![](https://staging.irmamagazines.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AHM-2017-ctgy11B-Essay-400.jpg)
Essay
Gold
![](https://staging.irmamagazines.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/AHM-2017-ctgy11B-Essay-800-300x194.jpg)
Arizona Highways, “The Sound of Fallen Trees” by Craig Childs
If field guides took mushrooms, they might read like this.
Silver
![](https://staging.irmamagazines.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Avenue-2017-ctgy11-essay-800-300x170.jpg)
Avenue Calgary, “How to Talk About Death and Dying” by Christina Frangou
The writer packs a lot of information and good intention into this, and the piece is, if anything, even for more touching for the effort.
Bronze
![](https://staging.irmamagazines.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ADL-2017-ctgy11-Essay-800-300x199.jpg)
Adirondack Life, “Valentino and Me” by Niki Kourofsky
An intriguing vignette, skillfully presented.
Award of Merit![](https://staging.irmamagazines.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ARL-2016-ctgy11-Essay800.jpg)
Arkansas Life, “Learning Arkansas” by Jennifer Case
With her frogs, worms and robins, the writer skillfully equates a three-year-old’s discovery of the world with her own discovery of a new and foreign world.
Additional Entries
Arizona Highways, “Wild” by Kelly Vaughn
Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors, “Outward Bound: Inward Salvation” by Jose Sosa
Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors, “Peapod Adventuring” by Ben Emory
Saltscapes, “Should we still be saying “come-from-away”?” by Jim Gourlay
Yukon, North of Ordinary, “Fishing Tale of the Big Brown Visitor” by Dawn Kostelnik and Eleanor Rosenberg