FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Toronto, June 10, 2019—The Editors’ Association of Canada (Editors Canada) has announced that Jennifer Croll of Vancouver, British Columbia, is the winner of the 2019 Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence.
(Photo credit Rebecca Blissett)
Croll was awarded the $2,000 prize for her work on Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography by Andrea Warner (Greystone Books). The award was presented at the awards banquet of Editors Canada’s 40th anniversary conference, which took place on June 8, 2019, at the Westin Nova Scotian in Halifax.
This year, Editors Canada presented the Tom Fairley Award for the 35th time. The 2019 award recognizes an exceptional editor who played an important role on a project published in the 2018 calendar year.
“It is a true honour to be selected for the 2019 Tom Fairley Award,” said Croll in her acceptance speech. “From my vantage point at Greystone Books, where I work with editors every day, I know how much essential yet unseen labour editors do. I am thrilled for my own work to be recognized by such a talented, hard-working community of professionals”
Croll went on to thank Warner and Buffy Sainte-Marie, as well as the book’s copy editor, Susan Safyan, and its proofreader, Jennifer Stewart.
The judges for the 2019 Tom Fairley Award were impressed with Croll’s wide-ranging and significant editorial contribution. Identifying opportunities to improve the first draft, she had the vision to pinpoint and articulate how the manuscript could be reshaped, prompting the author to complete an extensive rewrite in only 14 days. Although facing tight time constraints, Croll made further important contributions in the revised manuscript to improve its style and impact.
In her support of the nomination, Andrea Warner, the book’s author, wrote that Croll’s “clear, constructive, supportive [edits] were absolutely essential to the book’s timely completion. Buffy Sainte-Marie…echoes my thanks and gratitude for Jen’s hard work and brilliant clarity.”
The other editors shortlisted for their editorial excellence were Tracey L. Anderson of Edmonton, Alberta, and Lesley Erickson of Vancouver, British Columbia.
Anderson was the editor of Truth Be Told: An Anthology of Inspirational Stories by Women in the Law, Jeananne K. Kirwin, Teresa R. Haykowsky and Sarah D. Eadie, eds. (Alberta Civil Trial Lawyers Association, Jeananne Kirwin). Working calmly and diplomatically, she helped to bring to fruition a collection of short memoirs by 114 lawyers, judges and other very busy people. Working with the project team, she developed the editorial process and set the standards. Then she managed multi-channel correspondence and tracked the moving parts while bringing unity and polish to the texts, all under an extremely tight deadline. It is easy to believe the nominator’s claim that the book “just wouldn’t have happened” without Anderson.
Erickson led the necessary developmental edits on Truth and Conviction: Donald Marshall Jr. and the Mi’kmaw Quest for Justice by L. Jane McMillan (UBC Press) after recognizing the manuscript’s potential to capture a wider readership than either the author or the publisher had envisioned, and convincing her colleagues to reposition the book as a lead title on the fall list. She prepared a manual for academics on how to write for a general audience, which she used in the course of her own extensive revisions. Halfway through the project, Erickson left UBC Press, but remained committed to the book, bringing it to a timely publication and proving herself once again to be an editor of conviction and dedication.
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The judges for the 2019 Tom Fairley Award are respected Canadian editors and writers.
Marie Clausén is the author of Sacred Architecture in a Secular Age and a number of academic articles, reviews and poems. She has been an academic editor for 20 years.
Barbara Czarnecki, a freelance editor in Toronto, works on a wide range of materials and topics. She joined Editors Canada (then FEAC) in its first year. She was the inaugural winner of the Tom Fairley Award in 1983.
Dania Sheldon is a freelance editor and writer with 20 years of editing experience. She holds a doctorate in English Language and Literature from Oxford University and received the Tom Fairley Award in 2017.
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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 1,300 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 five regional branches: British Columbia; Saskatchewan; Toronto; Ottawa–Gatineau; and Quebec, as well as smaller branches (called twigs) in Barrie, Calgary, Edmonton, Manitoba, Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph, Hamilton/Halton, Kingston, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Media contact
Michelle Ou
Senior Communications Manager
Editors Canada
416 975-1379 / 1 866 226-3348
communications@editors.ca