Last week was a very, very good week
I'm still recovering from last week's festivities and surprises.
This recovery process included sleeping for 12 hours last night, which is almost unheard of for me, and spending most of yesterday afternoon and evening lying on a couch and trying to avoid anything resembling work. Last week was the MagNet/PWAC conference, the National Magazine Awards, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. I was involved in some way with each of them. In the end, I finished the week having given out two awards, won two of my own, and connected with editors and freelance writers from all over Canada.
It was a very, very good week. Allow me to share the highlights.
A super "super conference" -- For the first time in its more than 30 years of existence, the Professional Writers Association of Canada joined with other organizations for its annual conference. I'm a former Quebec Chapter president of PWAC and currently sit on its board of directors, a volunteer position. This year we teamed up with MagNet, the big magazine conference, the Canadian Authors Association, and Canadian Society of Magazine Editors to create a joint conference. I love my fellow PWACers and it was great for us to be able to mix with other organizations. The result was that Canadian magazine editors and writers (among other industry folks) were together in workshops and at meals. I met several editors and made some good connections.
Giving Out Awards -- As PWAC's Quebec Regional Director, I handed out the award for Regional Volunteer of the Year. Then, the next day, I announced that Jennifer Walker of Best Health magazine was the winner of PWAC's Editor of the Year Award. That was a lot of fun. Congrats to her and the two Honourable Mentions, Diana Swift of Canadian Health and Ian Johnson of CBCNews.ca.
Taking Home Some Hardware -- On Thursday night around 10:30 pm, I found out that Michal Calce and I had won the Arthur Ellis Award for non-fiction crime book of the year. Mike was at the ceremony in Ottawa (I was in Toronto at the conference) and I can honestly say that we are both shocked and thrilled by the win. The other books on the short list were very impressive and I didn't think we'd win the award. I also didn't expect the win to generate so much press coverage, which then resulted in a ton of congratulatory emails. Then, on Friday night, I received a Silver Medal at the National Magazine Awards. (Read the winning article here.) The gold in the humour category went to Bruce McCall, who contributes to The New Yorker, Vanity Fair etc. So, uh, pretty good company. And one hell of a good time.
Thanks to PWAC, MagNet, the Crime Writers of Canada, the National Magazine Awards Foundation, Penguin Group (Canada), Maisonneuve magazine, the Transatlantic Literary Agency and the other groups and people that made it possible.
Mafiaboy book nominated for Arthur Ellis Award
Well, this has been a rewarding week. On Tuesday, for the second year in a row, I was nominated for a National Magazine Award. Then, yesterday, I discovered that my second book is nominated for Canada's best non-fiction crime book. The CBC has a story about the Crime Writers of Canada's annual Arthur Ellis Awards:
Crime Writers of Canada, the organizers of the Arthur Ellis Awards, on Thursday announced the nominees for the 26th edition of the annual literary prize. The awards are named after Arthur Ellis, the nom de travail of Canada's former official hangman...
Nominees in the best non-fiction category are:
- Daphne Bramham, The Secret Lives of Saints: Child Brides and Lost Boys in Canada's Polygamous Mormon Sect (Vintage Canada/RHC).
- Sharon Butala, The Girl in Saskatoon: A Meditation on Friendship, Memory and Murder (Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins).
- Alex Caine, Befriend and Betray: Infiltrating the Hells Angels, Bandidos and Other Criminal Brotherhoods (Vintage Canada/RHC).
- Michael Calce & Craig Silverman, Mafiaboy: How I Cracked the Internet and Why It's Still Broken (Penguin Canada).
- Kerry Pither, Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror (Penguin Canada).
This was totally unexpected. I had no idea our book was submitted, and I never would have guessed that we'd score a nomination. The only downside is that the awards ceremony will be held in Ottawa the day before the National Magazine Awards are held in Toronto. I'm already booked to be in Toronto that week so Michael Calce will have to represent the two of us at the ceremony. I wish I could be there, but this lovely suprise is good enough as far as I'm concerned.
