It looks (and certainly reads) like 2014 was a wonderful year for Alberta magazines, with nearly two dozen titles garnering nominations for the Showcase Awards and Swerve leading the way with 11.
Alberta Venture (10), New Trail (10), Avenue Calgary (8) and Glass Buffalo (7) follow next; the latter is a literary magazine that won Best New Magazine at last year’s awards, which are presented by the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association.
National Magazine Award-winning writers and artists are prominent among the Alberta nominees this year:
- Omar Mouallem: Essay (Avenue Edmonton); Essay (Swerve); Feature Writing (Swerve); Profile (Avenue Edmonton)
- Jeremy Klaszus: Alberta Story (Swerve)
- Paul Roelofs: Covers (Western Living)
- Martin Tessler: Photograph (Western Living)
- Curtis Gillespie: Profile (New Trail)
Other finalists include former NMA nominees like Naomi K. Lewis, Marcello Di Cintio, Arno Kopecky and Max Fawcett.
There are 15 Showcase Awards for creators (writers, illustrators, photographers, art directors and digital designers). Among them…
Cover
- Avenue Edmonton Stephen Mandel – Curtis Trent, photographer; Pete Nguyen, art director
- Georgie Issue No 2 F14 – Nathan Marshall, art director, Aaron Pedersen, photographer
- New Trail Autumn – Marcey Andrews, art director
- Up!Magazine The Food Guide -Jill Foran, editor
- Western Living September – Paul Roelofs, art director; Evaan Kheraj portrait photographer
Fiction
- Freefall The Bull of Heaven – Paddy Scott
- Glass Buffalo Pearl – Bruce Cinnamon
- Marker Utility – Caleb Caswell
- On Spec Handcrafting – Anita Dolman
- Prairie Journal The Royal Visit – Vivian Zenari
Poetry
- Freefall A Kindness of Bees – Cassy Welburn
- Freefall But I’m No One – Weyman Chan
- Glass Buffalo Frog Lake – Erika Luckert
- Glass Buffalo Mink – Fatima Fayad
- Glass Buffalo What Do I know? – Liam Kay
Emerging Writer
- Avenue Calgary From Calgary to Calcutta Without a Calendar – Andrew Guilbert
- Avenue Calgary Volunteer Year – Madeline Smith
- Glass Buffalo A Paragraph – Josh Greschner
- Glass Buffalo  A Tale of Two Forms – Peter Takach
- Glass Buffalo On Living: A second draft – Andrew Moore
Check out all the finalists here.
The 2015 Alberta Magazine Award winners (for the Showcase Awards) will be announced on March 5 at a gala during the annual Alberta Magazines Conference in Calgary.
The winners of the Achievement Awards–Achievement in Publishing, Best New Magazine, Editor of the Year, Magazine of the Year, and Volunteer of the Year–will be announced next Wednesday, February 11.
