On June 1st, the National Media Awards Foundation (NMAF) proudly presented the winners of the 41st annual National Magazine Awards. The gala was hosted by award-winning reporter Noémi Mercier, and held at the Arcadian Court in Toronto.
“Tonight, the Canadian magazine community congregated in Toronto to celebrate the best in our industry. Special guests joined our writers, editors, designers, publishers, and visual artists to celebrate excellence in magazine journalism. On behalf of the National Media Awards Foundation, and those working in this great and vibrant industry, I congratulate the winners and nominees of this year’s National Magazine Awards.” – Nino Di Cara, President of the NMAF
BEST NEW MAGAZINE WRITER
The prestigious Best New Magazine Writer award was presented to Jessica Rose, for her piece “Lost and Found” published in Toronto Life. This award recognizes an emerging author whose early work in magazines shows the highest degree of craft and promise.
The National Magazine Awards jury said of the story:
“With the suspense and pacing of a great mystery, Rose unwinds her own search for family and belonging with an outstanding, unputdownable rookie effort.”
Honourable mentions went to Julian Brave NoiseCat (Canadian Geographic), Justin Dallaire (United Church Observer), Christopher Elliott (Outpost Magazine) and Hadiya Roderique (The Walrus).
MAGAZINE GRAND PRIX
The Site Magazine—a literary, architecture, and urbanism journal—captured the coveted Magazine Grand Prix award. This award honours the magazine that delivers the best consistency, packaging, and reader experience; that demonstrates overall excellence in bringing teams together to create a spectacular product; is aspirational and inspiring, helping to take magazine media to the next level. The National Magazine Awards jury said of the magazine:
“The Site Magazine impresses readers with the consistency of its content and design. Though highly specialized, this audacious magazine captures the essence of contemporary publishing through a conceptual approach that illuminates our time in an intelligent, deep and original way. The result is a great reader experience on every page, one that is truly deserving of the Magazine Grand Prix.”
The Site Magazine was also the winner of the Best Magazine: Art & Literary award, and the Silver winner in the Best Editorial Package category, for its whole-issue package titled “Future Legacies.”
The winners for the six GRAND PRIX: BEST MAGAZINE categories are: L’actualité for Best Magazine: General Interest; Ricardo for Best Magazine: Lifestyle; Best Health for Best Magazine: Service; FASHION Magazine for Best Magazine: Fashion & Beauty; The Site Magazine for Best Magazine: Art & Literary; and Hayo for Best Magazine: Special Interest.
Five magazines won a National Magazine Award for the first time: Hayo, Inuit Art Quarterly, L’inconvénient, Registered Nurse Journal and The Site Magazine.
New to this year’s program was the Edtor Grand Prix award, which was presented to Lianne George, editor of Chatelaine magazine. The award honours an individual who is making an outstanding impact on a magazine as an editor. Receiving Honourable Mention were Charles Grandmont (L’actualité) and Nicolas Langelier (Nouveau Projet).
The 2018 Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement was presented to Joyce Byrne, publisher of Avenue Calgary. Described as a “champion of magazines,” Joyce has an all-in approach to her work that makes her stand out.
“Joyce doesn’t look for easy,” notes Penny Caldwell, former editor and publisher of Cottage Life. “Since bursting onto the magazine publishing scene, she has consistently reached beyond her own sphere to help others.”
Read more about Joyce’s dedication to the magazine industry at magazine-awards.com/oa.
Top winning magazines at the 41st National Magazine Awards:
|
Magazine |
GOLD |
SILVER |
HM |
|
L’actualité |
3 |
4 |
6 |
|
Dînette Magazine |
3 |
0 |
2 |
|
The Site Magazine |
2 |
1 |
0 |
|
Toronto Life |
2 |
1 |
6 |
|
The Walrus |
2 |
0 |
10 |
|
Maclean’s |
2 |
0 |
5 |
|
Canadian Geographic |
2 |
0 |
2 |
|
FASHION Magazine |
1 |
1 |
7 |
|
L’inconvénient |
1 |
1 |
1 |
Magazines that took home one Gold medal include: Best Health, Chatelaine, Eighteen Bridges, ELQ/Exile Magazine, Hayo, Literary Review of Canada, New Trail, Prefix Photo, Registered Nurse Journal, Ricardo, Swerve, and The Kit Compact.
