The Best American Series is a literary institution. But just in case you’re stumbling upon it for the first time: Each book in the annual series showcases of best short fiction and nonfiction in a given year, from short stories to essays, science and nature writing, to food writing. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites, and a special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the very best pieces for the anthology.
This year, the series has a new look, featuring original illustrations by artist Tyler Keeton Robbins; from now on, a new artist will be chosen to create the series artwork every year.
Without any further do, here are the guest editors and the brand new covers for the Best American 2024 series, which will be published by Mariner/HarperCollins on October 22, 2024:
The Best American Short Stories 2024
Guest editor: Lauren Groff
Series editor: Heidi Pitlor
According to Mariner/HarperCollins, Pitlor will step down as series editor after this, her eighteenth edition at the helm. In 2007, her first year as series editor, she selected Groff’s story, “L. Debard and Aliette.” “Groff’s use of language and sense of story and character and motivation was stunning—I could not believe that this was a young writer,” Pitlor said. “Stephen King, the guest editor that year, agreed. What a gift to have Lauren as my final guest editor!”
Lauren Groff is the author of five novels: the instant New York Times bestseller The Vaster Wilds, and two National Book Award Finalists, Matrix and Fates and Furies; as well as Aradia and The Monsters of Templeton. Her story collections include Florida, winner of The Story Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award, and Delicate Edible Birds. She was a Guggenheim Fellow, a Radcliffe Fellow, a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, and was named one of Granta’s 2017 Best Young American Novelists. Groff recently added bookseller to her list of accomplishments—in April 2023, she and her husband opened Lynx Bookstore in Gainesvilles, FL, where they live.
The Best American Essays 2024
Guest editor: Wesley Morris
Series editor: Kim Dana Kupperman, newly appointed by founder Robert Atwan
Wesley Morris is a critic at large for The New York Times. Prior to The New York Times, Morris worked at Grantland as a staff writer and the Sportstorialist as a columnist. He was a film critic at The Boston Globe from 2002 to 2013, and before that at the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner. Morris was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his criticism at The Boston Globe in 2012, and while at Grantland, was a National Magazine Award finalist for Columns and Commentary in 2015. He won a second Pulitzer Prize for his criticism at The New York Times in 2021.
Kim Dana Kupperman is the author of the award-winning essay collection I Just Lately Started Buying Wings: Missives from the Other Side of Silence; a memoir, The Last of Her; and a historical novel, Six Thousand Miles to Home. She is the editor of You: An Anthology of Essays Devoted to the Second Person and the founding editor of Welcome Table Press, whose mission is to publish and celebrate the essay, in all its forms.
The Best American Food and Travel Writing 2024
Newly expanded this year from The Best American Food Writing
Guest editor: Padma Lakshmi
Series editor: Jaya Saxena, newly appointed
Padma Lakshmi is an Emmy-nominated producer, television host, food expert, and a New York Times bestselling author, as well as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People (2023). She is the creator of the critically-acclaimed and Emmy-nominated Hulu series “Taste the Nation”, which is the recipient of a James Beard Foundation Award top prize in Visual Media—Long Form. Lakshmi served as host and executive producer for 19 seasons of Bravo’s two-time Emmy-winning series “Top Chef”, which has been nominated for 47 Emmys, including her five-time nomination for Outstanding Host for A Reality-Competition Program.
Jaya Saxena is a writer, editor, and the Correspondent at Eater.com. She has previously written for Elle, GQ, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and more. She is the co-author of Dad Magazine and Basic Witches, and the author of The Book of Lost Recipes and Crystal Clear. She lives in Queens with her partner.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024
Guest editor: Bill McKibben
Series editor: Jaime Green
Bill McKibben is the author of more than a dozen books, including the bestsellers Falter, Deep Economy, and The End of Nature, which was the first book to warn the general public about the climate crisis. He is also the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and the winner of the Gandhi Prize, the Thomas Merton Prize, and the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called “the alternate Nobel.”
Jaime Green, series editor, is a science writer and essayist. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Astrobites, and elsewhere. She is a lecturer at Smith College and the Johns Hopkins master’s program in Science Writing, and the author of The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024
Guest editor: Hugh Howey
Series editor: John Joseph Adams
Hugh Howey is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Silo Series: Wool, Shift, and Dust; Beacon 23; Sand; Half Way Home; and Machine Learning. His works have been translated into more than forty languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Adapted from his bestselling sci-fi trilogy, Silo is now streaming on Apple TV+ and Beacon 23 is streaming on MGM+. Howey lives in New York with his wife, Shay.
John Joseph Adams is the series editor of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and the editor of the Hugo Award–winning Lightspeed, and of more than forty anthologies, including Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms, The Far Reaches, and Out There Screaming (coedited with Jordan Peele).
The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024
Guest editor: S.A. Cosby
Series editor: Steph Cha
S. A. Cosby is an Anthony Award–winning writer from Southeastern Virginia. He is the author of the New York Timesbestseller Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was a New York Times Notable Book, and was named a best book of the year by NPR, The Guardian, and Library Journal, among others. When not writing, he is an avid hiker and chess player.
Steph Cha is the author of the Juniper Song mystery series and Your House Will Pay, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thriller and the California Book Award, and has been a finalist for a Young Lions Fiction Award, a Macavity Award, a Lefty Award, a Barry Award, and a Dagger Award, as well as longlisted for the Aspen Prize. She is an editor and critic whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she edited the noir section for almost five years. A native of the San Fernando Valley, she lives in Los Angeles with her family.
