Heather Robertson to be honoured by National Magazine Awards for her fight for freelancers

The nominations have been released for the National Magazine Awards and, from nearly 2,000 entries, there are 362 finalists in 45 categories. Among the highlights:

• The winner of the Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement is Heather Robertson, being honoured for her long and successful fight on behalf of the rights of freelancers. See the extensive citation for the award.
• The new Sportsnet magazine is one of three finalists for Magazine of the Year (print), along with Maisonneuve and Outdoor Canada
• The Grid (thegrid.to), Today's Parent (todaysparent.com) and Toronto Life (torontolife.com) are nominated for Magazine of the Year (digital)
• Nominees for the Best Cover are  Canadian Business, enRoute, Report on Business, The Grid (nominated twice), The Walrus, Toronto Life, This Magazine, Urbania and Vancouver Magazine. 
• For Best Single Issue, the nominees are  Canadian Geographic ("Protecting Our Water"); Maclean's ("Our Biggest Issue Ever"); Rotman Magazine ("Spring 2011"); Up Here ("The North Poll, May 2011"); and Urbania ("Gros").
• Nominees for Best New Magazine Writer are  Emma Teitel, "The New Paparazzi (Maclean's); Liam Casey, "Suicide Notes" (Ryerson Review of Journalism); and Matthew Scianitti, "Not All Smurfs and Sunshine" (Ryerson Review of Journalism). 
• Nominees for Best New Visual Creator were graphic designer Trevor Melanson, for various digital interactive features in Canadian Business, photographer Andrew B. Myers for "Solar" in Report on Business, and the design trio The Coveteur for their work "Gifts" in Report on Business.(Melanson also got a nomination for Best Multimedia Feature)

Top magazines by numbers of nominations are The Walrus, Report on Business, Toronto Life, L'actualite, explore and Maclean's.

•  For the first time in the 35 year history of the awards, one article has been nominated in five different categories. "Where Asbestos is Just a Fact of Life" by John Gray and Stephanie Nolan (Report on Business) is nominated in the categories Politics & Public Interest, Business, Health & Medicine, Investigative Reporting, and Science, Technology & the Environment. 

•  There are also 14 magazines nominated for NMAs for the first time, including  Canadian Wildlife, Canadian Health & Lifestyle, DesignLines Toronto, Eighteen Bridges, Filler, Focus, Global Brief, Listed, Montecristo, Pulp, Ricardo, Sharp, Sportsnet and The Grid

 Among multiple nominees are:

• Dominique Forget of L'actualité is nominated for 5 articles in 5 different categories, the most among writers this year.
• The article "Mostly Awesome with Brief Periods of Terrible" by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall (explore) is nominated in three categories, as are "Suicide Notes" by Liam Casey (Ryerson Review of Journalism) and "A Pipeline Runs Through It" by Nathan Vanderklippe (Report on Business).
• Other writers garnering 3 individual nominations include Valérie Borde, Scott Feschuk, Don Gillmor, Lisa Gregoire, Chris Nuttall-Smith, Danielle Stanton, and Chris Turner.
• Among visual-category nominations, art director Vanessa Wyse of The Grid won 9 nominations in the categories Magazine Covers, Art Direction for an Entire Issue, and Art Direction for a Single Magazine Article.
• Illustrator Byron Eggenschwiler is nominated 4 times for his work in Canadian Business, More and Up Here.
• Photographer Chris Nicholls of Flare has 3 nominations in the Fashion category and a fourth in Beauty, while photographer Daniel Ehrenworth is nominated a total of 3 times in the categories Conceptual Photography and Portrait Photography in Canadian Business, Cottage Life and Toronto Life.

The gold and silver awards will be handed out June 7 at the Carlu during the National Magazine Awards gala. Tickets and other information can be found through http://www.magazine-awards.com/

PDF of nominees