Air Canada enRoute, Alberta Views Magazine, Avenue Edmonton, Azure, ELLE Canada, Flare, Hakai Magazine, Inuit Art Quarterly, Québec Science, Prairie Fire, The Malahat Review, URBANIA, and Vancouver Magazine all received one Silver medal.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 41st NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARDS
The magazine L’actualité won three Gold and four Silver medals. Reporter and columnist Noémi Mercier captured Gold for her column “Des gars, des filles.” In the Service Journalism category, L’actualité swept both awards, with journalist Yanick Villedieu taking Gold for “La guerre au sucre” and Mathilde Roy Silver for “Quand Facebook remplit les biberons.” Data journalist Naël Shiab also captured Silver in Investigative Reporting for his story “Marchandises militaires : la grande hypocrisie canadienne,” as did Marc-André Sabourin in the Feature Writing category for “L’école à la chaîne. The magazine art director, Amélie Chamberland, also won silver for Art Direction of a Single Magazine Article for the piece “Changer le monde.” Finally, the publication was named Best General Interest Magazine.
Lifestyle magazine Dînette, published by editor and art director Hélène Mallette and publisher and photographer Mathieu Lachapelle, took home three Gold Medals in the categories of Best Editorial Package (the “Salé” issue), Lifestyle Photography (“Les îles Féréo : à la frontière du monde et des saveurs”) and Art Direction Grand Prix (the “Pigment” issue).
Toronto Life took home three medals, two golds and one silver. The coveted Best New Magazine Writer title went to emerging writer – and the magazine’s former art director – Jessica Rose, who impressed the judges with her piece “Lost and Found.” As well, writer Raizel Robin won a Gold medal for his investigation into the Toronto South Detention Centre (“The 1-Billion Hellhole”). Finally, Toronto Life captured its third award of the night thanks to Malcolm Johnston’s profile of the Blue Jays’ star third-baseman, titled “Josh Donaldson’s Road to Glory.”
The Walrus won two Gold medals in the visual categories of Illustration and Portrait Photography. Visual artist Lauren Tamaki captured Gold for her piece “Get the Scissors,” as did photographer Sara Hylton in Portrait Photography thanks to her “Portraits of Resilience.”
Maclean’s magazine won two National Magazine Awards, both Gold. Writer Jason Markusoff took home the award for Feature Writing (“The New Underground Railroad”), and Nancy Macdonald for Short Feature Writing (“Waiting for Death in Thunder Bay”).
The Canadian Geographic team also took home two Gold Medals. Wade Davis, Nick Walker and Chris Brackley won in the category of One-of-a-Kind Storytelling for their “Indigenous languages of Canada Poster Map,” and writer Charles Wilkins in the writing category of Long-Form Feature Writing for his story “Trash Nation.”
FASHION Magazine’s work was recognized twice, as the publication captured a Gold and a Silver Medal. The magazine was named Best Fashion & Beauty Magazine in addition to winning Silver for Cover Grand Prix for “40 Years of Style.”
The French-language literary publication L’inconvénient captured two awards after receiving its first-ever nominations at the National Magazine Awards. Poet Rosalie Lessard won the Gold Medal in Poetry for her piece “Base-de-roc,” the first time in the history of the National Magazine Awards that a French-language poem has captured the Gold Medal. Meanwhile photographer David Himbert won Silver in Photojournalism and Photo Essay for his Cuban story “Les Cubains et l’après-Fidel.”
WRITING & VISUAL AWARDS
In the 18 creator-focused categories, the Gold and Silver medalists are:
Long-Form Feature Writing
Gold: Charles Wilkins, “Trash Nation,” Canadian Geographic
Silver: J.B. MacKinnon, “Death of a Modern Wolf,” Hakai Magazine
Feature Writing
Gold: Jason Markusoff, “The new underground railroad,” Maclean’s
Silver: Marc-André Sabourin, “L’école à la chaîne,” L’actualité
Best Short Feature
Gold: Nancy Macdonald, “Waiting for Death in Thunder Bay,” Maclean’s
Silver: Christopher Frey, “Osaka To ‘Em,” Air Canada enRoute
Columns
Gold: Noémi Mercier, “Des gars, des filles,” L’actualité
Silver: Anne Thériault, “Anne Thériault, Flare
Essays
Gold: Stephen Marche, “Northern Shadows,” Literary Review of Canada
Silver: Clem Martini, “When Things Fall Apart,” Alberta Views Magazine
Investigative Reporting
Gold: Raizel Robin, “The $1-Billion Hellhole,” Toronto Life
Silver: Naël Shiab, “Marchandises militaires: la grande hypocrisie Canadienne,” L’actualité
Fiction
Gold : Diana Svennes-Smith, “Stranger In Me,” Exile/ELQ Magazine
Silver: Jason Jobin, “Before He Left,” The Malahat Review
Personal Journalism
Gold: Omar Mouallem, “Homeland for the Holidays,” Eighteen Bridges
Silver: Guillaume Roy, “À vous glacer le sang,” Québec Science
Poetry
Gold: Rosalie Lessard, “Base-de-roc,” L’inconvénient
Silver: Sarah Klassen, “Beauty; Sermon series in a Mennonite Church,” Prairie Fire
Professional Article
Gold: Daniel Punch, “Living Me,” Registered Nurse Journal
Silver: Linda Besner, “The Glass Tower,” Azure
Profiles
Gold: Danielle Groen, “Courage, My Love,” The Kit Compact
Silver: Malcolm Johnston, “Josh Donaldson’s Road to Glory,” Toronto Life
Service Journalism
Gold: Yanick Villedieu, “La guerre au sucre,” L’actualité
Silver: Mathilde Roy, “Quand Facebook remplit les biberons,” L’actualité
Best New Magazine Writer
Gold: Jessica Rose, “Lost and Found,” Toronto Life
Illustration
Gold: Lauren Tamaki, “Get the Scissors,” The Walrus
Silver: Robert Carter, “Family History,” Avenue Edmonton
Lifestyle Photography
Gold: Mathieu Lachapelle, “Les îles Féroé : à la frontière du monde et des saveurs,” Dînette Magazine
Silver: D. Picard, “Easy Riders,” ELLE Canada
Portraits Photography
Gold: Sara Hylton, “Portraits of Resilience,” The Walrus
Silver: Carlo Ricci, “Towing the Line,” Vancouver Magazine
Photojournalism and Photo Essay
Gold: George Webber, “Uprooted,” Swerve
Silver: David Himbert, “Les Cubains et l’après-Fidel,” L’inconvénient
One of a Kind Storytelling
Gold: Wade Davis, Nick Walker, Chris Brackley, “Indigenous Languages of Canada Poster Map,” Canadian Geographic
Silver: Inuit Art Quarterly staff and contributors, “30 Artists to Know,” Inuit Art Quarterly
EDITORIAL AWARDS
The gold winners for the editorial awards, presented to the staff of the magazine, are:
Cover Grand Prix
Gold: Marcey Andrews, Lisa Cook, Daniella Zalcman, “Truth First,” New Trail
Silver: Brittany Eccles, Noreen Flanagan, Owen Bruce, Benjamin Shine, Anna Katsanis, Lucas Wilson, Linda Gradin, Rieko Okusa, Alexandria Rudolph, Amber Witcomb, “40 Years of Style,” FASHION Magazine
Best Editorial Package
Gold: Hélène Mallette, “Salé,” Dînette Magazine
Silver: Miriam Ho, Ruth Jones, Aisling O’Carroll, Carey van der Zalm, Michael Taylor, Nicole Bruun-Meyer, “Volume 37: Future Legacies,” The Site Magazine
Art Direction Grand Prix
Gold: Hélène Mallette, “Pigment,” Dînette Magazine
Silver: Nicolas Boissy, “Spécial nos parents,” URBANIA
Art Direction for a Single Article
Gold: Underline Studio, “Documenta Doubled,” Prefix Photo
Silver: Amélie Chamberland, “Changer le monde,” L’actualité
Editor Grand Prix
Lianne George, Chatelaine
For a complete list of winners in all categories, visit magazine-awards.com.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The NMAF gratefully acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada, the Ontario Arts Council and the Ontario Media Development Corporation. The Foundation thanks its generous sponsors, CDS Global and the Reader’s Digest Foundation, as well as its partners Cision, Goetz Storytelling, Impresa Communications, Magazines Canada, RedPoint Media and Marketing Solutions, Rolland Paper, Solisco, The Arcadian Court, Toronto Life, Very Good Studios, and the Feathertale Review.
