After my essay, “Athens, Revised,” came out in The Sun magazine in the August 2024 issue, I wanted to nominate it for the prestigious annual series, Best American Essays 2025. I was a little confused by the nomination guidelines on the Best American Essays site, found HERE, so I followed the suggestion there to email bestamericanessayseditor@gmail.com.
Below is the response I received. It appears the the eligibility requirements have changed this year and individual authors are no longer able to submit their own work unless they have been formerly published in the series. Instead, essays must either be submitted by an editor or will be selected from the magazines to which the series subscribes.
Email Auto-Response from Best American Essays:
Greetings and thank you for nominating work for inclusion in Best American Essays 2025.
Because nominations are inundating this email and because the deadline for nominations (a receipt deadline) is December 31, please read the following guidelines:
If you are an author self-nominating your work to the Best American Essays (BAE) series, please note that the guidelines have changed: Author nominations are now eligible only from those who have previously contributed to the Best American Essays series in the past. If you are not a previous contributor, or if your work was listed in the Notables section of a previous volume, please note the following:
1. For print publications, if the BAE series is subscribed to the periodical in which your work appears, you need do nothing more. All eligible nonfiction is reviewed in print publications received by BAE.
2. If the BAE series is not subscribed to the print periodical, please ask your editor to send a copy or send one of your copies. See the address below.
3. If your work was published online, the editor of the magazine in which your work appears must nominate on your behalf. Each editor may nominate up to five selections from the appropriate year. A previous contributor to the BAE series may also submit up to five nominations.
If you are an editor or former contributor nominating the work of others, please mail physical tear sheets (or legible print outs in the case of digital publications) to the address below. Please be sure to include the title of the publication, date/volume-number of publication, author name, and author contact information.
For the most current Nomination Guidelines, and for news about the Best American Essays series, essays about the essay, interviews, and reviews, please visit: https://bestamericanessays.substack.com
Kim Dana Kupperman
Series Editor
Best American Essays
P.O. Box 569
Hartland VT 05048