by Jodie Renner, editor and authorDialogue is one of the first things agents and editors look at when they receive a manuscript for consideration. If the dialogue is wooden, stilted, and artificial, m...
What is NaNoWriMo, anyway?NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, an incentive for aspiring writers to get off their butts and start writing. It’s held in November, because what else will y...
Thrillerfest in NYC was excellent again this year. I only attended the two-day Craftfest, but all the workshops were top-notch, and all led by bestselling authors. I attended classes led by Steve Berr...
The Kit, a startup digital beauty and wellness magazine created by former St. Joseph Media staff has been purchased by Star Media Group (Toronto Star).“We searched diligently for the best women’s lif...
Up Here Business magazine of Yellowknife NWT won the prestigious magazine of the year award at the 57th annual Kenneth R. Wilson awards for the business-to-business press. Before a large crowd of coll...
The gratitude and sense of relief of Canada's magazine industry is quite evident in a release today concerning the most recent federal budget which confirmed $75 million in support for the Canada Peri...
Alberta Venture magazine has retained Preston Manning, the former leader of the Reform Party of Canada, as a columnist. His column, called The Green Dividend; the first argues that the best...
The August/September issue of Toronto's Dandyhorse magazine, which describes itself as Canada's only arts and culture magazine for people who ride bikes, will be guest edited by celebrity chef B...
It's somehow fitting that it is Magazines Week in Toronto and a memorial to the late Cynthia Brouse has been planted on the Toronto waterfront. Cynthia was a highly regarded and beloved teacher and th...
Magazines week in Toronto, which features the MagNet conference, the Kenneth R. Wilson trade magazine awards and the National Magazine Awards, has been launched with announcement of the names of the V...
It was probably inevitable that the recent takeover by Hearst Corporation of 49% of the joint venture with Transcontinental Media producing Elle Canada and Elle Quebec would provoke speculation about ...
Sandra: “Can we get a monkey?”Melissa: “Only if it can use a typewriter.”Anyone who works around a small magazine office knows that conversations can sometimes be wonderful in its variety and incongru...
The 9th annual Magazines West conference is on June 17th and is the lead-up to the Western Magazine Awards that evening. Here's the lineup of the day of seminars:Ad Sales: How to Hook a Media Buyer Me...
Randall Perry, the editor of Wayves, a gay, lesbian and trans magazine based in Halifax, says that he's not sure where the co-chair of the Halifax Pride Festival is coming from when he says it is &quo...
First quarter 2011 newsstand sales in the U.S. were down almost 6 per cent from the same period a year earlier, according to research from newsstand research and data company MagNet that was reported ...
The Globe and Mail's magazine Report on Small Business, a quarterly, standard-sized magazine,has been resized and relaunched as tabloid, augmented by a beefed up online presence. According to a releas...
For those Albertans unable to make it to the MagNet conference session being presented June 7 by Evan Hansen, the editor-in-chief of Wired.com, there's a later opportunity, closer to home. The Alberta...
The Professional Writers Association of Canada today named three finalists for its Editor of the Year Award. They are:Rebecca Caldwell, Acting Managing Editor, Cottage LifeGraham F. Scott, Editor, Thi...
A list of 25 novels of interest to journalism students has been compiled by the blog of OnlineCollege.org. It says it created the list because of how literature and journalism so frequentl...
The publishers of Canadian Poker Player Magazine and the operators of the Canadian Poker Tour and Canadian Poker Player Television Network are spinning off and consolidating all poker operations and ...
CityBites Media, publishers of the bi-monthly Toronto food magazine CityBites, has partnered with the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance (OCTA) to create a new publication called Ontario Culinary Adven...
Karine Ewart has been named editor-in-chief of the Today's Parent Group. Ewart has lately been a freelancer, but previously was editor-in-chief of Fashion 18 and executive editor of Fashion Shops and ...
