American Society of Journalists and Authors Names 2025 Article and Content Award Winners
July 21, 2025
CONTACT: ASJA staff, asjaoffice@asja.org
New York, New York (July 21, 2025) – The American Society of Journalists and Authors, the nation’s leading professional organization of nonfiction freelance writers, announced the winners of the ASJA Awards for articles and content writing.
The ASJA Awards recognize exceptional nonfiction freelance writing published in 2024. Details about the winners and honorable mentions appear on the ASJA website.
“This year’s winners were exceptional,” said ASJA President Darcy Lewis. “Their range was extraordinary, too. The articles and content that were chosen ranged from deeply personal, moving stories to exhaustively reported takes on serious issues to practical service pieces to content marketing explainers.”
ASJA members and non-members submitted more than 300 articles and content writing works in 21 categories, including a new, timely one: Environmental/Climate/Sustainability.
Six freelancers were selected multiple times. Longreads and the Washington Post had the most winners and honorable mentions.
Winners of the 2025 ASJA Book Awards will be announced in September.
ASJA Awards Prize Money Winners
Four of the 2025 ASJA Awards for articles came with prize money — $500 for the Environmental/Climate/Sustainability winner, and $1,000 apiece for The Arlene (for an article that made a difference), the Donald Robinson Memorial Award for Investigative Journalism, and the June Roth Memorial Award for Outstanding Medical Journalism.
Those winners and honorable mentions are:
Environmental/Climate/Sustainability
Winner: Alessandra Bergamin for “The Death Squads Hiring Environmental Defenders” in In These Times
Honorable Mention: Amy Brecount White for “Honeybees Aren’t the Pollinators We Should Be Most Worried About” in Arlington magazine
The Arlenes
Winner: Amy Halpern for “Does MCPS Deserve a Passing Grade?” in Bethesda magazine
Honorable Mention: Anna Medaris for “The Lure of Postpartum Luxury” in The Cut
Donald Robinson Memorial Award for Investigative Journalism
Winner: Sammy Sussman for “A Hidden Sexual Assault Scandal at the New York Philharmonic” in New York magazine
Honorable Mention: John Rosengren for “Inside the Tragic Life and Controversial Execution of Marcellus Williams” in Esquire
June Roth Memorial Award for Outstanding Medical Journalism
Winner: Esther Landhuis for “When Infection Sparks Obsession: PANDAS and PANS” in Undark
Honorable Mention: Amber Dance for “All About Cholesterol” in Knowable magazine
Other ASJA Awards Winners
The other 2025 ASJA Awards winners and honorable mentions:
B2B Content
Winner: Darcy Lewis for “Nebraska clinicians and scientists use team science to fight childhood brain cancer” in Nature Research Custom Media
Honorable Mention: Katie Cottingham for “Raman spectroscopy for edible oil analysis” in INFORM
B2C Content
Winner: Molly Petrilla for “The Art of Mothering” in the Pennsylvania Gazette
Honorable Mention: Darcy Lewis for “Housing as Health Care” in Curiosus, the magazine of Barnes-Jewish Hospital
Business Writing
Winner: John Hanc for “The Jitney at 50” in Newsday
Honorable Mention: Alexandra Talty for “The Hard Work of Bringing Kelp to Market” in Civil Eats
Excellence in Reporting
Winner: Steven Yoder for “New York Set Out to Keep Half of All Foster Youth With Family. Some Counties Still Fall Far Short of That Urgent Goal” in The Imprint
Honorable Mention: Steven Yoder for “Math ends the education careers of thousands of community college students. A few schools are trying something new.” In The Hechinger Report
First-Person Essay
Winner: Will McGrath for “American Boys” in The Believer
Honorable Mention: Lane Scott Jones for “Creation of Woman: Evangelical and Transgender in the Bible Belt” in Longreads
Food and Drink
Winner: Kate Nelson for “Hey, I Grew That: The Native American School That’s Decolonizing Foodways” in The Guardian
Winner: Benjamin DuBow for “The Sabbath Stew” in Longreads
Health
Winner: Andrew Chapman for “Insatiable: A Life Without Eating” in Longreads
Honorable Mention: Jeff Oloizia for “Picturing an End to Alzheimer’s” in Madison magazine
How-To Service
Winner: Ruksana Hussain for “How to Behave When Visiting Sites of Remembrance” in Fodor’s.com
Honorable Mention: Jen Reeder for “Help Vets With PTSD Get Life-Saving Service Dogs” in Next Avenue
Lifestyle
Winner: Elizabeth Yuko for “Deck Chairs, Tuberculosis, and the Titanic: The Unexpected Origins of a Summertime Staple” in Dwell
Honorable Mention: Wendy Helfenbaum for “Wheels Up” in Next Avenue
Long-From Content
Winner: Darcy Lewis for “PFF Registry 2024 Annual Report: Research, Impact, Community”
Honorable Mention: Emily Paulsen for “URAC Five-Year Specialty Pharmacy Report: Making a Difference with Measurement”
Opinion/Op-Eds
Winner: Nicole Carr for “The Black press democratized America” in The Emancipator
Honorable Mention: Derrick Z. Jackson for “The U.S. Supreme Court is Operating Like a Rogue EPA” in The Equation
Personal Platform
Winner: Gray Chapman for “Loaded” in Holding Patterns (a personal Substack)
Profiles
Winner: Simar Bajaj for “He was shot in the throat. Now he saves gun victims as a trauma surgeon in Baltimore” in The Guardian
Honorable Mention: Heather Johnson for ‘Variations of Healing” in Steinway & Sons Owners’ magazine
Reported Essay
Winner: Benton Graham for “I Used a Self-Driving Taxi for a Week. Things Got Weird” in Slate
Honorable Mention: Abby Alten Schwartz for “For caregivers, a friend who ‘gets it’ can be a lifeline” in The Washington Post
Science
Winner: Amber Dance for “Investigating Crime Science” in Science News
Honorable Mention: Andrea Cooper for “Can Trauma Be Inherited Through Genes?” in NationalGeographic.com
Social Change
Winner: Mya Frazier for “The Eviction Experts” in Harper’s magazine, with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project
Honorable Mention: Lillian Perlmutter for “Trick Clock” in The Baffler, with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project
Technology
Winner: Amanda Ruggeri for “The surprising promise and profound perils of AIs that fake empathy” in New Scientist
Honorable Mention: Susan Shapiro for “I lost 15,000 friends in 5 seconds” in The Washington Post
Trade
Winner: Jennifer Larson for “The Political Temperature of Climate Change Education” in School Administrator
Honorable Mention: Amber Dance for “What Is a Cell Type?” in Nature
Travel
Winner: Robin Catalano for “How the forgotten tourist homes of the 1930s predicted Airbnb” in The Washington Post
Honorable Mention: Robin Catalano for “The Erie Canal: The manmade waterway that transformed the U.S.” in BBC.com
Wellness, Fitness & Sports
Winner: Maggie Slepian for “I Nearly Died Drowning. Here’s What It’s Like to Survive.” in Longreads
Honorable Mention: Anna Medaris for “The Newest Member of Your Local
Run Club: Ozempic?” in Women’s Health