The MagAwards blog is back! Latest news…

The Magazine Awards blog is fueled up and ready to roll again after a summer hiatus. Hope you, too, enjoyed your summer, perhaps part of which was spent curled up with the 36th National Magazine Awards Gold Book, a digital collection of this past year’s NMA Gold Winners.

And now for a little Magazine Awards news to get us back in the swing…

Belated congrats to two-time NMA winner Carol Shaben, whose 2012 book Into the Abyss was named the winner of this year’s prestigious Edna Staebler Prize for Creative Non-fiction, an award bestowed by Wilfred Laurier University that includes a cash prize of $10,000. Read our profile of the book Into the Abyss as well as our interview with Carol Shaben about her incredible story and her path to becoming a writer. Ms. Shaben will receive her award in a ceremony on November 13.

Former National Magazine Award winner David Baines has been named this year’s winner of the Bruce Hutchison Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by the Jack Webster Foundation honoring career excellence in British Columbia journalism. The award will be presented at a ceremony in Vancouver on October 30. Mr. Baines has been a reporter at the Vancouver Sun for more than 25 years. He won a Gold National Magazine Award in 1994 for his work in Vancouver Magazine.

This year’s winner of the first National Magazine Award for tablet publishing – Canadian House & Home – caught the attention of the high-profile blog of the software giant Adobe, which featured House & Home‘s tablet edition in a post in August. They noted, “every issue of this magazine is interesting, inventive and takes full advantage of the DPS features that enable an immersive, interactive experience.”

Legion, a periodical of Canadian military history, has been named one of three finalists for this year’s Pierre Berton Award, known more formally as the Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Popular Media. Legion won an honourable mention at the 2010 National Magazine Awards for its special issue “World War I: The War that Shaped a Nation.” The other two finalists for this year’s Pierre Berton Award are military historians Tim Cook and Mark Zuehlke. The winner will be announced at the Governor General’s Awards ceremony in Ottawa on November 19.

The award-winning fashion title Flare has unveiled a redesign as of this month’s issue, the product of the magazine’s new creative director Michèle Champagne, and featuring custom calligraphy with a retro feel by Olivia Grandperrin. Editor Amanda Purves explains in her latest note to Flare‘s readers: “When I first met Michèle, she was sustaining herself, after spending several years in Amsterdam, with interesting contract gigs and making her own magazine about graphic design. I instantly knew she had the true vision of an artist. A fashion magazine needs that—the Alexander Libermans, the Fabien Barons—or it’s not special.”

And, Up Here magazine just announced the winners of its Robert Service Poetry Contest, with Gus Barrett of Qualicum Beach, B.C., winning the top prize for “Willy the musher.”

Good to be back on the blog. Stay with us for regular updates this year on National Magazine Award winners, events, news and more, including, of course, updates on this coming year’s National Magazine Awards submissions, slated to open on December 1.

And follow us on Twitter @MagAwards.