I’m back on the Sunshine Coast and today is one of those post card dream days…daffodils are in full array, birds are all a-twitter and I feel the need to dig into the dirt and get gardening, though the morning’s frost is a reminder that it’s still a tad too chilly for these hands.  Instead, I’ve been for a morning walk and now I’m catching up on some writing and emails, as while as posting the following shameless self-promotion.

As previous postings atblog, I attended the Travel Media Association of Canada conference in Cardiff, Wales. What I hadn’t mentioned was that I won two awards. It felt like my own mini-Oscars, though I could have done without the instant cold sweat and knocking knees when I heard my name.  I really am amazed at those visceral kind of responses. My body was simply not going to listen to my mind which was clearly telling me to calm myself.

Instead, I blathered on with my thank yous while instantly developing a great empathy for people accepting much larger prizes than what was clearly derailing moi.

The judges for the seven English language categories were:

Tim Falconer is the author of three books including Drive: A Road Trip Through Our Complicated Affair with the Automobile, which came out in 2008, and That Good Night: Ethicists, Euthanasia and End-of-Life Care, to be published in March. He teaches magazine journalism at Ryerson University.

 Don Obe is Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism at Ryerson University, the school’s former chairman and founder of its award-winning magazine, Ryerson Review of Journalism. A former editor-in-chief of Toronto Life and associate editor of Maclean’s, he won the National Magazine Foundation’s award for outstanding achievement in 1993.

 Stephen Trumper has been a part-time instructor at Ryerson since 1995, teaching Advanced Magazine Editing. Most of his early working life was spent at Toronto Life, where he was the managing editor for nine years. In addition, he has been on staff at the Globe and Mail and Harrowsmith Country Life magazine, and had a five-year stint as an executive editor at what is now Financial Post Business magazine.

Their comments on my two stories are listed below. I’ve added the link to the stories immediately after each comment.

BEST CULTURAL/HISTORICAL FEATURE: “Feral dogs, dead bodies and a polluted river: by not shying away from the less pleasant aspects of the Ganges River, this writer made India even more exciting.”

http://www.colleenfriesen.com/Documents/heavens_gate.pdf 

BEST ENVIRONMENTAL/RESPONSIBLE TOURISM FEATURE: “Certainly not a traditional travel story, this is a wondrous and haunting personal chronicle of a life changed by an unexpected encounter. In fact, two lives were changed: the author’s and the young African girl she met and helped through school. A remarkable and loving narrative.”

http://www.colleenfriesen.com/Documents/HomemakersSummer.pdf