NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARDS 2021 SCHEDULE

Dear Colleagues,

I want to update you on the schedule for the 2021 National Magazine Awards as well as the inaugural ASME Innovation Awards and the ASME Best Cover Contest+Awards for Photography and Illustration.

The call for entries for the National Magazine Awards will be posted at ellieawards.org on Thursday, November 19, 2020. The deadline for entry will be Tuesday, January 12. The judging will take place virtually in mid-March. ASME plans to host the presentation of the awards at Brooklyn Steel on Thursday, June 10, unless it appears it is still not safe to do so, in which case the awards will be presented in an outdoor venue or streamed, as they were this year.

Those of you who have participated in the National Magazine Awards in the past will note that these dates are significantly later than in recent years (though similar to the schedule that was used when the awards presentation was hosted at Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel). The schedule has been changed because it appears likely that presenting the awards in person will not be possible till spring 2021 at the earliest.

The call for entries for the ASME Award for Fiction and the ASME NEXT Awards for Journalists Under 30 will be published with the National Magazine Awards 2021 call for entries. These awards will be presented at the same time as the National Magazine Awards.

The call for entries for the inaugural ASME Innovation Awards is now posted online at asmeinnovationawards.org. The deadline for entry is Tuesday, November 17. The finalists and winners will be announced on YouTube on Thursday, March 4. The purpose of this new awards program is to honor magazines and websites for content that advances brand goals and to celebrate the creation of new audiences for magazine storytelling.

The call for entries for the ASME Best Cover Contest+Awards for Photography and Illustration will be posted at asmebestcovercontest.org on Tuesday, November 3. The deadline for entry will be Tuesday, December 15. The finalists and winners will be announced on YouTube on Tuesday, April 6, as they were this year.

ASME sponsors these awards programs not only to promote the value of print and digital media but to advance the practice of journalism by bringing magazine makers together to discuss the best work of the prior year. Most of all, we do it to celebrate what you do.

For more information about these awards programs, please visit asme.media. To volunteer to judge, email [email protected]. Or you can always email me at [email protected] or Nina Fortuna, the director of operations at ASME, at [email protected].

As always, Sid

Sidney Holt
Executive Director
American Society of Magazine Editors
(212) 872-3723