The NMAF gratefully acknowledges all its suppliers and its contributors who donated gifts in kind to support the awards program. We thank them for their generosity, interest and expertise.
Amira Elghawaby is an award-winning journalist and human rights advocate. Along with frequent appearances on Canadian and international news networks, Amira has written and produced stories and commentary for CBC Radio, the Ottawa Citizen, the Toronto Star, the Literary Review of Canada, and the Globe and Mail. Amira spent five years promoting the civil liberties of Canadian Muslims as human rights officer and later, as director of communications, at the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) between 2012 to the fall of 2017. Amira obtained an honours degree in Journalism and Law from Carleton University in 2001.
Andrew Braithwaite is a BC-born magazine journalist who covers food, wine, architecture and design from his current base in San Francisco. He’s a contributing editor of Azure, and has won multiple NMAs for his work on enRoute’s “Canada’s Best New Restaurants.”
Anna Ling Kaye has published internationally and been short-listed for the Journey Prize. She is a former editor at PRISM international and Ricepaper magazines, and recently guest-edited issue #143 of The New Quarterly magazine. Anna sits on the board of Project Bookmark Canada, and is co-founder of Hapa-palooza Festival, a celebration of mixed heritage and identity.
Arnaud Granata dirige le média spécialisé Infopresse qui couvre le monde du marketing, de la publicité et des médias au Québec. Infopresse produit et diffuse une large gamme de contenus (conférences, magazines, formations, concours, sites web) destinés aux professionnels de l’industrie. Arnaud est également auteur. Son dernier livre, Le pouvoir de l’échec a été publié en septembre 2016. Il est le concepteur et producteur au contenu de l’émission Dans les médias etest le concepteur et le journaliste de la série documentaire 30 secondes pour changer le monde à Télé-Québec. Il anime débats, tables rondes et entrevues et il commente aussi l’actualité des marques et des médias à l’émission Medium Large. On le voit régulièrement à la télé pour parler pub, consommation, médias et tendances.
Bänoo Zan is a poet, translator, teacher, editor and poetry curator, with more than 160 published poems and poetry-related pieces as well as three books. Song of Phoenix: Life and Works of Sylvia Plath, was reprinted in Iran in 2010. Songs of Exile, her first poetry collection, was released in 2016 in Canada by Guernica Editions. It was shortlisted for Gerald Lampert Memorial Award by the League of Canadian Poets in 2017. Letters to My Father, her second poetry book, was published in 2017 by Piquant Press in Canada. She is the founder of Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night), Toronto’s most diverse poetry reading and open mic series (inception: 2012). It is a brave space that bridges the gap between communities of poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), ages, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, poetic styles, voices and visions.
Benjamin Hertwig was the recipient of a National Magazine Award in 2017, and his debut collection of poems, Slow War, was a finalist for the 2017 Governor General’s Award. His essays have appeared in places like the New York Times, NPR, the Walrus, Maisonneuve, and the Sun Magazine.
