Here are the guest editors for the Best American Series 2021.
Do you like the Best American series? Of course you do! Each book in the annual series showcases of best short fiction and nonfiction in a given year, from short stories to essays, travel 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.
We’re excited to announce the guest editors for the Best American 2021 series:
The Best American Short Stories 2021 will be guest edited by Jesmyn Ward (series editor Heidi Pitlor)
Ward is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University. She is the author of the novels Where the Line Bleeds and Salvage the Bones, which won the 2011 National Book Award, and Sing, Unburied, Sing, which won the 2017 National Book Award. She is also the editor of the anthology The Fire This Time and the author of the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
The Best American Essays 2021 will be guest edited by Kathryn Schulz (series editor Robert Atwan)
Schulz is an American journalist and author, and a staff writer for The New Yorker who won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing.
The Best American Mystery & Suspense 2021 will be guest edited by Alafair Burke (series editor Steph Cha)
Burke is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of eighteen novels. Her recent novel, The Wife, is being adapted into a film by Amazon Studios, with Alafair writing the screenplay.
The Best American Food Writing 2021 will be guest edited by Gabrielle Hamilton (series editor Silvia Killingsworth)
Hamilton is the chef and owner of Prune, a restaurant in New York City, and the author of Blood, Bones, and Butter, a memoir.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021 will be guest edited by Veronica Roth (series editor John Joseph Adams)
Roth is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Divergent series, the Carve the Mark duology, and Chosen Ones.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021 will be guest edited by Ed Yong (series editor Jaime Green)
Yong is an award-winning science writer on the staff of the Atlantic and is the best-selling author of I Contain Multitudes.
The Best American Travel Writing 2021 will be guest edited by Padma Lakshmi (series editor Jason Wilson)
Lakshmi is the Emmy-nominated host and executive producer of Bravo’s Emmy award-winning Top Chef, currently in its 18th season, and creator and host of acclaimed Hulu series Taste the Nation. She is internationally known as an actress, food expert, model, and New York Times best-selling author.
These editions go on sale on Oct. 12, 2021.
