Sarah Matusek and Emily Kluver walked off with the top prizes for feature writing, in the 2017 NY State Press Association Better Newspaper contest. The winners were announced at their spring convention in Albany.
Sarah won top honors for her front page story about Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle. Wall’s began her professional writing career in the 1970’s at the Brooklyn Phoenix, at the time Brooklyn’s top community newspaper. Star-Revue publisher George Fiala was a Phoenix employee at the time, and friends with the 17 year old Walls. She wrote the Glass Castle about her unusual upbringing, and was a longtime bestseller. The book was turned into a movie and released worldwide last summer, prompting a look at Walls’ first NYC newspaper job.
Star-Revue reporter Emily Kluver won two awards— the first, for her feature series “Neighborhood Profiles.” Her profile of local artist Beriah Wall earned second place in the Best Feature Story category, beaten out only by fellow Star-Revue journalist Matusek.
The only other Brooklyn newspaper winners were the Bay Ridge Courier and the Brooklyn Paper. The Courier won two awards and the Brooklyn Paper one. Both papers are parts of newspaper chains, with bigger advertising and editorial staffs.
“We work very hard, on a shoestring budget,” said Star-Revue publisher George Fiala. “We are limited only by the by the lack of advertising support from the community. With a bigger budget we could hire more reporters, but our existing editorial excellence has attracted some great budding journalists, who have helped make the paper a strong voice for the Red Hook community.”
The Star-Revue was founded by Fiala in 2010 and covers news and arts in Red Hook and the surrounding communities. In previous competitions it has won awards in news coverage, advertising design, and coverage of the arts, among others.
“I am blessed to be putting out a newspaper in a great part of the world!” says Fiala.
