Here at Identity Theory, we love all our babies equally. But this year, as a result of some twisted effort towards generosity, we felt compelled to give out prizes to the authors of our "top stories" in each category published on the site.
The following list shows the "best" article in each section in bold, accompanied by some of the other really, really good stories within the category. New readers of the site can use this list as a guide to the site, and the rest of you can take it as an opportunity to revisit the glorious year that was 2006.
Of the 23 author interviews we published in 2006, we felt Robert Birnbaum's conversation with Eduardo Galeano was the best. Others we really, really liked included Robert's talks with George Saunders and Donald Hall.
Our favorite among the eighteen fiction pieces was "A Hard Truth about Waste Management" by Sumanth Prabhaker. We were also quite fond of "Amphibian" by Nick Antosca and "Perfect" by Tom Conoboy.
Of our nineteen nonfiction works published in '06, "Warbler Delight" by Amy Leach stood out the most, while "Five Alternatives to Throwing your Penis at the Police" by Tyler Smith and "Disney and the Erotic Art of Dying" by Benjamin Buchholz were fan favorites.
Random Truths about Caroliner was our favorite of the 44 music articles posted last year, with Ross Simonini's interview of Gang Gang Dance and Random Truths about Brightblack Morning Light also holding their own.
It was a lean year for social justice articles, with "Big Government and the Big Easy" by Norman Ball being the most notable of the four pieces. But we hope you didn't miss out on the Social Justice blog, which was faithfully updated by Alexandra Tursi and Jesslyn Roebuck throughout much of the year.
Our film section launched in October, and "Finding Woody: Allen's Play it Again, Sam" by Matt Sorrento as well as "Her Majesty, The Queen" by A. Mary Murphy were two of the headlining reviews.
As is typical, we only published a handful of traditional book reviews in 2006, but we are very proud of Stephen Schenkenberg's review of William H. Gass' A Temple of Texts and Summer Block's review of Charles Blackstone's The Week You Weren't Here.
Catherine Moles' Post-Katrina New Orleans Photos stood out among our visual art selections last year.
Our magnificent poetry editor selected 48 poems for publication in 2006, best exemplified in "Belfast Linen Factories" by Emily Digiovanni, "The Accident" by Abigail George, and "They Built a Wall Around the Ocean" by Lily Bower.
We are certainly proud of all the work published on our website during 2006, and we greatly appreciate the contributions made by everyone involved with the publication throughout the year.