Alta Journal was awarded seven first-place prizes and 11 second- and third-place awards at Sunday evening’s Los Angeles Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. The honors, presented annually in recognition of exceptional cultural coverage, were given in categories ranging from personality profile to page layout. Alta’s first-place winners were:
- Music Feature: Min Liao for “A Rock Star Boswell Becomes a Doc Star”
- Illustration: Victor Juhasz for “Sleep Nights”
- Page Layout: John Goecke for “Special Section: Art”
- Business, Music/Theater/Performing Arts: Keenan Norris for “She Who Remembers”
- Obituary/In Appreciation, Music and Other Arts Personalities: Santi Elijah Holley for “Tupac in the Afterlife”
- Personality Profile, Film/TV: Sam Wasson for “The Man That Got Away”
- Commentary Analysis/Trend on Other Arts: Sands Hall for “The Ways of Fiction Are Devious Indeed”
Judges credited Liao for her “taut, well-written, and laudatory piece” centered on a documentary about Rolling Stone journalist Ben Fong-Torres and Juhasz for “powerful, compelling imagery” that accompanied an original short story. They recognized Alta creative director Goecke’s “beautiful composition from beginning to end” and noted Norris’s “superb writing” in his portrait of poet Ayodele Nzinga. Judges acknowledged Holley for his “well-crafted” article on the legacy of rapper Tupac Shakur, while they found Wasson’s feature of Judy Garland impersonator Jim Bailey “poignant.” Finally, Hall, whose look at plagiarism accusations of noted author Wallace Stegner garnered national attention, was congratulated for her “excellent prose.”
Eleven other Alta contributors were recognized with second- and third-place prizes, including Alta books editor David L. Ulin; illustrators Pawel Nolbert, Matt Mahurin, and Joe Ciardiello; and writers Ishmael Reed, Monica Corcoran Harel (twice), Catherine Womack, Jessica Zack, Anjali Khosla, and Alta associate editor Ajay Orona. See the full list of winners here.•
