Magazines Revel in This Write of Spring

Spring is bursting with new magazines, as Maxim, Icon, Verge and Sports Illustrated Women / Sport all arrive in this month alone. But one striking feature of the industry’s annual rite of spring, the National Magazine Awards, is that long-established publications lead the field of nominees.

The New Yorker and GQ have six nominations each, followed by Sports Illustrated with four. Tied with three nominations each are Fortune, Outside and the food magazine Saveur, which has been around only since 1994, but vaulted into the big leagues last spring by winning awards for photography and special interests.

These awards are sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors and administered by the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. The 31st annual awards, given for work published in 1996, will be presented at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on April 30.

For the New Yorker, the six nominations are more of the same for the long-honored magazine and for Tina Brown, who became editor in chief in the fall of 1992 and has accepted six awards since then from more than a dozen nominations. The New Yorker’s latest half-dozen are in the categories of reporting (Jonathan Harr’s “The Crash Detectives,” on airline investigators), feature writing (Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s “White Like Me”), essays and criticism (Adam Gopnik’s “Escaping Picasso”), single-topic issue (“Black in America”) and fiction (two separate nominations encompassing stories by John Updike, Jeffrey Eugenides, Cynthia Ozick, Junot Diaz, Robert Stone and Alice Munro).

For GQ, the six nominations offer further evidence that the magazine has become the editorial leader in the expanding men’s category, putting Editor in Chief Arthur Cooper on a nice roll. Cooper had run GQ for 12 years before he collected the magazine’s first awards--a pair in 1995. He accepted another one last year; GQ has racked up 16 nominations since 1995.

GQ is up for awards for general excellence (among magazines with circulations of 400,000 to 1 million), reporting (Mary A. Fischer’s “A Case of Homicide?” which raised questions about an Oklahoma prisoner’s death while in custody) and fiction (stories by Thom Jones, Anthony Giardina and Rick DeMarinis).

GQ’s other nominations this year reflect more impressive work from writer Tom Junod.

Junod, who earned GQ the feature-writing award in 1995 and last year, has put the mag back in contention for that honor with his piece “The Last Swinger,” a profile of actor Tony Curtis. In addition, Junod’s “My Father’s Fashion Tips,” about his relationship with his dad, earned GQ one of two nominations for essays and criticism. The other is Charles P. Pierce’s “In the Country of My Disease,” a rumination on three deaths in the writer’s family from Alzheimer’s.

“Tom Junod is a wonderful guy, but I’m so happy that he lives in Atlanta,” Cooper said. “If he lived in New York, he’d be insufferable.”

In 1996, the New Yorker was down 4.4% in its number of ad pages; GQ was up nearly 12%--a gain that Cooper attributes to winning the National Magazine Awards. Both magazines are owned by the family of publishing titan S.I. Newhouse Jr. Sports Illustrated is nominated for general excellence among magazines with million-plus circulations, special interests (Steve Rushin’s “Dog Days,” a report on hot dogs and other food sold at major league ballparks), feature writing (Gary Smith’s “Crime and Punishment,” on the bid by Richie Parker, convicted of sexual abuse, to play college basketball) and single-topic issue (Summer Olympics preview).

Holding two nominations each are the American Lawyer, Entertainment Weekly, Glamour, I. D. Magazine (formerly Industrial Design), Martha Stewart Living, Texas Monthly, Vanity Fair, SmartMoney, DoubleTake, Sports Afield and Civilization.

For Civilization, the two nominations--for general excellence (circulation of 100,000 to 400,000), and essays and criticism (three of Anne Fadiman’s “The Common Reader” columns)--should help sustain life after death. Launched in 1994, the scholarly and literary magazine of the Library of Congress suspended publication at the end of last year, until Capital Publishing acquired the magazine and kept it going.

At Sports Afield, which is marking its 110th anniversary, Editor in Chief and Publisher Terry McDonell said he’s pleased “and surprised, frankly” that his magazine is vying for awards for general excellence (circulation of 400,000 to 1 million) and design.

McDonell, who had been editor in chief of Esquire until Hearst Corp. powers moved him four years ago, has made a passion for nature as much a part of Sports Afield as fishing and hunting, while bringing in writers such as Ian Frasier.

The 2-year-old DoubleTake, a first-time nominee--for general excellence (circulation of less than 100,000) and photography--is a quarterly published by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

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Afterwords: One of the worst-kept secrets in publishing is the Walt Disney Co.’s apparent decision--at long last--to fire up and launch ESPN Magazine. The biweekly sports mag is expected on newsstands next spring. A formal announcement may come next week, after Disney finalizes its choice of top editor and publisher. . . .

Michael Ovitz, Disney’s former No. 2 executive, takes on a literary aura, at least for one night, when he chairs the PEN American Center’s 75th anniversary gala Monday night at Lincoln Center. On May 19, McGraw-Hill plans to publish “Ovitz,” Robert Slater’s biography of the Hollywood power. While not authorized by Ovitz, the book reflects considerable access that he gave the author, who also spoke with Tom Cruise, David Letterman, Michael Crichton and other players.