Our Clarion call

Congratulations, again, are due to a Creative Loafing writer.

News Editor Mara Shalhoup is the winner of the 2005 Clarion Award for feature stories by a newspaper with a circulation over 100,000, the Association for Women in Communications has announced. Shalhoup won the award for last year’s two-part cover story, “Learning to hit a lick,” about three murders committed by teen prostitute Falicia Blakely.

That caps a happy year for Creative Loafing-Atlanta when it comes to journalism awards. Food Editor Bill Addison placed third nationally in the Association of Food Journalists competition for restaurant criticism (he came in first last year). We also picked up three national awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, and three first-place awards from the Society of Professional Journalists in its Southern region Green Eyeshade competition.

But Shalhoup’s Clarion may be the toughest contest we’ve won yet. “Learning to hit a lick” went head-to-head with the best work last year by the nation’s largest dailies. Previous winners include the Wall Street Journal and the Detroit Free Press. The contest is open to both men and women.

Another local journalist, Gayle White of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, also took home a Clarion Award. She won in the hard news category for her coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign.