Some National Recognition

Let's launch our blogging with some shameless bragging. Seattle Weekly today won five awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN), including first place in the Web-site category. SeattleWeekly.com, engineered by new-media director Gary Love, was named the best among big papers. Village Voice, the flagship of our parent, Village Voice Media, was second; Baltimore City Paper was third; and Metro Times of Detroit won an honorable mention.

Our other winners:

• Recently departed art director Karen Steichen won second place for editorial layout of a feature story called "Seattle Rising" (PDFs of 5.9 MB and 3.4 MB).

• Senior Editor Roger Downey won third place for arts feature writing ("Tough Love for the Arts").

• Freelancer Tra Selhtrow won third place for illustration with a rendering of Bill Gates for our cover.

• And freelancer Bootsy Holler got an honorable mention for photography in one of our fashion issues (PDFs of 2.1 MB, 2.8 MB, and 4.7 MB).