Best American Essays (2016 - 2023)

Total essays Listed

  • There were 174winning essays and 3,069 notables inthese eight years. Click here for the overall rankings for best nonfiction mags, incorporating Pushcart Prizes and National Magazine Awards. Some data combined. Links below of half of 500+ entries.

Best American Essays
Wins Notables Total
1 New Yorker 10 56 66
2 Harper's Magazine 9 48 57
3 American Scholar 1 45 46
4 Granta 6 38 44
5 The Sun 1 42 43
6 New York Times Magazine 9 33 42
7 Kenyon Review 3 34 37
8 New England Review 5 31 36
9 Virginia Quarterly Review 7 27 34
10 Threepenny Review 4 30 34
11 Georgia Review 3 30 33
12 River Teeth 0 33 33
13 Gettysburg Review (closing) 2 30 32
14 Yale Review 3 28 31
15 Agni 2 29 31
16 Iowa Review 2 28 30
17 Colorado Review 1 28 29
18 Creative Nonfiction (reopening) 0 29 29
19 Fourth Genre 0 27 27
20 Lapham’s Quarterly (no submissions) 2 24 26
Michigan Quarterly Review 2 24 26
The Point 2 24 26
23 Image (closing) 0 26 26
Missouri Review 0 26 26
25 Oxford American 2 23 25
26 Raritan 3 21 24
27 Guernica 2 22 24
Massachusetts Review 2 22 24
Salmagundi 2 22 24
30 Normal School 1 23 24
31 Prairie Schooner 0 24 24
32 Ploughshares  4 19 23
33 Harvard Review 2 21 23
34 Longreads 1 22 23
35 Sewanee Review 4 18 22
36 Baffler 2 20 22
37 Under the Sun 0 22 22
38 Chicago Quarterly Review 3 18 21
39 Believer 2 19 21
40 Catapult (closed) 1 20 21
41 n+1 6 14 20
42 New Letters 1 19 20
Orion 1 19 20
Paris Review 1 19 20
45 Gulf Coast 0 20 20
46 Conjunctions 2 17 19
47 Boulevard 1 18 19
Catamaran 1 18 19
Southwest Review 1 18 19
50 Southern Review 0 19 19
Washington Post & Magazine 0 19 19
52 NYRB 5 13 18
53 Freeman's (no submissions) 3 15 18
54 The Atlantic 2 16 18
55 Alaska Quarterly Review 1 17 18
Hotel Amerika (closed) 1 17 18
57 Antioch Review (on hiatus) 0 17 17
Bellevue Literary Review 0 17 17
Cincinnati Review 0 17 17
Southern Humanities 0 17 17
Swamp Pink 0 17 17
The Rumpus 0 17 17
ZYZZYVA 0 17 17
64 Tin House (journal closed) 2 14 16
65 Chattahoochee Review (closed) 0 16 16
Ninth Letter 0 16 16
67 North American Review 1 14 15
Water-Stone Review 1 14 15
69 Ecotone 0 15 15
70 Boston Review 1 13 14
71 Chautauqua 0 14 14
New Ohio Review 0 14 14
Room 0 14 14
Sport Literate 0 14 14
75 Lit   Hub 1 12 13
Solstice 1 12 13
77 North Dakota Quarterly 0 13 13
Notre Dame Magazine 0 13 13
Southeast Review 0 13 13
Tahoma Literary Review 0 13 13
Under the Gum Tree 0 13 13
82 Electric Literature 1 11 12
83 Brevity 0 12 12
Brick 0 12 12
Hudson Review 0 12 12
