Maybe We'll Take Them to the State Fair

At its annual convention, held this past weekend in Washington, D.C., the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN) announced the winners of its 1998 Editorial Awards. City Pages film editor Rob Nelson took top honors in the Film Writing/Criticism category for his feature on the local and national politics of film distribution ("Raiders of the Lost Art," 12/17/97), while contributing writer Dara Moskowitz garnered an honorable mention in Feature Writing for her cover story "No Justice, No Peace" (12/24/97), which chronicled her experience as a juror in a criminal trial. (The only other prize in that category went to Michael Fessier Jr. of LA Weekly.) The contest, open to all 108 AAN member papers, is split into two classes according to circulation; City Pages is classed among the larger papers.

The AAN honors aren't the only accolades to have been bestowed upon Nelson and Moskowitz this year. Earlier this month, the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists awarded Nelson second place in the Arts and Entertainment category of its Page One contest. (The Star Tribune's Mary Abbe took first place.) And Moskowitz was notified last week that she is one of the winners in the over-100,000-circulation division of the national Association of Food Journalists competition; the exact order of finish won't be announced until July, when the AFJ holds its annual convention.

Other honors in the Page One contest: Contributing illustrator Shannon Brady won first place in the Artwork/Illustration category for his cover illustration "Welcome to the Greenhouse" (7/9/97); art director Kim Dalros took second place in the Feature Layout category for "Trouble in Clubland" (8/20/97); and the paper's contributing photographers garnered first place in the Feature Photography category for their portraits of recent immigrants ("Young Americans," 7/2/97).

And finally, in this year's Minnesota Better Newspaper Association contest, staff writer Beth Hawkins won first-place honors in the Investigative Reporting category for her story about drug-war casualty Larry Gould ("Spank the Junkie," 5/28/97); former editor Steve Perry's editorials topped the Column Writing division; and staff writer Britt Robson won second place in the Social Issues Feature Story category for "Coping with Miracles" (10/16/96), a piece about new drugs in the battle against AIDS.