Aw, Shucks

The Providence Phoenix is just back from the New England Newspaper & Press Association's annual awards gala at the Boston Park Plaza hotel - $8 beers! - and we've got a nice little haul of awards to report.

Yours truly took first place in health reporting for "Reefer Medness," on the coming shift (since short-circuited) in Rhode Island's medical marijuana culture; second place in the general news story category for "The Stunning Demise of Gay Marriage"; third place in the social issues feature category for "Agents of Change," on the transformation of urban peace corps City Year and what it says about race and public service; and third place in education reporting for "Not Waiting for Superman," for a look at Teach for America and its big push to transform education in Rhode Island. All of these awards came in the "Weekly Class 2" segment, for weeklies with a circulation of more than 6,000.

One of our regular freelancers, Amy Littlefield, also won a couple of awards for work she did when she was a full-timer at the Brockton Enterprise in Massachusetts.

Our colleagues up at the Boston Phoenix also won a bunch of awards, including first place for overall design and first place in the social issues category for this great piece on gaming and rape culture, which got national play.

Thanks much to all our readers. Journalism is no easy racket these days, so we appreciate your support muchly.