Ruminate 0 12 12
Zone 3 0 12 12
88 Prism International 2 9 11
89 Narrative 1 10 11
90 Copper Nickel 0 11 11
Five Points 0 11 11
Indiana Review 0 11 11
South Dakota Review 0 11 11
94 New York Times 1 9 10
95 December 0 10 10
Full Grown People (on hiatus) 0 10 10
Hayden's Ferry Review 0 10 10
New Hibernia Review 0 10 10
Potomac Review 0 10 10
100 Another Chicago Magazine 1 8 9
Bomb 1 8 9
Southern Indiana Review 1 8 9
Vice 1 8 9
104 Apogee 0 9 9
Ascent 0 9 9
Crab Orchard Review (on hiatus) 0 9 9
Event 0 9 9
Lake Effect 0 9 9
Literary Review 0 9 9
New Atlantis 0 9 9
Southampton Review 0 9 9
Tampa Review 0 9 9
113 Florida Review 1 7 8
Territory (Closed 2021) 1 7 8
115 Alpinist 0 8 8
Dogwood 0 8 8
Los Angeles Review of Books 0 8 8
Midwestern Gothic (closed) 0 8 8
Mount Hope 0 8 8
New Republic 0 8 8
Passages North 0 8 8
Shenandoah 0 8 8
123 A Public Space 1 6 7
Grist 1 6 7
125 Appalachian Review (Heritage) 0 7 7
Bennington Review 0 7 7
Denver Quarterly 0 7 7
Hunger Mountain 0 7 7
Jabberwock Review 0 7 7
New York Magazine 0 7 7
Pembroke 0 7 7
Post Road 0 7 7
Slice 0 7 7
StoryQuarterly 0 7 7
135 Vanity Fair 2 4 6
136 Cimarron Review 1 5 6
Subtropics 1 5 6
Transition 1 5 6
139 Alta 0 6 6
American Poetry Review 0 6 6
Baltimore Review 0 6 6
Briar Cliff Review (closed) 0 6 6
CutBank 0 6 6
Entropy (closed) 0 6 6
Epiphany 0 6 6
Gold Man Review 0 6 6
Hedgehog Review 0 6 6
Hypertext Review  0 6 6
Off Assignment 0 6 6
Outside 0 6 6
The Audacity 0 6 6
The Common 0 6 6
Tusculum Review 0 6 6
Willow Springs 0 6 6
Witness 0 6 6
156 Wired 2 3 5
157 Astra (closed) 1 4 5
Slate 1 4 5
159 Arrowsmith Press 0 5 5
Bayou Magazine 0 5 5
Black Warrior Review 0 5 5
Booth 0 5 5
Cherry Tree 0 5 5
Common Reader 0 5 5
Emry's Journal (on hiatus) 0 5 5
Esquire 0 5 5
Fifth Wednesday (closed) 0 5 5
Forge Literary Magazine 0 5 5
Gargoyle 0 5 5
Grist 0 5 5
Hazlitt 0 5 5
Juked 0 5 5
Louisville Review 0 5 5
Our State 0 5 5
Upstreet  0 5 5
Weekly Standard (closed) 0 5 5
177 Hobart 1 3 4
Liberties 1 3 4
179 1966 Journal 0 4 4
Able Muse 0 4 4
Blackbird 0 4 4
Commonweal 0 4 4
CRAFT 0 4 4
Delmarva Review 0 4 4
GQ 0 4 4
Green Mountains Review 0 4 4
Humanities 0 4 4
Hypocrite Reader 0 4 4
Intima 0 4 4
Into the Void 0 4 4
Iron Horse 0 4 4
Kweli Journal 0 4 4
Literal Latte (closed) 0 4 4
LitMag 0 4 4
Los Angeles Review 0 4 4
Majuscule 0 4 4
Mutha Magazine 0 4 4
New Literary History 0 4 4
Plough Quarterly 0 4 4
Smart Set 0 4 4
Stranger's Guide (seems no subs) 0 4 4
The Nation 0 4 4
Thread (closed) 0 4 4
Wildness 0 4 4
205 Buzzfeed 2 1 3
