National Magazine Award Finalists: The finalists were announced today. Along with the widely reported news that Martha Stewart’s Living is one of five finalists for general excellence is some other interesting nuggets: two business-to-business magazines are among the finalists for general excellence (in different circulation categories) in this competition that is typically for consumer-targeted publications: CIO and Chronicle of Higher Education. And my favorite magazine that is no longer published, Oxford American, is a finalist in the single-topic issue category for its sixth annual music issue. Oh, well. Later: After first posting this, I recalled that I had commented here on the issue of Oxford American that has now been nominated for the National Magazine award. Here’s what I said about a year ago when the issue first appeared:

Run, don’t walk: If you only purchase one magazine this year (heck, or this decade, for that matter), make it the current issue of Oxford American. Thank God Marc Smirnoff found a home, if only for this one particular gem. An incredible CD is included and, for icing on the cake, one of Hammock Publishing’s favorite contributing writers (back when we could afford him), Mike Perry, has a piece on a “vocalese” pioneer (a new word for me, also), King Pleasure. The King Pleasure cut on the CD is worth the entire purchase price. It doesn’t get any better than this….