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    Maclean’s writers nominated for National Magazine Awards

    Maclean’s staff are up for nine National Magazine Awards and six Digital Publishing Awards, which will be handed out later this month

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    Maclean’s writers, editors, photographers, videographers and designers racked up nine National Magazine Awards nominations and six Digital Publishing Awards nominations when both programs announced finalists this week. The magazine was nominated for general excellence in digital publishing, and Editor-in-Chief Alison Uncles was named a finalist in the NMA’s editor grand prix. Many of our staff are also up for awards.

    We devoted our February 2018 issue to in-depth coverage of the fight for pay equity. We asked men to pay more—26 per cent more, a reflection of the pay gap—for the issue on newsstands. Executive Editor Stephen Gregory’s design was nominated for an NMA. Uncles, Deputy Editor Colin Campbell and Director of Circulation Management Allan Yue were also credited for the newsstand strategy.

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    On the day we published our pay equity issue online, Elizabeth Palmieri, Jason Kirby, and Scott Simpson teamed up to produce stop-motion gifs that indicated the point in the workday at which women in Canadian provinces were, thanks to the pay gap, symbolically working for free. Those social sells earned a DPA nomination.

    When Canada marked 100 years since the end of the First World War last November, we produced a special commemorative issue that counted dozens of contributors, helmed by Managing Editor of Special Projects James Cowan. They produced longform essays, snapshots of war, photo galleries and profiles of Canadian valour. Each cover was unique, and included the biographical details of one of the 66,349 Canadians who died in the war. We also produced a searchable database of the fallen.

    Contributors included Uncles, Campbell, Gregory, Charlie Gillis, Claire Brownell, Allen Abel, Brian Bethune, Rosemary Counter, Sarah Dea, Shannon Gormley, J.L. Granatstein, Murad Hemmadi, Eric Leleu, Peter Mcdiarmid, Ken MacQueen, Adam Makarenko, Renaud Philipe, Shannon Proudfoot, Patricia Treble, Christie Vuoung, Tom Yun, Michael Barclay, Jen Cutts, Jacob Sheen, Liz Sullivan, Lauren Cattermole, Andrew Lahodynskyj, Sarah Palmer, Hannah Yoon and Elizabeth Brandt.

    Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service (NAPS) constable Charlie Chapman in Sachigo Lake First Nation, Ontario on Tuesday, May 22, 2018. NAPS is the largest Canadian First Nation Police force and is getting 79 new officers in the next five years and upgrading inadequate infrastructure and tools after the federal government announced $291.2 million for policing in First Nation and Inuit communities. (Photograph by Amber Bracken)

    In the NMAs’ portrait photography category, Amber Bracken is nominated for photos of the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service, which accompanied assistant editor Kyle Edwards’s long feature on the impossible work of Canada’s largest Indigenous police force. Director of Photography Liz Sullivan shares the nomination.

    Maclean’s netted two nominations in the NMA category for profiles: Associate Editor Shannon Proudfoot previewed a Doug Ford-led Ontario a month before he won the provincial election last June, unseating a four-term Liberal government and knocking Kathleen Wynne’s party to third place…

    …and Alberta Correspondent Jason Markusoff chronicled the reemergence of former prime minister Stephen Harper as a public figure—and a vocal one, at that—in the era of Trudeau and Trump. Céline von Engelhardt and Emily Senger contributed to that reporting.

    Maclean’s also netted two NMA nominations and one DPA nod for columns. Senior writers Paul Wells and Anne Kingston received an NMA and DPA nomination, respectively, and Contributing Editor Jen Gerson is also in the running for an NMA.

    Wells’s nominated work reflects on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s disastrous state visit to India, where it seemed just about everything went wrong. Gerson’s column takes on Canada’s contentious debate over free speech and all the fiery characters at the heart of the division. Kingston’s nomination is for her portfolio of work, which in the last year has tackled #MeToo, gender equality, health care and the Sherman murders.

    The site of the crash, just south of Nipawin, is strewn with tributes to the victims (Mark Taylor)

    After a tragic bus crash struck a hockey team from Humboldt, Sask., the whole nation mourned for the city. A team of writers including Michael Friscolanti, Jason Markusoff, Kyle Edwards, Meagan Campbell, led by Managing Editor Charlie Gillis, assembled an oral history of that awful day. That work was nominated in the NMA category for one-of-a-kind storytelling.

    Robin Giles reads to her 41-year-old husband Jo Aubin, who has Alzheimer’s. (Chris Donovan)

    Three years after Shannon Proudfoot’s heart-wrenching feature on Jo Aubin, a London, Ont., resident who suffered from early onset Alzheimer’s, she revisited Aubin’s story as his wife, Robin, faced the unthinkable. That story was nominated for best long feature. Only a few months after it was published, Aubin died peacefully.

    Krista Hessey broke down the conflict in Mali for viewers as Canadian soldiers prepared for a mission in the divided African nation. That work earned Hessey a DPA nomination for best mini-doc.

    Associate Editor Prajakta Dhopade, whose videos about personal finance for a Millennial audience were recently honoured by the Society for American Business Writers and Editors, is up for a DPA for best short video. Micah Bond, Yan Rosa and Elizabeth Palmieri also contributed to the work.

    tags:Editor's PicksNational Magazine Awards