The Best American Essays is a yearly anthology of magazine articles published in the United States.^[1] It was started in 1986 and is now part of The Best American Series published by HarperCollins.^[2] Articles are chosen using the same procedure with other titles in the Best American series; the series editor chooses about 100 article candidates, from which the guest editor picks 25 or so for publication; the remaining runner-up articles listed in the appendix.^[1] The series is edited by Robert Atwan, and Joyce Carol Oates assisted in the editing process until 2000 with the publication of The Best American Essays of the Century.