Selected from a wide range of newspapers, magazines, and digital publications during the previous year, these stories capture enduring moments while celebrating the craft of writing at its most sublime

Nothing Is Gayer than My Love for Women's Basketball,

from Third Thoughts and Autostraddle /

Melissa Febos -- Traveling at the Speed of the Soul,

from Noema Magazine /

Nick Hunt -- Precipice of Fear: The Freerider Who Took Skiing to Its Limits,

from The Guardian /

Simon Akam -- Inside San Jose State's Polarizing Volleyball Season,

from ESPN /

Katie Barnes -- Meet the New Kingpin,

from The Lever /

Amos Barshad -- The Alchemists,

from Bicycling /

Kim Cross -- Not Like Other Dykes: On Femininity, Basketball, and the Caitlin Clark Effect,

from LitHub /

Mac Crane -- The Ballet School,

from Island /

Helena Gjone -- Rafael Nadal Found Process in Pain,

from Defector /

Giri Nathan -- I Emptied My Retirement Account to Buy Basketball Cards. It Was Thrilling. It Nearly Ruined My Life,

from GQ /

Kaveh Akbar -- How Far Can Running Take You After a Decade of Addiction?,

from Runner's World /

Peter Flax -- How the Country's Oldest Black Tennis Club Is Keeping the Sport Alive in Bronzeville,

froBlock Club Chicagom /

Jamie Nesbitt Golden -- Everything in a Name,

from Basketball Feelings /

Katie Heindl -- Football in Palestine,

from Flaming Hydra /

Zito Madu -- Death of the Hiker,

from Longreads /

Leyton Cassidy -- Sour,

from The Players' Tribune /

Ettore Ewen -- Angel Reese Has Genius in Her Fingertips,

from Defector /

Maitreyi Anantharaman -- I'm Watching the Knicks' Playoff Run from Prison,

from Prison Journalism Project/USA Today /

Darrell Powell -- Imane Khelif: Refusing the Violent Fiction of Binary Gender,

from The Contrapuntal /

Niharika Pandit -- Let's Hear It for the Dolls: A Day Shooting Hoops With Brooklyn's Trans Basketball League,

from SELF /

Frankie De La Cretaz -- The Spiritual Realm of Sydney McLaughlin,

from The Ringer /

Lex Pryor -- Unfolding,

from Going Down Swinging /

Daniel Ray -- Black Girl, Blue Leotard,

from Narratively /

Lisa Williamson Rosenberg -- Scholar's Mate,

from The Believer /

Mychal Denzel Smith -- The Worrying Road Ahead for Muslim Sportswomen Amid Hijab Bans and Discrimination,

from The New Arab /

Yousra Samir Imran -- Torn from Her Family at Birth, a Woman Brings a Skatepark to Her Homeland,

from The Washington Post /

Roman Stubbs -- 'It's Time to Play Ball, British Style',

from The Dial /

Imogen West-Knights -- A 'Skate Migration' Is Changing How Atlanta Rolls,

from The New York Times /

James Thomas -- One Must Imagine the Detroit Mechanix Happy,

from Ultiworld /

Zack Davis -- Stumbling Can Be Lovely,

from Longreads /

Devin Kelly -- Notable Sports Writing of 2024