Believe me, it really is an honor just being nominated
I came home from my regular Tuesday night boxing class at Blue Cat to discover that I had been nominated for a National Magazine Award. Yeah, welcome home to me. This being 2009, I found out via Twitter thanks to a message from Kim Pittaway. (She's nominated for three awards! I'm a total underachiever.) Here's the full list of nominees.
You can read my nominated story here. It was published in Maisonneuve magazine.
I'm really excited to be nominated in the Humour category, as I'm an extremely funny person. It's about time the world, or at least the magazine community, recognized how funny I am. Now you know. Why aren't you laughing?
Anyway, there are a lot of nominees in my category. One of them is probably funnier than me. Which means I probably won't win the gold medal. But as long as they have those insanely decadent chocolate fountains at the awards again this year, I'll be okay.
UPDATED: A night at the Press Club, a grant from the Canada Council
I'm back from attending the National Press Club Awards Dinner in Washington on Monday. I spent the morning at the Newseum, and you can read my report about it here. I also had lunch with Slate's Jack Shafer.
That evening, I attended the awards dinner and was lucky enough to meet two other winners in the press criticism category: David Folkenflik, the NPR media reporter who won the Arthur Rowse Award in the broadcast category, and Rachel Smolkin, who picked up two awards. She won for her body of work at American Journalism Review and for her excellent AJR story about the Duke Lacrosse scandal. It was also a treat to meet Arthur Rowse, the namesake of the award.
I also had a chance to talk about corrections with USA Today editor Ken Paulson, and meet Alicia C. Shepard, the NPR Ombudsman.
UPDATE July 24: I just received word that the Canada Council for the Arts has awarded me a travel grant for my trip to Washington. This money, which is greatly appreciated, will cover my expenses for the trip. I'm pleased to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, and invested $37.8 million in the arts in Quebec. Thank you!
Here's a pic of my lovely award:
Regret the Error wins press criticism award; work for ROB mag earns gold medal
Well, it's been a rewarding few weeks for me. Allow me to take a moment and toot my own horn.
On June 6, I shared a gold medal at the Canadian National Magazine Awards for my work on the Corporate Survival Guide published in Report on Business magazine.The award is shared with Mark Schatzker, Sabitri Ghosh, and Lisa Fielding. Here's the full list of winners. Credit also goes to David Fielding, the editor who oversaw the package of stories.
A week or two before that, I received a call from the National Press Club in Washington. I was told that my book, Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech, had won the 2008 Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism (book) in the Club's annual awards. I had to keep it under my hat until the news went public. That has finally happened, and the announcement is here (and here). It's a great honor. I'm looking forward to traveling to Washington to receive the award at a dinner on July 14.
As a result of these two lovely awards, I've added an awards page to this site. It includes a few other pieces of recognition I've received.
And the nominee is… me
The nominees for the Canadian National Magazine Awards were revealed last night and I received a nod for my work on Report on Business magazine's Corporate Survival Guide, which was published last fall. It's my first NMA nomination and I'm extremely pleased. I'm also happy that my friends Martin Patriquin (Maclean's) and Giancarlo La Giorgia (freelance) received nominations. The awards are given out June 6 in Toronto.
Marty also recently started writing a Quebec-focused blog for Maclean's. Put it in your feeds.
Welcome
Hey there. Thanks for stopping by. I'm a freelance journalist and author in Montreal, Canada. I serve as an associate editor for PBS MediaShift, a website that reports on trends in new media and journalism. I edit RegretTheError.com and wrote a book of the same name. I'm also the co-author, with Michael Calce, of Mafiaboy: How I Cracked The Internet and Why It's Still Broken. Both books are listed to the right.
I write weekly columns for Hour and Columbia Journalism Review online, and am a former columnist and blogger for The Globe And Mail. Read my bio by clicking on the "About Me" link above, or check out the "Writing Samples" page to read some of my work. If you're interested in speaking with me about an assignment or project, email me at the address listed below.
Recent Writing/Work