UPDATE: Visit the nominees and winners of the 2009 Utne Independent Press Awards.

Since 1989, Utne Reader has recognized excellence in alternative and independent publishing through its Alternative Press Awards. This year’s winners are featured in the January/February 2000 issue.

"Our editors select the winning publications through our extensive reading process and careful examination, rather than entry forms and fees,” said Cathy Madison, Utne Reader editor. “It is through this recognition that Utne Reader is able to honor the efforts of small, sometimes unnoticed publications that provide innovative, thought-provoking perspectives often ignored by mass media."

The 1999 Alternative Press Award winners are:

General Excellence (Magazines): The Oxford American, Oxford, MS. Combining fiction, essays, and poetry with often provocative journalism, this bimonthly is the most intelligent voice on Southern life published in America today. (Marc Smirnoff, editor, 601/236-1836)

General Excellence (Newsweeklies): L.A.Weekly, Los Angeles, CA. Consistently delving deeper than most urban tabloids, L.A. Weekly mixes gritty local reporting with great art and cultural coverage, making it the perfect paper of record for a city as creative (and libidinous) as it is diverse. (Sue Horton, editor, 323/465-9909)

General Excellence (Newsletters): The Green Guide, New York, NY. A repeat winner from last year, this monthly continues to offer a brand of impassioned practicality that transforms nebulous environmental concern into a hope-driven, how-to guide for ecologically impeccable living. (Mindy Pennybacker, editor, 212/242-0010)

Best New Title: McSweeney’s, Brooklyn, NY. Looking for offbeat originality, wit, and verve? You’ll find it in McSweeney’s, one of the funniest (and quirkiest) literary journals anywhere left of Brooklyn. (David Eggers, editor, 718/788-4912)

Reporting Excellence: Mother Jones, San Francisco, CA. After raising hell with its investigative reporting for 25 years, this bimonthly remains a living—and lively— tribute to its rabble-rousing, union-organizing namesake. (Roger Cohn, editor, 800/438-6656)

Writing Excellence: The American Scholar, Washington, DC. Providing thoughtful commentary without academic cant, this quarterly hits perfect pitch with its carefully crafted essays, short memoirs, and criticism. (Anne Fadiman, editor, 202/265-3808)

Spiritual Coverage: re:generation quarterly, Cambridge, MA. Re:generation quarterly offers its readers a thoughtful, open-minded source of cultural criticism, much of it sharing a basic belief that Christian communities “in many forms” can be engines of positive change. (Andy Crouch, editor, 617/868-3659)