Bill Whitelaw is executive vice-president, business information, for Glacier Media, a Canadian publishing and information services company. In this role, Whitelaw oversees a variety of long-serving B2B brands such as The Daily Oil Bulletin, Oilweek, The Northern Miner and Western Producer. Whitelaw’s career spans more than three decades in the Canadian media space, including stints as reporter, editor and publisher. He is a graduate of Loyalist College, Queen’s University and the University of Calgary.
Carolyn is an award-winning writer and communications specialist. Her feature articles have appeared in major national magazines including Toronto Life and
Brian Morgan, though he studied printmaking at art school, has worked as a graphic designer and an art director for the past 23 years, 17 of these in editorial design. He has worked for (or on) Maclean’s, Saturday Night, C, Dose, The Vancouver Review, and The Walrus. At this last publication, he was the art director for nine years. He also sat on the executive committee of the National Magazine Awards, as its secretary. He lives and works in Montreal.
Charles DesGroseilliers est directeur artistique dans le milieu éditorial depuis plus de 10 ans. Il a commencé par le magazine Commerce en 2007, avant de se voir confier la responsabilité de créer la grille ainsi qu’assumer la direction artistique des magazines Premium (2009), Les Affaires Plus (2010) et finalement le journal Les Affaires (2014). À travers les années, sa passion pour le design imprimé l’a amené à avoir à développer une expertise en vidéo, en illustration et en publicité.
Chelene Knight is a Vancouver born-and-raised graduate of The Writer’s Studio at SFU. In addition to being a workshop facilitator for teens, she is also a literary event organizer, host, and seasoned panelist. She has been published in various Canadian and American literary magazines, and her work is widely anthologized. Chelene is currently the Managing Editor at Room magazine, and the 2018 Programming Director for the Growing Room Festival. Braided Skin, her first book (Mother Tongue Publishing, March 2015), has given birth to numerous writing projects including her second book, memoir, Dear Current Occupant (BookThug, 2018). In 2016 Chelene worked with fiction mentor Jen Sookfong Lee to flesh out the first draft of a historical novel set Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley.
Christopher Wahl is a working photographer living in Toronto, Canada. He has shot assignments for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, TIME, LIFE, and most Canadian magazines ever since the 1990’s. Christopher has been nominated for 17 national magazine awards and has never won gold. His work is part of many private and public collections, notably in Canada the permanent collection of The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).
D. B. Scott (David) is president of Impresa Communications Limited of Cambridge, Ont., consultants to the magazine industry and the not-for-profit sector. He is the academic coordinator for magazine and web publishing at Ryerson University’s Chang School of Continuing Education. For 13 years he has published Canadian Magazines, a daily blog about the industry (www.canadianmags.blogspot.com ). He has been a frequent moderator and presenter at the MagNet industry conference, at Magazines Canada’s Business Media Summit, a frequent awards judge for the national and western awards as well as the International Regional Magazines Association (IRMA). He was president of the National Magazine Awards Foundation in 1991 and was presented with the Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement — the industry’s highest individual honour — in 2010 .
David Beers is founding editor of the independent news site The Tyee. Beers was senior editor at Mother Jones, the San Francisco Examiner and the Vancouver Sun. His writing has won National Magazine Awards in the U.S. and Canada. He is adjunct professor at UBC Graduate School of Journalism and SFU School of Communication.
Deanne Gage is a Toronto-based editor and writer who has specialized in personal finance issues since 1999. She’s the editor of FORUM magazine, and is a money columnist for The Toronto Star. A recipient of several journalism awards, Deanne’s work has appeared in MoneySense, Chatelaine, Morningstar.ca, Today’s Parent, CPA magazine, and leading business-to-business publications.
