From the Nominator

At the end of an excruciating year, Stanford Magazine turned to the future, pulling from the breadth of faculty and alumni expertise available to us, and offering alumni readers a glimpse into what the near future—2021—might have in store. We sought to provide a fun and engaging way to reflect on the disruption to everyday life brought by COVID-19, and the changes that might be possible because of those disruptions. 

Seven writers spoke with experts to determine where everything from real estate to romance was headed in the new year, creating 21 print and online stories ranging from 99 words to more than 3,000. Retro-future illustrations added a twist of humor to our “predictions” for the future, and matched the tone of our introduction and cover headline: 21 Ways Your Life Will Be Different in 2021 (Or Maybe Not).

From the Judges

If the bold, colorful, and futuristic design of this collection initially caught the attention of the judges, the smart, snappy, and highly entertaining stories kept us reading—and laughing. In other words, this package offered a breath of fresh air after a year of collective doom scrolling. The opening sentence, “Be honest, you’ve wanted to dump 2020 like a flaming pile of your quarantine puppy’s excrement since April,” really set the tone. Joking about anything related to 2020 is a risk, but in this case it pays off. The collection is comprehensively told, yet filled with delight and great details that keep it moving. It’s clever, timely, interesting and, importantly, easy to skim, with so many different points of entry. The writers and editors make excellent use of alumni sources and experts, and they smartly invite reader engagement by ending with #22, a participatory call to action, “What did we miss?” One judge noted that if she saw this magazine in a bookstore, she’d buy it and keep it, to see if Stanford Magazine’s predictions come true.