In fantasy sports, fantasy football is king. In fantasy writing, now Ryan Bonini is king.

Bonini was recently named the 2009 Fantasy Football Writer of the Year award. Bonini was one of the founders of KFFL.c om in 1996 and has been writing about fantasy football in a variety of capacities since. Bonini follows SI.com Jay Clemons, who won the award for 2008.

Bonini beat out finalists Brad Evans of Yahoo.com and Derek VanRiper of Rotowire for the highly sought-after award. Neither Evans nor VanRiper left the FSWA award presentation without some hardware. VanRiper won for Best Football Article on the Web and Evans won the College Sports Writer of the Year.

Upon being notified that he won, Bonini said, "I was a mixed bag of emotions at the time, and being shocked was definitely a big one. When my name was announced as the winner against very strong competition I had to do a double take.

"I felt a great deal of pride to walk up to the front of the room surrounded by many peers and long-time friends to receive the award from FSWA president Mike Beacom, as it helps validate all of the hard work we do."

Bonini gave a great deal of credit to his co-editors and writers at his site. He said, "Everyone at KFFL.com puts a great deal of time, energy and thought into bringing fantasy players information and tools to help them win their leagues, so I view this as a team accomplishment and an honor for each of them, too. I honestly couldn't have won without them."

In addition to his work on KFFL.com, which now includes "a blog where I can blow off steam on a specific subject matter," Bonini’s writings on fantasy football have been published by FantasyPlayers.com, USA Today, Yahoo! Sports, FOX Sports, and many others.

When asked about what advice he’d give new fantasy writers, he said that they should be persistent, open to editing, respectful, and know that "quality will out-shine quantity every day of the week. Edit your work and put your best foot forward."

Bonini also noted, "It's a very impressive group that has won this award in the past, so it is a bit overwhelming to now be a member of that group. To compare it to the football world, I suppose this is how it feels to get into Canton."