Pleased to partner with HearstThe takeover by Hearst Corporation of the international magazine businesses of Lagardère has also necessitated a change of name and relationship with Canada's Transcontin...
The website Story Board, a joint initiative by the union, the Canadian Media Guild and the agency, the Canadian Writers Group, is conducting an online survey of Canadian magazine freelancers, results ...
Zinio Digital Newsstand now available on Android technology (Folio:) Next Issue Media offers preview on Samsung Galaxy tablet (Folio:) Report: Android Marketplace closes on Apple in volume, ...
"The difficulty with what's "obvious", what anyone can plainly see, is that, in media matters, it's very rarely true."-- Peter Preston, writing in The Guardian about the several &q...
If you're looking for irony, it has to include the fact that Marc Emery, the publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine languishes in a Mississippi prison after being extradited from Canada at the behest ...
Flying Fox and the Hunter Gatherers: Mennonite rootsMennonite influences are shot through the literary and music scene in Winnipeg, according to an article in Canadian Mennonite magazine. Aaron Epp no...
Heather Robertson, whose name has become synonymous for championing the rights of freelancers through her fronting of a 12-year class action against some of Canada's largest media companies, has been ...
Magazines have played a part in the careers of some of the English finalists for the $20,000 Trillium Book Award, Ontario's most prestigious literary prize. Among those for fiction:James Fitzger...
The most important thing a magazine can do online is maintain its brand and be very strong in terms of delivering on that brand. And then link it to the magazine in such a way -- or at least this is...
Magazines Canada has released a new batch of "hotsheets" -- freely available, one-and two-page professional development documents that address a single topic, written by an expert in the fie...
Maclean's and other Rogers Publishing magazines will be tapped for content for the new 24-hour news television channel being launched by Rogers Communications Inc. CityNews Channel will be launched in...
Video statement by CUPW president Dennis Lemelin The required 72 hours notice has been given by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) for strike action against Canada Post Corporation, whi...
Design Edge magazine has launched an iPad and iPhone verison of its bimonthly print publication, effective with its May/June 2011 issue (current). According to a story in Masthead, Design Edge's...
Negotiations are likely to go on through the weekend between Canada Post Corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, but if they fail, mail service for magazines (and everything else) could ...
Reader's Digest magazine has announced that it achieved the highest score of any magazine brand measured in Canada's largest independent brand equity survey. The BrandAsset Valuator® is a proprietary ...
Geist magazine of Vancouver has come up with a wacky new subscription promotion -- the Geiste Erasure Poetry contest. In it, a passage from Susanna Moodie's Roughing it in the Bush is copied. Without ...
A cheque presented to SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary in the name of Amber Webb-Bowerman marked a significant milestone in a remarkable memorial drive. Friends of the journalist, slain three years ago, ha...
Now we know what the editors of the UK literary magazine Smoke have been doing on their recent sabbatical -- they were inventing a board game called Soho!. It should appeal to magazine people on a who...
Bob Lewis, the former editor-in-chief of Maclean's magazine, has been named the chair of the board of the Canadian Journalism Foundation, succeeding John Macfarlane, editor and co-publisher of The Wal...
The New Yorker magazine is issuing a special issue this week that, in the style of the famous "Talk of the Town" columns, showcases high profile celebrities from the past 10 years, with 50 p...
By 2012, 12% of U.S. adults will have some sort of e-reader -- a Kindle, Sony Reader, NOOK or similar device -- according to estimates by eMarketer. By the end of this year, there will be more than 20...
The earliest there can be a mail strike or lockout, given required 72-hour notice, would be this weekend (more likely Monday) but the likelihood increased only a bit with the rejection Tuesday by Can...
The latest issue of MoneySense magazine reports that it costs $1.45 an hour to raise a child; an astounding total of $243,660 to raise one to age 18. And that doesn't include the costs of sendin...
We may grouse and complain about the costs of print subscriptions or single copies, but in Canada we should count our blessings for not being in Australia, where a subscription to The New Yorker can c...
