Nomination, National Magazine Award (Canada) — Arts & Entertainment
for Drawn and Quartered - in Maisonneuve magazine
IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT, and Café Cleopatra is on red alert. While the striptease show continues downstairs, upstairs—a hotspot for Montreal’s resurgent cabaret culture—is a party aimed at saving the landmark strip bar from destruction. Patrons crowd the three-quarter stage to watch a local skateboarder deliver a PowerPoint presentation. Cleopatra’s soft-spoken proprietor, Johnny Zoumboulakis, paces the room with his hands folded. An older man in white paint, fake blue lashes and a paper tutu hands out blinking Dora the Explorer pins.
The presentations are punctuated by glitzy performances from burlesque dancers and drag queens, but offstage their faces betray anxiety. The area of St. Laurent Boulevard where Cleopatra resides—a stretch of boarded-up storefronts south of Ste. Catherine street—will be razed as a gateway to the Quartier des spectacles (QDS), Montreal’s newly branded entertainment district. Along with a renamed metro station (“Saint-Laurent-Quartier des spectacles”), twelve-thousand-square-foot theatre (Theatre Telus) and eco-friendly boutiques, the $167 million overhaul will see the creation of two slick buildings: on the east side, an eight-storey cultural centre; and on the west, where Cleopatra stands, a gleaming twelve-storey office tower to house Hydro-Québec, the province’s electrical provider. …
Second Place, New Jersey Press Association’s Robert P. Kelly Award (best 1st-year reporter)
for Tragic End for True Talent in The Ridgewood News; Popular bar night draws large crowd in Ridgewood in The Ridgewood News
More than two dozen police officers from 11 neighboring towns showed up to disperse a crowd of bar patrons on Ridgewood‘s Chestnut Street on Thanksgiving Eve, one of the busiest nights of the year for bars. …
Honorable Mention, Garden State Journalists Association’s Memorial Journalism Awards (General News)
for Tragic End for True Talent in The Ridgewood News
The tragic details of the death of 18-year old Tyler Clementi, a graduate of Ridgewood High School (RHS) and a student at Rutgers University, unraveled this week on an international stage. At home, the story is all too raw. …
Third place, Society for Professional Journalists’ New Jersey Excellence in Journalism Awards (weekly newspaper feature writing)
for At every new stage, a common refrain: Time flies (in the Glen Rock Gazette)
Backpacks, notebooks, pencils. Supply lists, locks, carpool plans. School awaits Glen Rockers, and many a stomach is turning into a pit of butterflies in anticipation. …
Winner, J.H. MacDonald Student Journalism Award — Best Solutions-Oriented Writing
for Circle of Justice – originally in The McGill Daily
In Manitoba’s vast interior lies a small Ojibwa reservation called Hollow Water. An isolated community of about 1,000, Hollow Water has struggled with alcohol and drug abuse, as well as an unsettlingly high rate of sexual abuse – which has landed countless offenders in jail, over and over again.
“Those places are not conducive to healing,” says Marcel Hardisty, a community worker in Hollow Water. He speaks slowly over the phone to me, articulating each syllable. “It’s not designed to rehabilitate anybody; it’s designed to toughen them up.” …
Second Place, J.H. MacDonald Student Journalism Award — Best Solutions-Oriented Writing
for Cooking Leek Soup, Serving Up the Love – originally in The McGill Daily; re-published in The Tyee
In 1985, in the Montreal east-end district of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, three women with limited money and time found themselves unable to properly feed their families. To cut down on costs, they decided to buy their food in bulk and cook together for an afternoon. They found that this was not only economical, but that it was infinitely more enjoyable to cook in the company of friends. …
