For the second year in a row, contributor Jeffry Cudlin won the arts criticism category for his work, which this year included the following: "Pine of the Times" about the Martin Puryear retrospective at the National Gallery of Art, "Sheet Smart" about the Christo and Jeanne-Claude exhibit at the Phillips Collection, and "Pain by Numbers," a wrap-up of what D.C. museums did and didn't offer in 2008.

Editor Erik Wemple won first place for media reporting/criticism with his cover story "One Mission, Two Newsrooms" about the Washington Post's struggle to bridge the cultural and geographic divide between its print and online operations.

In the elusive "innovation/format buster" category, the cover story some loved and others hated---"Washington City Paper Files for Chapter 86 Content Bankruptcy"--- also took home first-place honors. The piece by Wemple, Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon, and Asst. Managing Editor Jule Banville was written and presented in the form of a legal document spoofing both the changing nature of City Paper's journalism and and the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by our paper's owners, Creative Loafing.

Creative Loafing's Atlanta paper received second-place honors in the feature category for the first-person account, "Sober," by Thomas Wheatley. The Chicago Reader, also our sister paper, received two second-place awards. Ann Ford was so honored in the arts feature category for "Life Without a Script" and columnist Ben Jarovsky's "The Works" was named in the column (political) category

The AAN Awards are open to its 130 member papers. Most of the altweeklies in U.S. cities (plus a few in Canada) enter the contest each year. This year, the top all-time AAN Award winner, the L.A. Weekly, led the pack with four first-place awards. In the 14-year history of the awards, Washington City Paper has won the second-most overall awards in the top-circulation categories: 51.

The Association for Alternative Newsweeklies announced finalists for its annual prizes today, selecting Washington City Paper as a top contender in four categories: Photography, Arts Criticism, Media Reporting/Criticism, and Innovation/Format Buster.

Staff photographer Darrow Montgomery, who's been shooting for City Paper for 23 years, is among the top three entries for the highest circulation category (50,000 and over). This is the fourth time Montgomery will be honored by AAN. He was given honorable mention for his work in the 2008 awards.

Galleries writer Jeffry Cudlin, who won the top prize for arts criticism last year, was again named a finalist for 2009.

Editor Erik Wemple was named in two categories. His cover story about the Washington Post's struggle to merge its print and online operations, "One Mission, Two Newsrooms," is a finalist in the Media Reporting/Criticism category.

Wemple also contributed to the finalist in the Innovation/Format Buster category, "Washington City Paper Seeks Content Bankruptcy," along with Managing Editor Andrew Beaujon and Asst. Managing Editor Jule Banville.

The Village Voice takes home the most nominations this year with nine. Our sister papers were also nominated. Creative Loafing Atlanta is a finalist for Feature Story for a first-person piece, "Sober," by Thomas Wheatley; the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky is a finalist in the Political Column category. Entries from 57 papers made the final cut. Winners will be announced at the annual AAN convention on Friday, June 26, in Tucson.

Only one other paper, LA Weekly, which has a grand total of 68 nominations, has received more AAN awards than Washington City Paper, which now has 51.

Finalists for the Blog category have not been announced.

Pictured: One of Darrow Montgomery's nominated photos, which appeared with Ruth Samuelson's cover story, "Truce and Consequences," about a turf war in Shaw.