Nominations are now being accepted for the Peter Gzowski Life Literacy Fellowship in honour of the late beloved broadcaster, magazine and newspaper editor and writer. The fellowship is administe...
More than a year after it launched, the Kobo e-reader newsstand still does not carry a single Canadian magazine. While it offers a range of Canadian newspapers, ranging from the Globe and Mail ($...
One of four different coversMultiple magazine covers have been reported on here several times recently (the Maclean's "tumble" cover; Toronto Life's three random newsstand covers). Now...
Canadian Business magazine commissioned well-known US commentator Henry Blodget (EIC of Business Insider) to pass judgement on the likely fate of the maker of the BlackBerry and (now) the Playbook, Re...
Musicworks, the magazine that brings some amazing contemporary music to its readers (every issue comes with a CD) in its upcoming summer issue will be showing readers how to make instruments out of ve...
O'GradyThe editor-in-chief of BC Business magazine, Matt O'Grady, has resigned after publisher Peter Legge killed an investigative cover story as the magazine was going to press. Today was O'Grady's l...
Word from Britain is that readers spend more time reading a publication using apps on a tablet than on the publication's own website. A story from paidContent.org about research by Tiger Spike s...
Readers of The Atlantic Wire, the very successful online arm of The Atlantic magazine, are being invited to pitch stories and influence the editing process in an open comments thread, according to a s...
Report: 40 per cent of app users opt to share data with publishers (Audience Development) Why do we need a postal service? (Buzz Machine)Primedia sold to TPG Capital for $525 Million (Audience D...
A consortium of five major U.S. magazine publishers who formed Next Issue Media in 2009 have finally unveiled their "digital newsstand". According to a story in MediaDailyNews, a preview is ...
Magazine publishers large and small have every reason to feel nervous about the 11th hour negotiations between Canada Post Corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). Next Wednesday (...
There is some pushback against a recent decision in the U.K. in which a publishing company was ordered by an employment tribunal to pay more than £1,000 to an unpaid intern. According to a story by th...
In what is a major rationalization of b2b publishing in Canada, Glacier Media Inc has announced the purchase of 15 trade magazines from Rogers Publishing Limited as well as associated digital pr...
While talks are continuing between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), the union has announced a press conference tomorrow morning to talk about strike action. The earliest da...
Okey Chigbo has been promoted to editor of CAmagazine, where he has worked for the past 13 years, initially as senior editor, then as editor, English edition and, since the departure of the former edi...
The National Magazine Awards will be emceed by Jacqueline Hennessy a Toronto-based freelance writer, actor and broadcast journalist as well as a former National Magazine Awards Gold winner. She is cur...
OWL, the magazine for 9- to 13-year-olds, is celebrating 35 years of publishing in June with a series of events, giveaways and what it calls a "very cool T-shirt". The OWL editors have asked...
Alex Roslin has won a Canadian Association of Journalists' award for his investigative magazine piece "The Meat of the Matter" in The Georgia Straight. The CAJ awards are Canada's only natio...
Entries are now being accepted for the Canadian Online Publishing Awards(COPA). Started originally to honour the best online editorial and design in the magazine industry, the awards have enlarged to ...
The Canadian Business Press, Canada's oldest business-to-business publishing trade organization, has decided to relinquish being a member-driven organization in favour of a foundation that will ensure...
CanadianFamily.caCanadian Family magazine (St Joseph Media) has rebuilt its website CanadianFamily.ca to reflect changes they have seen in online parenting information sites since the site was launche...
The announcement this week that future subscribers to The New Yorker will be offered a package including both the print and iPad edition in the U.S. for $69.99 is an indication that the publisher Cond...
The Grid, the revamped and repositioned successor to Torstar's Eye Weekly in Toronto, had a hip and splashy launch last night and the first issue is available free today from boxes dotted around Toron...
