Breaking: Martha Stewart gets an Ellie

The 2005 National Magazine Award winners were announced this afternoon at the Waldorf-Astoria, with a surprise appearance by Martha Stewart to accept her Ellie for Martha Stewart ‘Weddings,’ nary a shackle in sight.

One attendee said the crowd was genuinely taken by surprise. “I don’t even think they [the organizers] knew she was going to come – they didn’t even read her name out as one of the nominees.” He said Martha looked “fabulous” in “big fat pearls” and a leather jacket (the food, however, was apparently not fabulous).

Dwell Magazine won for general excellence for circulation up to 250,000, and our source tells us that when EIC Allison Arieff accepted her award she said that as a youth she had “always wanted to be the editor of Time Magazine.”

Shortly thereafter Time managing editor Jim Kelley ascended the stage and commented that it was funny, because “he’d always wanted to be the editor of Dwell Magazine.” The audience response was apparently lukewarm. “What she said was cute and nice, and what he said was obnoxious and pretentious,” said our source.

Other winners included the most-nominated – and most-awarded -New Yorker, with a whopping five, along with Glamour, Newsweek, Wired, Esquire and sellers of advertising space.

Complete results here.

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