The Best American Magazine Writing 2012

Chosen from the nominees and winners of the 2012 National Magazine Awards, this year's anthology covers a range of developments in culture, commerce, society, and politics, from the passing of Steve Jobs to the controversy over breast cancer research funding, from the ongoing trauma of battle-scarred soldiers to the resurgence of issues concerning women's safety and health. Always engaging and informative, the Best American Magazine Writing remains the most popular, go-to resource for innovative journalism and unique perspective. Selections include Matthieu Aikins ( Esquire ) on the shady dealings and shifting sands of the war in Afghanistan; Nicholas Schmidle ( The New Yorker ) on the Obama Administration's masterful plot to kill Osama bin Laden; the late Christopher Hitchens ( Vanity Fair ) on the physical and emotional toll of cancer, and Joel Stein ( TIME ) on the Kardashian phenomenon and the propensity for politicians and other popular figures to get into trouble on the internet. John Jeremiah Sullivan ( New York Times Magazine ) takes his family on a roller-coaster ride through Disneyland, Wesley Yang ( New York ) explores the pressure on Asian-Americans to succeed and the psychological and cultural consequences when they don't, Bill Heavey ( Field & Stream ) writes eloquently and intimately about hunting and the sportsman's life, and Luke Dittrich ( Esquire ) and Michael Paterniti ( GQ ) share the raw experiences of those who survived 2011's worst natural disasters: the Japanese earthquake and exceptionally severe tornados in the American Midwest. Fiction includes the long-awaited short story by novelist Jonathan Franzen, "Ambition," published in McSweeney's Quarterly, and Karen Russell's "The Hox River Window," featured in Zoetrope: All-Story.

Sid Holt is chief executive of-the American Society of Magazine Editors and the former editor in chief of Adweek Magazines. During his seven years as managing editor of Rolling Stone, the magazine was nominated for four and won one National Magazine Award for General Excellence. Terry McDonell began his career in magazines in the mid-1970s. He was one of the launch editors of Outside and the founding editor of Rocky Mountain before joining Rolling Stone as managing editor in 1981, then Newsweek as assistant managing editor in 1983. He launched Smart in 1984 and later edited Esquire, Sports Afield, and Mens Journal before overseeing the relaunch of Us as a weekly in 1999. Appoints managing editor of Sports Illustrated in 2002, he became editor of the Time Inc. Sports Group in 2005. He was elected to the Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame in 2012.