Interesting juxtaposition. National Geographic wins magazine of the year for 2010 and the man who oversaw it is ejected from his job as CEO of Time Inc. after barely six months on the job. A post...
Nationals step up assault on super-injunctions (Jon Slattery)Magazine history in the making: three issues in one week for TIME (Mr. Magazine) Conde Nast strikes subscription deal with Apple (Audience ...
First issue45th anniversary issueIt's interesting to see the evolution of a magazine, both in focus and design, over a period of years. This is particularly so for This Magazine, which is celebrating ...
Mike Ganley, formerly editor of Up Here Business magazine in Yellowknife, has been named editor of Alberta Venture, the flagship magazine of Venture Publishing of Edmonton. He replaces Paul Marck who ...
Rogers Media , partnering with the U.S. site for women, is launching iVillage.ca today. The site will feature original editorial content, alongside top features from the US partner iVillage...
Jess Ross, the executive editor of Homemakers magazine has been named Magazines Canada’s Volunteer of the Year for 2010, Magazines Canada announced today.A generous and tireless volunteer in service o...
Best cover winnerSaltscapes magazine and Atlantic Business were multiple winners in the Atlantic Journalism Awards which were presented on Saturday in Halifax, Nova Scotia and winners in the magazine-...
Toronto's integrity commissioner has rejected a complaint from NOW magazine about Mayor Rob Ford's office ordering copies of the magazine to be purged from all city offices. The cover story in the iss...
Front coverWhen there is almost too much news to cover in one week's issue, Maclean's has turned to the device of printing two covers -- one with the victorious Stephen Harper, the other with the face...
Jessica Rose, the Toronto Life art director who redesigned the magazine during her three years there, is moving on. According to a posting on Mastheadonline, she is leaving the magazine in June and mo...
When Toronto's Eye Weekly is reborn a week today (May 12) as The Grid, it will no longer have the so-called "escort" ads that have been a staple in the back pages since it was launched. Acco...
Newsstands that carry Toronto Life will be receiving one of three covers of the June issue, which goes on sale May 12. An equal number of copies of the three different covers will be shipped ...
The vice-president and group publisher of the urban group at St. Joseph Media, responsible for Toronto Life, Ottawa magazine and the Where publications is taking a breather. Sharon McAuley has been in...
The nominees for the 57th annual Kenneth R. Wilson (KRW) Awards nominations, honouring business-to-business publications, have been announced by the Canadian Business Press (CBP) and Magazines ...
Entries for the 2011 ACE Awards for circulation marketers have to be made by May 6, 2011. Winners will be announced at MagNet during the annual CMC lunch on Wednesday June 8. Categories (free entry to...
I have been heard, more than once, to say that if the Ryerson Review of Journalism didn't exist, we'd need to invent it. This student-produced, twice-a-year publication often publishes stories about j...
Hitler, Sadaam Hussein, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, now Osama bin Laden. Time magazine's cover for only the fourth time in its 88-year history will put a bloody, red "X" across the face of the dea...
Time Inc. and Apple Inc. have apparently come to an arrangement about serving its existing subscribers on the iPad. It was reported today from multiple sources that this breaks an impasse between the ...
Talk about added value. Applied Arts magazine has announced a group benefit plan for its subscribers.Starting May 1 its current and new subscribers (many of whom are freelancers, self-employed or smal...
The three finalists for the coveted award Magazine of the Year in this year's 34th annual national magazine awards are Canada's History, Cottage Life and MoneySense. Finalists for the awards were anno...
Brian Segal, the President and CEO of Rogers Publishing Limited, will be retiring at the end of August, staff were told today in a memorandum from Keith Pelley, the president of Rogers Media. The...
Jan/Feb 2011 Vancouver magazineThe Western Magazine Awards has announced that its 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award winner is to be presented to Vancouver-based photographer, writer and artist&nbs...
Vancouver magazine has been nominated 23 times for the Western magazine awards. Among the other leading in nominations were Swerve magazine, a supplement to the Calgary Herald with 15, BC Business wit...
