TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - November 10, 2016) - The Magazine Grands Prix are proud to present author, commentator and critic Stanley Péan and award-winning writer Soraya Peerbaye as judging co-chairs for the new award and fellowship program that celebrates the diversity of the country's magazine media.
"We are building a robust, transparent awards program that we can be proud of: right from the ground up," said Matthew Holmes, Magazines Canada's President and CEO. "With Canada's 150th being celebrated next year, we wanted to look forward and make a very intentional shift to include the full diversity of Canada's creators and -- just as important -- our community of readers, right into our judging process."
Magazines Canada announced the awards and fellowship program in September. They will feature 26 categories: 13 awards for individuals and creators, and 13 for magazines that honour creative and editorial vision and execution.
"Stanley Péan and I are honoured and immensely pleased to be co-chairing the adjudication process of the Magazine Grands Prix," said Peerbaye. "The team at Magazines Canada has developed a far-seeing vision for the awards; energetic and generous, they are broadening the circle of inclusion, and invigorating the conversation on both popular and critical culture in the magazine sector."
With input and advice from judging co-chairs Péan and Peerbaye, the Magazine Grands Prix judging process will reflect an ambitious set of guiding principles, released today on the official awards website, maggrandsprix.ca.
The document, "Guiding Principles for Adjudicating and Celebrating Excellence in Canada's Magazine Media," reflects the following aspirations and targets:
To build and execute an awards program that showcases the sector's full range and excellence: seamlessly bilingual in English and French, reflective of Canada's diversity, and open to all;
To represent a diversity of artistic and cultural practices, perspectives and expertise on all juries, valuing the magazine sector's creators and the public equally. Juries will be composed to reflect the diversity of Canada with regard to Indigenous peoples, race, regions, official languages, and gender;
To have Indigenous jurists on the majority of the panels. This is just the beginning. The goal is to have Indigenous jurists on every single panel;
To compose juries with care for plurality: no jury in which there is only one non-white jurist, and many in which there is a variety of diverse representatives. All jurists must feel able to speak freely and judge the submissions on their merits, without any obligation to represent minority or identity-based views;
To reveal our entire roster of jurists during the submissions period: underrepresented communities must see themselves reflected and welcomed in order to participate fully;
To aspire to do better than simply meeting the principles outlined and, in instances where we fall short of these goals, to recognize it and take action to improve.
As part of this commitment to transparency and continuous improvement, the Magazine Grands Prix also pledge to provide an avenue for feedback and input into their processes and decisions. They invite the public to engage and share ideas on how to improve the awards by writing to them at reaction@maggrandsprix.ca.
Submissions open: December 12, 2016
Submissions close: January 30, 2017
Awards fête: April 27, 2017, in conjunction with Magazine Canada's annual MagNet conference, North America's largest annual gathering of magazine professionals.
For more on the awards, visit maggrandsprix.ca.
About Stanley Péan
Stanley Péan was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and grew up in Jonquière, Québèc. He is the author of more than twenty books for adults and adolescents and wears many other hats: radio host, TV personality, translator, scriptwriter, journalist and former editor-in-chief of Le Libraire, the bi-monthly publication of a network of independent bookstores in Québéc. From 2004 to 2010, Péan was chairman of the l'Union des écrivaines et écrivains québécois (UNEQ), the association that advocates for writers and promotes their work. His collection of stories, Autochtones de la nuit (2007), was the third book of the trilogy that included La nuit démasque (2000) and Le cabinet du Docteur K (2001); the earlier books were re-released as paperbacks along with the novels Le Tumulte de mon sang (1991) and Zombi Blues (1996). During the same period as the release of the Italian translation by publisher Tropea Editore, Péan marked his return to the novel with Bizango (2011).
About Soraya Peerbaye
Soraya Peerbaye's most recent collection of poetry, Tell: Poems for a Girlhood (Pedlar Press, 2015), won the Trillium Book Award for Poetry in English and was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry prize. Her first collection, Poems for the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (Goose Lane Editions, 2009) was short-listed for the Gerald Lampert Award. Her poems have appeared in Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Women Poets, and the chapbook anthology Translating Horses. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. For over a decade, Soraya worked in program and policy development and management, first as the Equity Coordinator at the Canada Council for the Arts, then as a grants officer at the Toronto Arts Council, where she oversaw adjudications in performing arts and strategic initiatives. She remains active as a consultant, curator and collaborator in national initiatives that center on equity, decolonization and intersectionality in the arts.
About the Magazine Grands Prix
Starting in 2017, a bold new awards program will celebrate the best of Canada's magazine media. From the most dog-eared pages to the best in multi-media content, the Canadian Magazine Awards will showcase the sector's range and excellence.
Submissions are welcome from all Canadian magazines: large and small, niche, specialty and general interest, local, regional and national. The Magazine Grands Prix include 26 categories: 13 awards for individuals and creators, and 13 for magazines which honour creative and editorial vision and execution. The top two awards will recognize the editor of the year with the "Editor Grand Prix" and the magazine of the year with the "Magazine Grand Prix." Award categories are open to submissions from any platform and extend to new media applications, including videography, motion graphics and multi-platform treatment. Eligible magazines must maintain at least two print editions each year.
The Magazine Grands Prix will also present a series of fellowships to Canadian journalists working on stories that explore in depth the issues that are most important to Canadians.
About Magazines Canada
Magazines Canada is the national association representing the majority of Canadian-owned, Canadian-content consumer, cultural, specialty, professional and business magazines. French and English member titles cover a wide range of interests across multiple platforms including arts and culture, business and professional, lifestyle and food, news and politics, sports and leisure, women and youth. The association focuses on government affairs, professional development, coordinating national awards programs and marketing campaigns, and delivering services that meet the needs of the magazine industry. Visit magazinescanada.ca.
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Contact Information:
For more information:
Brianne DiAngelo
Manager, Communications
Magazines Canada