Derek Finkle founded Canadian Writers Group in 2009. After graduating from Princeton University, Derek became Toronto Life magazine’s first editorial intern in 1993. He went on to be a regular contributor to Saturday Night magazine and The Globe and Mail, among other publications, before publishing his first book, No Claim to Mercy, in 1998, which won the Crime Writers’ Arthur Ellis Award for best non-fiction and was named a Notable Book of the Year by The Globe and Mail. From 2002 to 2007, he was the editor of Toro magazine, which garnered more than 60 National Magazine Award nominations, including Finkle’s gold for investigative reporting in 2005.![DominiqueRitter_6194_cropped[2].jpg](https://magazineawards.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/dominiqueritter_6194_cropped2.jpg?resize=228%2C228)
Dr. Priscilla Settee is Swampy Cree member of Cumberland House First Nations and a Professor of Indigenous Studies and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. She has won recognition nationally and internationally as an award-winning professor and as a global educator/activist. She is the author of two books Pimatisiwin, Global Indigenous Knowledge Systems(2013) that looks at global Indigenous Knowledge Systems and The Strength of Women, Ahkameyimohk(2011) that examines the role of Indigenous women’s stories in establishing truth, reconciliation and social change. Dr. Settee is working on her third book on Indigenous Food Sovereignty. She is a kohkum(grandmother) to Nya Lily and Lola Rose.
Gary Ross is a former editor-in- chief of Saturday Night and Vancouver magazines and has been honoured with half a dozen National Magazine Awards, and has edited scores of award-winning articles by other writers. His books include the No. 1 nonfiction bestseller Stung: The Incredible Obsession of Brian Molony (which became the feature film Owning Mahowny, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman). His popular presentation, The Ross Rules, trains people in organizations to communicate more effectively.
Georges 
James Hewes was a Publisher and Head of International at BBC Magazines. Part of the team that sold the business to private equity in November 2011, he was then Publishing Director for Top Gear, Good Food, Easy Cook and Lonely Planet Magazine and a Director of BBC Haymarket Exhibitions. He spent four years in Dubai, running Gulf News Publishing. Responsible for more than 30 product areas, he launched the group’s first consumer title in Arabic – wheels Arabic. Appointed President & CEO of FIPP in September 2017, he joined from The Art Newspaper, having been Interim CEO since December 2016.
Janet Eger is a board director with the Writers’ Trust, a charitable organization that seeks to advance, nurture, and celebrate Canadian voices through the country’s writers and writing. She spent a decade with Indigo, Canada’s largest book retailer, as the Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications, and as a board director with the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation. Prior to joining Indigo, Janet spent six years at Holt Renfrew where she oversaw Advertising and Public Relations, and five years at Canadian Pacific/Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, where she gained global communications experience while supporting 40 hotels in six countries. She has also worked in broadcast media. Born and raised in Calgary, now based in Toronto, Janet is an avid skier, traveller, and book lover.
Jonny Hughes is a group art director for the London based travel media agency Ink. He has been working in content magazine publishing for the past 20 years across the fashion, retail, food and travel sectors and has won several awards for design and art direction. He lives in Southeast London with his wife and two children and is obsessed with photography and table tennis.
Joyce Byrne is Group Publisher at RedPoint Media, where she oversees Avenue Calgary and other titles. Joyce has been the president of the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association since 2014, and has also served as president of the NMAF and as a director of Magazines Canada. Before relocating to Canada’s sunniest city she was Vice President at Venture Publishing in Edmonton, but is originally from Toronto, where she began her magazine career at This Magazine, and has served 15 years as Taddle Creek’s proofreader.
Julie Cailliau est rédactrice en chef du Groupe Les Affaires, qui publie le journal Les Affaires, le site lesaffaires.com, le magazine Les Affaires Plus et l’infolettre exclusive aux abonnés, le Bulletin privilège. Julie a fait ses débuts de journaliste en France, et elle poursuit cette passion au Québec depuis plus de 15 ans. Le fil conducteur de sa carrière est le goût d’apprendre et de communiquer ses découvertes.
Karen Christensen is Editor in Chief of Rotman Management magazine, published by the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. She and her team have won two silver national Magazine Awards: Art Direction for an Entire Issue (2009) and Best Single Issue (2014). She holds a BA in English from McGill University and attended Simon Fraser University’s Publishing Program.