Canada's History magazine won three times in the third annual "Maggie" awards which wrapped up the annual conference of the Manitoba Magazine Publishers Association. The history title, publ...
"It was very similar to when my parents got divorced. My parents always got along really well, and then one day my mother called me aside and I just knew what she was going to say. And this w...
We presume that the pressure to get things done still allows time for lunch. The Canadian Society of Magazine Editors (CSME) is holding one of its periodic Toronto lunches, this time with the to...
Fresh off the launch of an anthology he edited for the benefit of PEN Canada, Jared Bland, the managing editor of The Walrus, is leaving to join the publishing firm House of Anansi. He'll leave a big ...
Just catching up with a recent article about the up-and-running Saltscapes restaurant and general store in Truro, Nova Scotia named after the magazine. Our recent post was short on details, so here's ...
Information over the web has grown more than 50% today, compared with a year ago, according to a new survey by Magnify.net, reported by MediaPost. The sheer volume is partly the result of always...
"A year or so before he died, Jay Chiat, who did as much as anyone to make television the coolest advertising medium, was baiting me about the hopelessness of magazines. He argued that the pr...
Mary BernerMary Berner, who in her four years as president and CEO of Reader's Digest Association Holding Ltd. led the company into -- and out of -- Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (August 2009 - Feb...
Photo: Kate Braydon, Telegraph-JournalA woman in New Brunswick decided to launch a magazine called It's Your Life because the idea came to her in a dream. According to a story in the Saint John Telegr...
Geist magazine of Vancouver is promoting a 2-for-1 deal for subscriptions both to it and Poetry is Dead.We love Poetry Is Dead. It's the quirkiest, edgiest and newest poetry magazine in Canada. We kno...
Ivor Shapiro, at one time the managing editor of Chatelaine magazine, has been appointed to a five-year term as chair of the Ryerson University School of Journalism in Toronto, effective July 1st.&nbs...
The largest magazine publisher in Quebec, TVA Publications (a subsidiary of Quebecor) has announced concurrent with Earth Day that it is adopting an eco-paper policy. As a first step, according to a p...
With smartphones, homeless magazine vendors to become citizen journalists (Press Gazette) An inquiry into press practice will be good for free speech | John Kampfner (Guardian) Reader's Dige...
“We shouldn’t be doing magazine apps. It’s a different format entirely from a print publication. We should be spending the resources to come up with special extensions of the brand....Consider the ...
NOW magazine has filed a complaint with the Toronto integrity commissioner, claiming that Mayor Rob Ford's office infringed freedom of expression by trying to ban the weekly from all city-owned proper...
It's not your everyday situation when the founding editor and guiding light of an important small cultural magazine not only announces that she is relinquishing her role (or most of it) but also looki...
"All we're doing is going to the marketplace and saying, ‘You were OK with a crappy product, now how can you not be even more enthusiastic about an obviously better product?'"-- Michael Wolf...
All Canada Council for the Arts-funded magazines will shortly receive a copy of the latest benchmarking study, allowing the publications to compare their performance with similar magazines of their t...
The finalists have been announced for the prestigious Utne Reader independent press awards and four Canadian indy magazines are in the running. The awards are for the best of the independent press and...
The May issue of Up Here magazine from Yellowknife, NWT, contains the results of the North Poll -- a compilation of Canadians' knowledge of the north that is by turns hilarious and downright emba...
Marc Emery, the publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine and now imprisoned in the U.S. has been denied a routine transfer to a Canadian prison to serve out his sentence. It means that he will likely sp...
Magazines Canada has announced that the following magazines have been approved for membership:BoulevardPlaidHart House ReviewKonektLATIDOSMontréal en santéSavour
In a nod to the current mania for couponing sites, online agency Magazines.com is offering discount subscriptions through Facebook. For instance, Fitness magazine, which is being offered for $5 for 10...
