National Magazine Awards pleads for entries

[This item has been UPDATED]

Design editors at various Canadian magazines recently received a plaintive e-mail from the President of the National Magazine Awards Foundation because of a record low number of entries in the Homes and Gardens category this year (the deadline for entries was yesterday, January 10).

[Similar e-mails went out for Service, Personal Finance and Business categories (see comment).]

The situation is apparently so dire that the NMAF is worried about whether it will have to cancel [some categories] for this year's awards program, which will be held on Friday, June 15.

We'll let the message, signed by Kim Pittaway, speak for itself:

I'm writing to ask for your help. This year, the Homes and Gardens category for the National Magazine Awards has had the lowest number of entries in its history. The board and I recognize that there has been dissatisfaction with this category among the magazine community, and that the low number of entries likely reflects that dissatisfaction. We will be consulting with interested magazine editors and contributors over the course of 2007 about how best to define and judge this category in the future, with resulting changes in place for next year's program. (Because the rules have already been posted for this year, that is our
earliest opportunity for change.)

But to keep the category alive, we need your help now: because of the low number of entries, we face the real possibility that the category may be cancelled from this year's program. Given the importance of this category to our industry, I think that would be a shame. I am writing to ask you to support the awards and this category in particular by submitting your best work to this year's program, and then by participating in our category review as 2007 progresses.

What exactly is the dissatisfaction? It's not like there aren't a lot of possible entries from the large number of magazines eligible to enter in this category. Comments welcome.