CL’s Thomas Wheatley a finalist for national journalism award

Anyone who’s read “Sober,” Thomas Wheatley’s gut-wrenching account of his battle with alcoholism, knows that the story  does a beautiful job describing the horrors and rewards of overcoming a common — and often unacknowledged — disease. (If you haven’t read it, you should. Now.)

The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies has taken notice. “Sober” has been deemed one of the top five feature stories published by the country’s largest-circulation alt-weeklies. Other finalists for the AAN Award in the Feature Story category hail from LA Weekly, Houston Press and Denver’s Westword. The ranking of the finalists will be announced in late June.

Our sister papers, Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper, earned nominations in another six categories. Congrats guys! And congrats, Mr. Wheatley!

In other awards news, CL Photo Editor Joeff Davis is a finalist for the Atlanta Press Club’s Journalist of the Year Award in the Photography category. Go Joeff!