The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 9

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).