Best American Newspaper Narratives 
2025 Winners Announced

The 2025 Best American Newspaper Narratives Award-winners were announced at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference on October, 25, 2025. 
 
All the winning stories will be published in the Mayborn School of Journalism’s annual anthology, The Best American Newspaper Narratives, Volume 13, to be released in fall 2026. Last year’s winners were recently published in volume 12, available for purchase in print or as an e-book from a variety of retailers through UNT Press.

The BANN contest is coordinated by JoAnn Livingston. Veteran journalists Gayle Reaves, a George Polk Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, and Tom Koetting, senior editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, served as the competition judges.  

TOP WINNERS

FIRST PLACE
"The last thing they wanted" 
By Tom Hallman Jr. and Douglas Perry of The Oregonian
The story makes eloquent use of interviews and the subjects’ own letters to reconstruct the life and double-suicide death of a beloved and richly accomplished couple in a small town.
 
SECOND PLACE
"Guilty: Inside the high-risk, historic prosecution of a school shooter's parents" 
By John Woodrow Cox of Washington Post
Cox delivers a rare, behind-the-scenes account of the unprecedented prosecution of parents whose son killed four students. The reporter embedded with Michigan prosecutors to reveal the far-reaching legal and societal stakes of the case and its toll on the prosecution team.
 
THIRD PLACE 
"The Marked Man: Tampa's Robert DeBoise survived a death sentence"
By Christopher Spata and Dan Sullivan of Tampa Bay Times
A meticulously reconstructed account of wrongful conviction, this story exposes the flaws of forensic evidence and the harrowing personal impact on Robert DeBoise, who spent 37 years on death row before his was exonerated. It also reveals how the re-investigation of DeBoise’s case uncovered the trail of serial killers.

RUNNERS-UP

"Untested" 
By Gina Barton for USA Today.
This tenacious investigation exposes how untested rape kits let a suspected serial rapist evade accountability for years, blending page-turner storytelling with sharp systemic analysis revealing the human and social cost of institutional neglect.​​
 
“Two WA men were arrested in mental health crises. Only one survived.”
By Daniel Beekman for Seattle Times
Beekman weaves a compelling dual narrative which follows two men detained during mental health crises. Systemic deficiencies in policing and healthcare resulted in one man's death while the other regained his freedom. The article offers a deep examination of the failures within these systems and their profound consequences.
 
“In war-torn Ukraine, a woman searches for her husband. Will she find him?"
By Sabra Ayres and Laura King for Los Angeles Times
Haunting and lyrical, this narrative traces one woman’s quest to find her missing husband amid the chaos of war, interweaving personal loss and national tragedy.

 
NOTABLE NARRATIVES
 

"The Housing Experiment"
By Lane DeGregory for Tampa Bay Times 
In this eight-part series DeGregory chronicles the launch and growing pains of an innovative housing project designed to give unhoused people a safe start with professional support. The series revisits the specific residents and staff members repeatedly over time, offering a nuanced profile of the project as a whole and compassionate portraits of the people at the center of the experiment.
 
"How a Mennonite farmer became a drug suspect"
By Steve Fisher for Los Angeles Times
This stranger-than-fiction account unwinds the tale of a devout Mennonite farmer who became entangled with the Sinaloa drug cartel, ultimately landing in a maximum-security Mexican prison accused of running clandestine airstrips for drug planes and commanding groups of assassins for the cartel. 

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About the Contest

In an effort to foster narrative nonfiction storytelling at newspapers across America, the annual Best American Newspaper Narratives (BANN) writing contest is conducted by the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference.

Each year, we invite submissions of extraordinary long-form narrative nonfiction that were published the prior year in a daily U.S. newspaper or a U.S. newspaper website. Writers and editors may submit up to five narratives, including narratives that are part of a series. A series will count as one entry. Individuals whose work was published the prior year in a daily U.S. newspaper or a U.S. newspaper website may enter. The Best American Newspaper Narratives writing contest jurors, a pool of award-winning narrative writers and editors from around the country, will select three winners, three runners-up and four notable narratives.

Our Best American Newspaper Narrative winners (representing work published in the previous year) will be published in the anthology, Best American Newspaper Narratives.

• First place winner will receive $1,500 (awarded after the conference)
• Second place and third place winners receive a plaque
• All 10 placings are published in the annual anthology Best American Newspaper Narratives
• All placings are announced at the conference awards ceremony

If the winning narrative is co-authored by more than one writer, the Mayborn will divide the award among all authors. The three winning narratives, the three runners-up and the four notable narratives will be published by the University of North Texas Press/Mayborn Graduate Institute of Journalism in an anthology called the Best American Newspaper Narratives. Rights are granted non-exclusively and the newspaper retains copyright (see entry agreement/release form for additional details).

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Rules For Entering the Contest

• Entries must have been published between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 of the year prior to the conference.
• Entries must be submitted electronically via email to mayborncontest@unt.edu.
• Each emailed submission should be in Word format and be capable of printing out on 8.5X11-inch paper. Entries submitted as PDFs also must be capable of printing out on 8.5X11-inch paper. If submitted as a PDF and selected for publication in the anthology, the entrant MUST then provide the submission in Word format to facilitate the anthology's publication.
• Type “BANN Writing Contest” in the subject line of the entry email.
• Entries must be submitted to the contest no later than 11:59 p.m. CST July 15. A complete entry includes the entry; the completed, signed entry agreement/release form; and entry fee payment.
• Cost is $50 per entry. An online, secure portal is provided for credit card payment. The maximum number of entries is five from a daily U.S. newspaper or U.S. newspaper website. A series is considered one entry. Individuals whose work has appeared in a daily U.S. newspaper or
• U.S. newspaper website may also enter with a signed entry form from their editor.
• Entry agreement/release form per entry requires signatures of editor(s) and all authors on a story. Entrants are responsible for securing all required signatures.

Contact

Jo Ann Livingston: mayborncontest@unt.edu for contest questions