Kim Jernigan of The New Quarterly named to receive NMA Outstanding Achievement Award

Kim Jernigan (photo: John Haney)

Kim Jernigan, the longtime editor of The New Quarterly, who made it into one of the most respected and winningest literary magazines in the country, has been named to receive this year's Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement of the National Magazine Awards. 

Anyone who knows or has worked for or with Kim will nod in agreement with the choice. TNQ was nominated  for 44 National Magazine Awards and won eight gold and six silver medals during her years as editor. In her final year as editor, TNQ received eight NMA nominations -- the most ever by a literary magazine -- and saw a young writer, Sierra Skye Gemma, win for Best New Magazine Writer for a story that had earlier won TNQ’s Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest. On the NMAF website, the announcement said

It is to her enduring credit that Kim has stewarded a small literary magazine towards not only financial stability and critical success, but also to a position as incubator of emerging talent and champion of literary arts in Canada. 

Commended by her peers for her generosity, integrity, leadership and contagious passion for Canadian literature, Kim Jernigan continues to serve as a mentor for TNQ and an inspiration to many young writers and editors. The Board of Directors of the NMAF is honoured to name Kim Jernigan as the recipient of the Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement, where she takes her much-deserved place alongside the greatest contributors to the Canadian magazine industry.

The award [disclosure: I was one of her nominators] will be presented at the 37th annual National Magazine Awards gala June 6 in Toronto.