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Posts Tagged ‘National Magazine Awards’

Good News All Around

Posted in Stories, Updates, tagged , , , , , , on May 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I came home from the Aleutians to find all sorts of good news waiting.

Last week, we learned that Up Here and Up Here Business have been nominated for a combined five National Magazine Awards and nine Western Magazine Awards. At the WMAs, two of my Up Here features, The One Who Jumped and ‘I Found the Sweet Life,’ are nominated in the Human Experience and Travel and Leisure categories, and Up Here and UHB are both nominated for Magazine of the Year – Alberta/NWT. Up Here Business was nominated for a further five Kenneth R. Wilson Awards, including Magazine of the Year – Professional.

I’m also excited to be filling in for the next while as Outside’s online “Adventure Adviser” columnist. I’ll be writing two short pieces each week, answering questions about travel and outdoor adventure, and my first two columns are already up: Should I be worried about sinkholes? and Does beer attract bears? Send me a question if you’ve got one!

Meanwhile, the April/May issue of Up Here includes my feature about the current state of Yukon mushing: End of the Trail? And I have two features in the May issue of Up Here Business, including the cover story about the Yukon’s growing “knowledge sector.” They’re not online yet, but you can check out the cover.

Finally, check out my friend Sam’s story about the Yukon’s homegrown Filipino basketball league. The North just keeps getting more interesting the longer I stay here.

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Up Here: Now With More Glory and Accolades

Posted in Updates, tagged , , , on June 16, 2012| 3 Comments »

It’s been an exciting two weeks for Up Here Publishing! On June 7, my colleague Katherine Laidlaw won a silver National Magazine Award in the How-To category. And last night, at the Western Magazine Awards, Up Here won in two written categories – Business and Environmental – while Up Here Business art director Michael Ericsson won for Best Photograph, People and Portraiture.

Meantime, a few items from Up Here’s June issue are now online – I especially recommend this very sad story about an Inuit man who lived as an exhibit in a German zoo and kept a journal of his experience – and we’ve posted a handful of short pieces from the June Up Here Business to our UHB Tumblr, too.

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Back in Whitehorse, Catching Up

Posted in Updates, tagged , , , , , , on May 3, 2012| 1 Comment »

I flew home from Yellowknife to Whitehorse on Tuesday – it feels great to be settling back in right as the Northern summer is arriving. (It’s 9:30pm now, and still broad daylight.)

I was sick for a good portion of my last three weeks in Yellowknife, so chances are pretty good that I owe you an email. Hang in there, I’m working on it.

What else? I have a profile coming out in the new Up Here Business, which should be on newsstands shortly. We published a 6000-word epic about rafting the Grand Canyon on World Hum this week. Over at Vela, Simone’s latest is a wonderful essay on unexpectedly becoming an army wife. And my friend Luke’s phenomenal story on the Joplin tornado won the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing tonight!

Speaking of National Magazine Awards — Canadian edition — the nominees were announced earlier this week, and Up Here is up for four, including Best Single Issue. It’s an exciting publication to be a part of.

Lots of summer travel plans in Alaska, the Yukon and NWT. More to come!

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More From Chris Jones: On Writing, Fear and Disappointment

Posted in Tangents, tagged , , , , on March 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Awhile back I added Esquire’s Chris Jones to my collection of writers and their origin stories. I got the story of Jones’ big break from his blog, which turns out to be kind of a gold mine for people – like me – who like to geek out on other writers talking about their writing.

Are you one of those people, too? Check these posts out:

How It Begins includes the actual email exchange that led to Jones landing the assignment for The Things That Carried Him, a 2009 National Magazine Award winner for feature writing.

Losing’s Reward is a brutally honest post about Jones’ Roger Ebert profile missing out on the National Magazine Award nominations, and Fear is about, well, the fear and doubt that infect the writing process.

NO lists 20 things that “should rarely if ever appear anywhere near your copy.”

Bonus link: Jones’ Esquire colleague Scott Raab also posted some writing advice on his site awhile back. This is the meat of it:

Writers love to write — and not because it’s easy. Getting it right isn’t easy at all, and that challenge is a big part of why writers love to write. It’s a high, working on your game, a way of being in the world that feels absolutely honest and true.

Anyone, especially in his or her twenties, saying ‘I have no time to write’ because of a job or anything else is full of crap. Writers write. If you can’t find time to write, don’t worry about becoming a writer. You’re not a writer. You’ll never be a writer. Find something else that lights you up.

Same with reading. Anybody who has no time to read isn’t a writer. All the work necessary to learn how to write boils down to reading and writing. This is not subtle or nuanced advice, obviously. I stress it here because of how often I talk to people who seem to think there’s a shortcut. I know no shortcuts.

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