206 Audacity, The 1 2 3
Book Post (closed?) 1 2 3
London Review of Books 1 2 3
209 Apt 0 3 3
Art Forum 0 3 3
Arts & Letters 0 3 3
Aster(ix) (no unsolicited subs) 0 3 3
Bellingham Review 0 3 3
Broad Street (closed) 0 3 3
Carolina Quarterly 0 3 3
Charlotte Magazine 0 3 3
Columbia Journal 0 3 3
Commentary 0 3 3
Cream City Review 0 3 3
Down East 0 3 3
Elle 0 3 3
Emergence Magazine 0 3 3
Fiddlehead 0 3 3
Foreign Affairs 0 3 3
High Country News 0 3 3
JMWW 0 3 3
Little Patuxent (US writers only) 0 3 3
Manifest Station 0 3 3
Medium 0 3 3
Meridian 0 3 3
Mid-American Review 0 3 3
Oprah Magazine 0 3 3
Permafrost 0 3 3
Quarterly West 0 3 3
Salamander 0 3 3
Salon 0 3 3
Salt Hill 0 3 3
Scoundrel Time 0 3 3
So To Speak 0 3 3
Sonora Review 0 3 3
storySouth 0 3 3
Sycamore Review (Closing) 0 3 3
Texas Highways 0 3 3
The Offing 0 3 3
TriQuarterly 0 3 3
Turnip Truck(s) (closed) 0 3 3
Yankee 0 3 3
Yellow Medicine Review 0 3 3
249 Harper's Bazaar 1 1 2
Los Angeles Times & Magazine 1 1 2
West Trade Review 1 1 2
Your Impossible Voice 1 1 2
253 Aeon (subs open only to academics) 0 2 2
Air/Light 0 2 2
Alligator Juniper (closed) 0 2 2
American Literary Review 0 2 2
Arkansas International 0 2 2
Atavist 0 2 2
Autostraddle 0 2 2
Barrelhouse 0 2 2
Bat City Review 0 2 2
Bay to Ocean Journal 0 2 2
Belmont Story Review 0 2 2
Big Roundtable (closed) 0 2 2
bioStories 0 2 2
Bitter Southerner 0 2 2
Blue Lyra (closed) 0 2 2
Bluestem 0 2 2
Boston Magazine 0 2 2
Burrow Press Review  0 2 2
California Sunday Magazine 0 2 2
Carve 0 2 2
Cleaver Magazine 0 2 2
Consequence 0 2 2
Cutleaf 0 2 2
Decadent Review 0 2 2
Deep Wild 0 2 2
Evansville review (closed) 0 2 2
Experience 0 2 2
Fine Art Connoisseur 0 2 2
Foglifter 0 2 2
Fugue 0 2 2
Gay Magazine (closed?) 0 2 2
High Desert Journal 0 2 2
Hopkins Review 0 2 2
Isthmus (closed) 0 2 2
Jelly Bucket 0 2 2
Kestrel 0 2 2
KHORA 0 2 2
Lalitamba (closed) 0 2 2
Lowbrow Reader (closed) 0 2 2
Lowestoft Chronicle 0 2 2
Lunch Ticket 0 2 2
Malahat Review 0 2 2
Margins, The 0 2 2
Moon City Review 0 2 2
Narratively 0 2 2
New Madrid (closed) 0 2 2
New Quarterly (Canadians only) 0 2 2
Ocean State Review 0 2 2
Orca 0 2 2
Oregon Humanities (Oregon only) 0 2 2
Pangyrus 0 2 2
Pank 0 2 2
Poetry Foundation 0 2 2
Portland Magazine 0 2 2
Portland Review 0 2 2
Profane (closed) 0 2 2
Reed Magazine 0 2 2
Rosebud 0 2 2
Slag Glass City 0 2 2
Splice Today 0 2 2
Success 0 2 2
Superstition Review 0 2 2
Terrain.org 0 2 2
Texas Monthly 0 2 2
The Millions 0 2 2
The Rupture (Collagist) 0 2 2
Third Coast 0 2 2
