FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Toronto, April 21, 2026—The Editors’ Association of Canada (Editors Canada) has announced the finalists for the 2026 Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence.
The Tom Fairley Award is presented annually by Editors Canada to an exceptional editor who played an important role in the success of a project completed in English or French.
The $2,000 grand prize will be presented at the awards banquet of the Editors Canada conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on May 22, 2026. Editors Canada is also pleased to announce that the other two finalists will each receive a cash prize of $500 in recognition of their exceptional editorial performance. The cash awards are made possible by Editors Canada and its generous donors.
SHORT LIST
The finalists are listed alphabetically by last name.
Victoria Addona (Montreal, Quebec)
Zomia Garden
by Yutong Lin
(Canadian Centre for Architecture)
Victoria Addona brought skill, mentorship and patience to a complex project that required a range of abilities. In Zomia Garden, she worked with an emerging curator to substantively edit both words and images that captured historical, aesthetic and ethical elements. This involved advising on structure and tone for a writer who was new to the format and not writing in their first language. As this is a project about architecture, her work also included graphic design, image selection and caption development.
The judges were especially impressed with Victoria’s innovation in the use of captions to not only describe but “speak to” the reader in an experimental narrative that ran alongside the main text. Over multiple passes, she supported a new author with finding her voice, clarifying her arguments, and ensuring image selection and placement developed the publication’s narrative. This project was complex, and she participated not just as an editor but, in many ways, also as a mentor for the author. This collaboration speaks to the very best possibilities for the author–editor relationship.
Lisa Frenette (Mississauga, Ontario)
REDress: Art, Action, and the Power of Presence
by Jaime Black-Morsette
(Portage & Main Press/ HighWater Press)
Lisa Frenette’s editing skills were apparent in the queries and line edits she made, in the professionalism of her communication with multiple authors as well as the publisher, and in her scaled approach to editorial passes where substantive and stylistic editing were separated so editing became more detailed over time. The manuscript was complex, requiring communication with 20 contributors who all had different approaches to writing and thus different editorial needs, as well as collaborating on image selection, cover development, and overseeing copy editing and proofreading.
Lisa’s editing on REDress was technically excellent, but the judges noted a second area in which her work went above and beyond what is required of a professional editor. She offered heartfelt empathy and culturally sensitive emotional support to authors discussing an incredibly difficult and personal topic, some of whom were navigating the impacts of violence on their loved ones as they wrote and worked with her. Lisa’s editing showed that she spent time building trust with authors and ensured she understood their intention rather than prescribing any rules for what their stories should look like. This adaptability, alongside her technical excellence and dedication to stewarding this project over three years, demonstrates her merit as an editor.
Marguerite Pigeon (Vancouver, British Columbia)
“Involuntary Treatment: Tensions and Choices”
by Multiple Authors
(Visions Journal)
In addition to a wide range of editorial skills, Marguerite Pigeon brought sensitivity and awareness to her work editing an issue of Visions Journal dedicated to the subject of involuntary treatment. This project involved communicating with 15 contributors who told personal, difficult stories, as well as with the journal editor. By combining typical edits with meetings by phone or online, she incorporated respectful compassion into her substantive editing work. Marguerite preserved the authenticity of authors’ voices while maintaining the journal’s established tone and word limits, emotionally supporting the contributors’ telling of their stories, in their ways, over multiple editorial passes.
The judges were impressed that Marguerite spoke with candour about an important mistake that she learned about late in the process, and the integrity with which she approached correcting it. All of this was done over a short five-week period, during which she also copy edited the volume. Her talents, patience and care as an editor shone brightly in this application.
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The judges for the 2026 Tom Fairley Award are respected Canadian editors.
Fazeela Jiwa is an acquisitions and development editor at Fernwood Publishing, an independent publisher dedicated to critical thinking. In 2023, Editors Canada gave her the Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence. Reach her at www.fazeelajiwa.com.
Dania Sheldon is a writer, communications consultant and award-winning editor. She holds a doctorate in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford and has worked freelance for 25 years. Dania received the 2016 Tom Fairley Award for her work on the critically acclaimed book Charles Gretton: Clock and Watchmaking Through the Golden Age.
Shirarose Wilensky is an editor at House of Anansi Press, where she specializes in literary fiction and narrative nonfiction by BIPOC, LGBTQ2S+ and emerging writers. She won the Editors Canada Tom Fairley Award for editing Butter Honey Pig Bread (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020) by francesca ekwuyasi.
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About Editors Canada
Additional information about the Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence is available on the Editors Canada website.
Editors Canada began in 1979 as the Freelance Editors’ Association of Canada to promote and maintain high standards of editing. In 1994, the word “Freelance” was dropped to reflect the association’s expanding focus to serve both freelance and in-house editors. As Canada’s only national editorial association, it is the hub for members and affiliates, both salaried and freelance, who work in the corporate, technical, government, not-for-profit and publishing sectors. The association’s professional development programs and services include professional certification, an annual conference, seminars, webinars, and networking with other associations. Editors Canada has four regional branches: British Columbia; Toronto; Ottawa–Gatineau; and Quebec, as well as smaller branches (called twigs) in Atlantic Canada, Barrie, Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton-Halton, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph and Manitoba.
Media contact
Michelle Ou (she/elle)
Senior Communications Manager
Editors Canada
communications@editors.ca