Kim Jernigan spent her working life as a tutor in the Writing Centre at The University of Waterloo where she also taught courses in literature, composition, and public speaking. On the side, she volunteered in the editorial ranks of The New Quarterly, a Canadian literary magazine, winning the Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement from the National Magazine Awards on her retirement in 2014. She continues to keep a hand in as a contest adjudicator at The New Quarterly and a contributing editor at Canadian Notes and Queries.
Kim Shiffman, a veteran of the Canadian magazine industry, has been at Today’s Parent and todaysparent.com since 2015, and is currently deputy editor. Previously, Kim served as managing editor at Connected Rogers and Allergic Living, and prior to that, she was senior online editor at Travelzoo and senior editor at Profit. Kim graduated from the University of Toronto and received a post-graduate diploma from Centennial College. She’s married and the mom of two boys.
Kristy Woudstra is currently the Managing Editor of The UC Observer magazine. Her 20-year career has included working for The Huffington Post, Today’s Parent, Outdoor Canada, MoneySense as well as international development organizations. She has traveled the world to cover stories in countries like Niger, Uganda, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico and her writing has appeared in many Canadian publications including The Walrus, Canadian Living, Geez and This. Needless to say, she doesn’t exactly have a niche — she just likes a good story.
MaryAnn Camilleri, Founder, The Magenta Foundation, Co- Producer, Edition Toronto Established in 2004, The Magenta Foundation is Canada’s pioneering charitable arts-publishing house. Magenta was created to advocate for and showcase the work of artists in an international context, through circulated exhibitions and publications. Magenta has continued to evolve by finding new and innovative ways to connect artists to the global arts world and is always expanding its publishing departments, to bring the most notable artists forward. Under the Magenta umbrella, there is something for everyone to enjoy and be inspired by. Projects mounted by Magenta are supported with international coverage by the industry’s most renowned media outlets and critical reviews in all traditional media formats.
Matthew Inman is the creative director for Spinning Top. Matthew has 25 years experience in the graphic design industry. His career started at International Publishers, Hearst UK and he went on to work as Group Art Director for the prestigious Blue Door Media and Seven publishing companies with a client base that included Next, Fortnum & Mason, BlackRock, Savills and Virgin Holidays. He was an integral part of successful pitches for Canada Poste and the Dove brand in Canada.
Melissa Geurts is a New York-based creative director. Currently, Melissa is the Creative Director at Hearst’s Good Housekeeping magazine, the largest women’s lifestyle magazine reaching an audience of 38+ million readers monthly. Beginning in 2014, Melissa worked alongside Editor-in-Chief, Jane Francisco, to reinvent the 130-year-old brand to create a chic, modern and fresh redesign. At the magazine, Melissa is responsible for the creative direction of the monthly magazine including editorial conceptualization and design execution. Prior to her role at Good Housekeeping, Melissa was the Design Director at Chatelaine, Canada’s largest woman’s magazine and designer at Style at Home. She made the move to NYC in 2014 and is currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. Follow along at @melissageurts
Natalie Turvey is Executive Director of The Canadian Journalism Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that promotes and celebrates excellence in journalism, and brings media literacy to greater public through education, research, and one of the industry’s most prestigious annual awards programs. Natalie serves on numerous industry advisory groups and judging committees for journalism organizations, awards and fellowships. Natalie is an experienced media relations, communications, and not-for-profit management professional with more than 15 years of international experience. She has an MBA from the European University in Brussels, Belgium.
Nicolas Boissy aime le design. Le design d’identité, d’emballage, de l’espace et d’édition attirent particulièrement sa curiosité. Après plus de dix années passées chez orangetango, il est maintenant designer graphique indépendant depuis deux ans. Son travail a été reconnu dans le cadre de divers concours nationaux et internationaux comme AIGA, uVU, Applied Arts, Cannes et Grafika. Son éthique de travail, sa rigueur intellectuelle et son aptitude à voir tous les détails d’un projet en font un atout précieux auprès des collègues et clients.