This Land (closed) 0 2 2
Tricycle 0 2 2
Tupelo Quarterly / Press 0 2 2
Vela   (closed) 0 2 2
Washington Square Review 0 2 2
West Branch 0 2 2
Yemassee 0 2 2
327 Bookforum 1 0 1
Chronicle Review 1 0 1
Tampa Bay Times 1 0 1
330 360 Review 0 1 1
5280 Magazine 0 1 1
AARP 0 1 1
Adi Magazine 0 1 1
Adroit Journal 0 1 1
Afar 0 1 1
After the Art 0 1 1
Amazon Original Stories 0 1 1
American Arts Quarterly 0 1 1
American Interest 0 1 1
Anthropology Now 0 1 1
Antigonish Review 0 1 1
Aperture 0 1 1
Apple Valley Review 0 1 1
Arcadia 0 1 1
Archaeology 0 1 1
Arion 0 1 1
Arkansas Review 0 1 1
Assay 0 1 1
Atlanta Journal Constitution 0 1 1
Atticus Review 0 1 1
Bare Life Review 0 1 1
Belt 0 1 1
Bicycling.com 0 1 1
Big Truths 0 1 1
Blood Orange Review 0 1 1
Bloomberg Business Week 0 1 1
Blue Mesa Review 0 1 1
Boston Globe 0 1 1
Brain, Child (closed) 0 1 1
BrainDecoder 0 1 1
brooklyn review 0 1 1
Brown Alumni Magazine 0 1 1
Cagibi 0 1 1
California  0 1 1
Canadian Notes & Queries 0 1 1
City Journal 0 1 1
Coachella 0 1 1
Cog 0 1 1
Columbus Monthly 0 1 1
Comment 0 1 1
Confrontation 0 1 1
Cosmonauts Avenue 0 1 1
Covey Club 0 1 1
Critical Inquiry 0 1 1
D Magazine 0 1 1
Daedalus 0 1 1
Dalhouse Review 0 1 1
Dark Wood 0 1 1
Dead Mule School 0 1 1
Delacorte Review 0 1 1
Departures 0 1 1
Diary 0 1 1
Drift 0 1 1
DVAN 0 1 1
East Jasmine Review 0 1 1
Eastern Iowa Review 0 1 1
Eclectica 0 1 1
End of the World Review 0 1 1
Esprit 0 1 1
Essay Daily 0 1 1
Exacting Clam 0 1 1
Examined Life Journal 0 1 1
Fairy Tale Review 0 1 1
Fence 0 1 1
Fiction   0 1 1
Fiction Southeast 0 1 1
Field & Stream 0 1 1
Flint Hills 0 1 1
Flock 0 1 1
Flyway 0 1 1
Forward 0 1 1
Frieze 0 1 1
Full Bleed 0 1 1
Gay & Lesbian Review 0 1 1
Ghost Proposal  0 1 1
Gigantic Sequins 0 1 1
Good 0 1 1
Good Night, Sweet Prince 0 1 1
Gravel 0 1 1
Gravity of the Thing 0 1 1
Gravy 0 1 1
Gray's Sporting Journal 0 1 1
Great Lakes Review 0 1 1
Gutwrench 0 1 1
Hags on Fire 0 1 1
Hairpin 0 1 1
Harpur Palate 0 1 1
Harvard Journal of Law & Gender 0 1 1
Harvard Magazine 0 1 1
Hastings Enter Report 0 1 1
Hawai'i Pacific Review 0 1 1
Heartland Review 0 1 1
Hektoen International 0 1 1
Hinterland 0 1 1
Hong Kong Review 0 1 1
Houstonia 0 1 1
Huffington Post 0 1 1
Insider 0 1 1
Jewish Currents 0 1 1
Juxtraprose 0 1 1
Kaleidoscope 0 1 1
Kerning 0 1 1
Kitchen Work 0 1 1
Labletter 0 1 1
Lammergeier 0 1 1
Lancet 0 1 1
Latterly 0 1 1
Lenny 0 1 1
Limestone 0 1 1
Lit + Art 0 1 1
Literature and Belief 0 1 1
Litro Magazine 0 1 1
Longleaf Review 0 1 1
Longridge Review 0 1 1
