With so much incredible, breakthrough writing happening at The Wrath Bearing Tree this year, the editors wanted to set a moment aside from their around-the-clock analysis of emergent (and urgent) intellectual issues to publish a curated list of the site's best contributors this year.
The editors used number rankings that took a great number of objective variables into account, you may take their word for it. And while the prize was not the gold medals Putin designed and personally crafted for the Sochi Olympics–in fact, it was only the satisfaction of being a part of such a noble and august group–Putin's gold accurately characterizes how, collectively, the editors feel about journalism, truth, Russia, and excellence.

1) Mr. James – a dependable source of philosophically grounded, inspired literary and social analysis, James proved himself as one of the site's very best contributors.

1) Mr. Carson – indisputably tied for best contributor to the Wrath Bearing Tree, Carson's regular and well-thought-out essays (often too "edgy" for mainstream media outlets, but occasionally not) engaged his readers, and brought crucial attention to serious issues that others lacked the fortitude – or curiosity – to tackle.

1) Mr. Webster – contributed a thoughtful essay about his time in Iraq as an embed with the 82nd – a Wrath Bearing Tree first. This pushed him over the top and into the highest echelon of elite contributors.

1) Mr. Bonenberger – if one were to look for glowing adjectives to describe Bonenberger's work, one could not do better than to begin with the entire group of superlatives. Contributors like him come around once in an age–a golden age.

And there you have it – the top 4 contributors to The Wrath Bearing Tree, 2014. Congratulations to all on an excellent year, and may 2015 be twice as prolific and useful.