VQR Nominated for an Independent Press Award

For the second year running, VQR is a finalist for the Independent Press Award for Best Writing. Given annually by Utne magazine, the awards “honor the efforts of small, sometimes unnoticed publications that provide innovative, thought-provoking perspectives often ignored or overlooked by mass media.” We got beat out last year by wunderkind upstart n+1, but they’re not nominated this year (thankfully); in fact, it’s virtually a new slate of nominees—except for us and Canadian uber-mag Maisonneuve—but a formidable list of new arrivals it is: The Believer, Geist, L.A. Weekly, The New Republic, The Sun, and The Wilson Quarterly. With a group like this, let me be the first to speak the cliché: It’s an honor to be nominated. It is really is. But until they announce the winners in the January/February 2008 issue of Utne, we’re still keeping our fingers crossed…