2023 Awards Jury
Roberta Staley is a Vancouver-based, independent magazine editor, writer, documentary filmmaker and author. Voice of Rebellion – How Mozhdah Jamalzadah Brought Hope to Afghanistan is her first book.
Her freelance work over the past few years has focused on gender and human rights in conflict or post-conflict zones around the globe. Staley's international reportage includes covering female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kenya and witchcraft and illegal logging in Papua New Guinea as well as stories from El Salvador, Haiti, Colombia, Cambodia, South Africa, Afghanistan and New Zealand.
Roberta is the winner of a number of awards in the areas of film, writing and editing including: Best Feature Article: Magazine, Long Format, 2019 - Associated Church Press, the A.C. Forrest Memorial Award 2019 - Canadian Church Press, Best Foreign Documentary, 2018 - Artemis Women in Action Film Festival and Best Canadian Documentary, 2017 - Female Eye Film Festival. She has also won three Western Magazine Awards Foundation awards and garnered awards for editing, including six years in a row for Trade Magazine of the Year in Western Canada.
Roberta has an MA in Liberal Studies From Simon Fraser University. Her latest documentary, “Elephant Warriors,” about female conservation rangers in Kenya, can be seen on the film festival circuit in 2024. Previously Roberta edited the financial publication Enterprise as well as a science magazine, the Canadian Chemical News. Roberta teaches magazine writing at Douglas College in New Westminster, BC.
Chris Cannon has worked as a writer and editor for a host of magazines, ranging from Rolling Stone and the New Republic to the University of Chicago Magazine and the Journal of Visual Anthropology. He is the author of four books on music and travel, as well as the bestselling political satire "America, But Better.
Most of Chris' work covers social and environmental topics, particularly in the areas of innovations that foster community and sustainability. Other work he has written on issues of sustainability, community, and the social impact of war has found support with grants and fellowships from the Tides Foundation, the Canadian Arts Council, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Chris is currently working on a book about the culture of sharing.
Deborah Campbell is the author of A Disappearance in Damascus, which won the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize and the Hubert Evans Prize, and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Her previous book, This Heated Place, was a Lonely Planetrecommended read.
Campbell’s work has been published in seven languages and 11 countries. Places she has written about include Iran, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Mexico, Cuba and Russia. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, the New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian and Foreign Policy. She is the winner of three National Magazine Awards and received the Freedom to Read Award for her body of work. Campbell has lectured at Harvard, Berkeley, Zayed University in Dubai, and the National Press Club in Washington. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Writing and Lansdowne Chair in Fine Arts at the University of Victoria.
Our 2022 Jury
Roberta Staley
robertastaley.com
Alex Roslin
policedomesticviolence.blogspot.com
Bill Blaikie
Our 2021 Jury
Arno Kopecky
@arno_kopecky
Deborah Campbell
deborahcampbell.ca
Bill Blaikie