Brian Kaufman of subTerrain to receive WMA lifetime achievement award

Brian Kaufman, the longtime founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of the literary magazine subTerrain, has been selected to receive the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award of the Western Magazine Awards. The presentation will be made September 26 at the awards gala in Vancouver. Each year, the WMAs select one individual who has had exemplary, sustained accomplishment in the magazine publishing industry.

Kauffman founded the three-time-a-year journal -- which used the tagline “Strong words for a Polite Nation” -- in 1988 to showcase visual art, creative non-fiction, poetry, social commentary, and photography. In a 2008 blog post he said "subTerrain started out as a dream, an idea of literary rebellion, a shadow-self calling out to be born.”

“Kaufman is a richly deserving recipient,” said Jane Zatylny, President of the WMAF. “We are very pleased to highlight his many contributions to our industry with this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award.”

“Brian has been responsible for launching the careers of a new breed of writers and artists onto the literary scene in Vancouver and indeed the rest of the country,” wrote Margaret Reynolds, Executive Director of the Association of Book Publishers of BC.

Also a book publisher, a founding member of the predecessor to MagsBC and a director of the Literary Press Group, in 2009 he also received the Vancouver Mayor's Arts Awards for his “significant contribution to Vancouver's arts and cultural community, for shaping Vancouver as a creative city and for enriching the lives of Vancouver's citizens.”