Loyola Marymount Univ. Magazine 0 1 1
Lumina 0 1 1
Lux 0 1 1
Make 0 1 1
Marshall Project 0 1 1
Mary Review 0 1 1
Masalazine 0 1 1
McSweeney’s 0 1 1
Meadows 0 1 1
Meat for Tea 0 1 1
Memoir Magazine 0 1 1
Mic 0 1 1
Midwest Review 0 1 1
Minerva Rising 0 1 1
Modern Language Studies 0 1 1
Mother Jones 0 1 1
Nashville Review 0 1 1
Nervous Breakdown 0 1 1
New American Writing 0 1 1
New Criterion 0 1 1
New Inquiry 0 1 1
New Orleans Review 0 1 1
New Writing 0 1 1
Newfound 0 1 1
North Appalachia Review 0 1 1
Notre Dame Review 0 1 1
Nowhere Magazine 0 1 1
NPR (Music) 0 1 1
NYCitywoman 0 1 1
Oh Reader 0 1 1
Oldster 0 1 1
One Throne Magazine 0 1 1
Opossum 0 1 1
Owen Wister Review 0 1 1
Oyez Review 0 1 1
Paper Brigade 0 1 1
Parcel 0 1 1
Persimmon Tree 0 1 1
Philadelphia Inquirer 0 1 1
Philadelphia Magazine 0 1 1
Phoenix New Times 0 1 1
Pigeon Pages 0 1 1
Pleiades 0 1 1
PMLA 0 1 1
PMS 0 1 1
Poets & Writers 0 1 1
Politics/Letters 0 1 1
Prick of the Spindle 0 1 1
Prime Number 0 1 1
Progressive 0 1 1
Prospect 0 1 1
puerto del sol 0 1 1
Punctuate 0 1 1
Puritan 0 1 1
Quarter After Eigth 0 1 1
Quartz 0 1 1
Quiet Lightning 0 1 1
Quillete 0 1 1
Ragazine 0 1 1
Raquet 0 1 1
Ray's Road Review 0 1 1
Razor 0 1 1
Reason 0 1 1
Recovery Diaries 0 1 1
Redivider 0 1 1
Ringer 0 1 1
River Styx 0 1 1
Rivet 0 1 1
rjmagazine 0 1 1
Roads & Kingdoms 0 1 1
Roanoke Review 0 1 1
Rotarian 0 1 1
Rubbertop Review 0 1 1
Runner's World 0 1 1
Sactown 0 1 1
San Francisco 0 1 1
SAPIENS 0 1 1
Saranac Review 0 1 1
SB Nation 0 1 1
Seattle review 0 1 1
Shredness 0 1 1
Sierra Nevada Review 0 1 1
Slippery Elm 0 1 1
Small Print Magazine 0 1 1
Smithsonian 0 1 1
Socrates on the Beach 0 1 1
Soldiago Literary Review 0 1 1
South Carolina Review 0 1 1
South Street 0 1 1
Southern Living 0 1 1
Splice 0 1 1
StatORec 0 1 1
stirjournal.com 0 1 1
Stoneboat Literary Journal 0 1 1
Story Magazine 0 1 1
summerset review 0 1 1
Surfer's Journal 0 1 1
Tablet 0 1 1
TAYO Literary Magazine 0 1 1
The Butter 0 1 1
The Intercept 0 1 1
The Morning News 0 1 1
The Small Bow 0 1 1
Thema 0 1 1
Tiferet Journal 0 1 1
Timberline Review 0 1 1
Time 0 1 1
Transformation Narratives 0 1 1
Truthout 0 1 1
Ummah Wide 0 1 1
Uncanny Magazine 0 1 1
Under Review 0 1 1
Village Voice 0 1 1
Vogue 0 1 1
Volta, The 0 1 1
Vox Populi 0 1 1
Waccamaw 0 1 1
War, Literature and The Arts 0 1 1
Washington & Lee Journal of Civil Rights 0 1 1
Washington Examiner 0 1 1
Weeklings 0 1 1
Whiskey Island 0 1 1
Words without Borders 0 1 1
Woven Tale Press 0 1 1
Yahoo 0 1 1
Yale Letters Journal 0 1 1
Zora 0 1 1