After a year's hiatus, while editor Rachel Brighton took a sabbatical to work on her Masters degree, Coastlands: the Maritimes Policy Review, is back, with a new Spring 2011 issue. Patient subscr...
Maclean's magazine has been reprimanded by the Quebec press council for declaring it was "the most corrupt province in Canada" in the cover story of its October 4, 2010 issue.The council rel...
The freelance writer and union organizer who took on the New York Times -- and won -- in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case is now leading the charge against the Huffington Post. Jonathan Tasini, whos...
The New Republic rather acidly reports in the current issue that Vanity Fair magazine is so obsessed with the Kennedys that about one-third of the issues since 2003 have had at least one article...
I note that on my local Shoppers Drug Mart rack, the current (spring) issue of Men's Fashion, polybagged with its parent, Fashion magazine, is strongly evident. The two magazines are back-to-back in t...
In what gives a new and modern twist to the concept of "work to rule", the union News Media Guild is recommending that its members working for The Associated Press refuse to do social media ...
Bye, bye EyeEye weekly, Torstar's urban weekly, is being rebranded and (as anticipated) relaunched as a city magazine. The renewed publication -- now called The Grid -- will be out on May 12, accordin...
Two magazines were launched in the U.S. for every title that closed during the first quarter of this year, according to magazine database MediaFinder.com. As reported by Folio:During 2011’s firs...
Reading an interesting editor's note in the May issue of The Walrus magazine, I recalled the conversations in which I was intimately involved during its formative stages about the need for a "thi...
The Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC) awards have extended their deadline for entries to April 22. There is a feature writing award (for articles of 1,201 words and over) and a short a...
The Magazines Association of BC has announced that Clélie Rich, senior member of the volunteer collective that runs ROOM magazine, is the MABC 2010 volunteer of the year. The award recognizes voluntee...
Finalists have been announced for the Quebec Association of Magazines/Association québécoise des éditeurs de magazines annual awards. Candidates for magazine of the year are:L’actualité (Les Édit...
Ad pages in U.S. magazines increased by about 2.5% in Q1 of 2011, compared with the same quarter a year earlier. According to figures released by the Publisher's Information Bureau, reported by Folio:...
Tonight is the launch of the Toronto Standard, a "daily digital briefing", based in Toronto but with a global outlook. Its flag is a revival of a shortlived publication that came out from184...
Designer Khoi Vin has taken the mickey out of the sometimes complicated navigational instructions issued with new devices such as the iPad by creating a poster about how to read a magazine.I particula...
For a brief period this morning, a list that was said to be all the finalists for the National Magazine Awards was circulating, with a link to the awards' website. Since the finalists were not suppose...
… all in two months. I’ve been way too busy. Time to slow down a bit and smell the roses…er, tulips…when they bloom here in Canada, that is. And get caught up on my editing.February 16-22, I was in Sa...
This year's Maclean's university guide has trimmed down. The special interest publication, which has been in the past a major money-spinner for Rogers Publishing, has a new design and a new format.&nb...
Families, friends, colleagues and admirers have banded together to create a fellowship in memory of Jim Travers, the Toronto Star columnist, according to a posting on J-Source.ca. He died suddenly Mar...
Luminato, the Toronto festival of arts and creativity, has announced that it is partnering with The New Yorker magazine, sponsored by RBC to present a series of lectures and panel discussions during t...
We thought it was already supersonic. Vice magazine co-founder Shane Smith told the New York Times that it was time "to turn on the jets". Which is why the magazine raised "in the ...
The spring edition of Men's Fashion magazine, a spinoff from St. Joe's Fashion, will be sliding out of copies of the Globe and Mail (April 8) and the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun (April 9), with...
Tentative labour agreement between postal service, union could save $3.8 billion (Folio:)NUJ seeks legal advice over Sports Media collapse (Jon Slattery) "Your business card is CRAP!" (Prin...