2012 National Magazine Awards Finalists: Reporting

  1. Our Man in Kandahar (Matthieu Aikins, The Atlantic)On a 33-year-old warlord’s past deeds.

  2. What Happened To Mitrice Richardson? (Mike Kessler, Los AngelesSearching for answers after the mysterious death of a young woman.

  3. The Apostate (by Lawrence Wright, New Yorker) A screenwriter flees Scientology.

  4. Getting Bin Laden (Nicholas Schmidle, The New Yorker) What happened that night in Abbottabad.

  5. Echoes from a Distant Battlefield (Mark Bowden, Vanity FairThe battle of Wanat, seen from three perspectives: a dead soldier, his father, and his commander.

2012 National Magazine Awards Finalists: Profile Writing

  1. Game of Her Life (Tim Crothers, ESPN the Magazine) For 14-year-old chess progidy Phiona Mutesi, chess is a lifeline

  2. The Blind Man Who Taught Himself How to See (Michael Finkel, Men's Journal) Daniel Kish has been sightless since he was a year old. Yet he can mountain bike. How?

  3. Dewayne Dedmon's Leap Of Faith (Chris Ballard, Sports Illustrated)A young basketball player's choice between his mother’s faith and his own heart.

  4. Barrett Brown is Anonymous (Tim Rogers, D Magazine)On the young man who helped overthrow the government of Tunisia from a Dallas apartment.

2012 National Magazine Awards Finalists: Public Interest

  1. Direct Fail (Natasha Gardner, 5280) Colorado’s policy of sending kids to adult court.

  2. Tiny Little Laws (Kathy Dobie, Harper's) A plague of sexual violence in Indian country.

  3. The Big Business of Breast Cancer (Lea Goldman, Marie Claire) Inside a $6 billion-a-year industry.

  4. The Invisible Army(Sarah Stillman, New Yorker For foreign workers on U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, war can be hell.

2012 National Magazine Awards Finalists: Feature Writing

  1. "Heavenly Father" (by Luke Dittrich, Esquire) The stories of two dozen strangers who survived the Joplin, Mo., tornado by hiding in a walk-in beer cooler.

  2. The Man Who Sailed His House (Michael Paterniti, GQ) Two days after the Japanese tsunami, after the waves had left their destruction, as rescue workers searched the ruins, news came of an almost surreal survival: Miles out at sea, a

  3. You Blow My Mind, Hey Mickey (John Jeremiah Sullivan, New York Times Magazine) A journey to Disney World with kids and weed.

  4. A Murder Foretold (David Grann, New Yorker) In Guatemala, unravelling the ultimate political conspiracy.

  5. Arms and the Dudes (Guy Lawson, Rolling Stone)How two American kids became big time weapons dealers.