Penny is the former Publisher and VP of Cottage Life Media. She was editor of Cottage Life magazine for 15 years before moving into the Publisher’s office in 2016. Under her leadership, the magazine won hundreds of national and international magazine awards. She has taught in Ryerson University’s Magazine and Web Publishing program and is past president of the International Regional Magazine Association and a former director of Canada’s National Magazine Awards Foundation. In 2017, she was presented with the NMA’s Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement. This year, Penny left Cottage Life to start a new chapter pursuing projects that stretch both her creative and her management skills.
Poet and playwright, Daniel David Moses, a trailblazing First Nations writer, hails from Six Nations Grand River. His most recent poetry collections are River Range (a CD with original music by David Deleary) and ‘A Small Essay on the Largeness of Light’ and Other Poems (2012). His plays include Coyote City (a 1991 Governor General’s nominee) and Almighty Voice and His Wife, now included in The Norton Anthology of Drama, 2nd Edition, Volume 2: The Nineteenth Century to the Present.
Rafi Ghanaghounian is the Executive Director of Keep Six Contemporary Art, a not for profit arts organization dedicated to representing, supporting and promoting the arts nationally and internationally through public events and exhibitions as well as educational programs that attract and engage artists, organizations and the cultural community. Ghanaghounian is an accomplished Curator, gallery operator and promoter with over fifteen years of experience developing, implementing and promoting exhibition and events for individuals and groups in private galleries and public institutions.
Randy Velocci started out as a photojournalist working for magazines, newspapers and on occasion corporate clients for 10 years based in Toronto. When it was time for a career change, he accepted the assistant photo editor position at Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail. For the last 20 years he has been assigning and editing photography assignments from around the world. Stories include news, sports, lifestyle, business and a variety of other topics and issues. As much as he loves assigning he finds the reward is the final edit on what gets published and shared with our readers. Randy has had the pleasure of working with a great many talented photographers and always enjoys seeing how their work impacts people and changes peoples perception on important issues we face in the world today.
Rita Leistner is a photographer known for “The Tree Planters,” Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq, The Edward Curtis Project and Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally, published widely and are in collections including the Canadian War Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum. She was a finalist for the 2017 Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography at Harvard University, has won three Canadian National Magazine Awards Gold Medals and is a nominee for a 2018 World Press Photo Digital Storytelling Award. Rita has an MA in comparative literature, has planted over 500,000 trees in Canada and is represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery.
Stephen Kimber is an award-winning writer, editor and broadcaster, and the author of nine books, including one novel and eight nonfiction books. He is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax and co-founder of the King’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction program.
Stephen Trumper Is a journalism instructor at Ryerson University and the back-page columnist for Abilities magazine. A former recipient of the Foundation award for outstanding achievement, Stephen has worked as an editor for the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Harrowsmith and Financial Post Business magazine.
Susan de Cartier has been managing artists and developing talent since 1990. Forming Starfish Entertainment in 1995, the company has been involved in the creation and release of more than 50 albums. The company’s roster of clients includes Blue Rodeo, Jim Cuddy, The Sadies, Oh Susanna, Skydiggers and Harrow Fair. Over the course of her career, Susan has guided Blue Rodeo on to become one of the most successful bands in Canadian history garnering 12 Junos and selling over four million albums worldwide to date. Starfish also manages The Woodshed Recording Studio. Susan sits on the Board of Directors for the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) and the Music Managers Forum.
Tanja-Tiziana is Visual Artist & Pro Photographer based in Toronto, Canada. They specialize in editorial photography and stills for film & television. Past roles include Managing Editor of BlogTO, Managing Photographer of Yonge Street Magazine, and most recently, Staff Photographer at Toronto’s only independent weekly, Now Magazine. In 2016, they published their first photo book, a decade-long documentary series titled, “Buzzing Lights: The Fading Neon Landscape of North America.”
