiet" (Washington Post), follows the family of a 7-year-old victim of the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, six months after the shooting. Second place: Eric Moskowitz, "Marathon Carjacking" (Boston Globe), is the story of "Danny," who was carjacked by the suspects of the Boston Marathon bombing three days after the bombing. Third place: Mark Johnson, "The Course of Their Lives" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), an account of first-year medical students as they take a human dissection course. Runners-up include Christopher Goffard, "The Manhunt" (Los Angeles Times); Stephanie McCrummen, "Wait--You Described It as a Cloudy Feeling?" (Washington Post); Michael M. Phillips, "The Lobotomy Files" (Wall Street Journal); Aaron Applegate, "Taken Under" (Virginian-Pilot); Meg Kissinger, "A Mother, at Her Wits' End" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel); Michael Kruse, "The Last Voyage of the Bounty" (Tampa Bay Times); Shaun McKinnon, "Alone on the Hill" (Arizona Republic); Mike Newall, "Almost Justice" (Philadelphia Inquirer); and Sarah Schweitzer, "Together, Despite All" (Boston Globe).

This anthology collects the ten winners of the 2020 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First place winner: Christopher Goffard, “Detective Trapp” (Los Angeles Times) is about a complicated murder investigation and its human impact. Second place: Annie Gowen, “Left Behind: American Farm Families in Crisis during Trump's Trade War” (The Washington Post) tells about a despairing farmer’s suicide and aftermath. Third place: Jennifer Berry Hawes and Stephen Hobbs, “It’s Time for You to Die” (Post & Courier) presents a gut-wrenching drama of America’s deadliest episode of prison violence. Runners-up include Peter Jamison, “The Confession” (The Washington Post); Mark Johnson, “House Calls and Rarest of Diseases” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel); Nestor Ramos, “At the Edge of a Warming World” (Boston Globe); Noelle Crombie, Kale Williams, and Beth Nakamura, “No Mercy” (The Oregonian); Tara Duggan and Jason Fagone, “The Fisherman’s Tale” (San Francisco Chronicle); Jenna Russell, “Brilliant, Faithful, Undaunted” (Boston Globe); and Charles Scudder, “Guardians: When Evil Came Through the Door” (Dallas Morning News).

This anthology collects the nine winners of the 2021 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First place winner: Greg Jaffe and his three-part series on the pandemic, beginning with “The Pandemic Hit and This Car Became Home for a Family of Four” (The Washington Post). Second place: Hannah Dreier with “The Worst-Case Scenario” (The Washington Post). Third place: Leonora LaPeter Anton, Kavitha Surana, and Kathryn Varn with “Death at Freedom Square” (Tampa Bay Times). Runners-up include Rory Linnane, “Maricella’s Last Breath” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel); Hannah Dreier, “Tatiana's Luck” (The Washington Post); Deborah Vankin, “This 81-Year-Old was L.A.’s Most Devoted Museum-Goer until COVID-19” (Los Angeles Times); Lauren Caruba, “Night Shift” (San Antonio Express News); Mark Johnson, “Saving Raynah’s Brain” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel); and John Woodrow Cox, “They Depended on Their Parents for Everything” (The Washington Post).

This anthology collects the nine winners of the 2023 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First place winner: Jennifer Berry Hawes for “Captive No More: One SC Man’s Journey to Freedom after Years in Modern-Day Slavery,” about how a white restaurant manager held an intellectually disabled Black man in slavery-like conditions for almost six years (Post and Courier, Charleston, SC). Second place: Andrea Ball and Will Carless for “American Flashpoint: A Drag Show, a Protest and a Line of Guns” (USA Today). Third place: Thomas Curwen for “A World Gone Mad” (Los Angeles Times). Runners-up include Andrew Ford, “Blood and Money” (Arizona Republic); Dan Woike, “Darvin Ham Survived the Streets, a Stray Bullet and Intense Grief to Coach the Lakers” (Los Angeles Times); William Wan, “Is This What a Good Mother Looks Like?” (The Washington Post); Annie Gowen, “A Jan. 6 Pastor Divides His Tennessee Community with Increasingly Extremist Views” (The Washington Post); Edgar Sandoval, “Uvalde Stories” (New York Times); and Lane DeGregory, “To End His Wife's Suffering, He Shot Her. Was It Mercy or Murder?” (Tampa Bay Times).