Magazine and newspaper writing
Andrea has worked as a writer and editor at many of Canada’s best magazines, including Toronto Life, Chatelaine, This Magazine and Cottage Life. Her articles have won numerous awards. Here are some of her favourites.
Small Mercies
This first-person account of having a premature baby won an Honourable Mention at the National Magazine Awards in the Health/ Medicine category. Read Bruce Gillespie’s dissection of the article— “Why’s This So Good?”— on the Nieman Story Board.
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It’s about dam time
An essay about why it’s time to embrace the beaver for its climate change–fighting superpowers.
Read online →
Trash the dress
A group of cottagers mess with their wedding dresses at a summer party in the middle of Georgian Bay.
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Petrified Forest
A story about Toronto’s urban forest and its struggle to thrive and survive— faced with pests, neglect, climate change, aging and the stress of city living— “Petrified Forest” won an Honourable Mention at the National Magazine Awards in the Science, Technology & the Environment category.
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In vitro we trust
An investigation into the brave new world of fertility treatments, the piece won an Honourable Mention at the National Magazine Awards in the Health/Medicine category.
Read online →
Heart & soul
An ode to falling in love, this personal essay won an Honourable Mention at the National Magazine Awards.
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Cookie monsters
A story about the modern school bake sale, where nothing less than your measure as a mother is at stake.
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Old at Heart
Instead of tearing down their beloved family cottage, the late architect and professor Barry Sampson and his partner, writer Judi Coburn, created a beautiful modern structure that puts the original handbuilt log structure at its heart.
Creating a city of neighbours
An essay in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper about rebuilding the bonds of community.
Read online →
Faith, Hope, and Clarity
They bought the lot in winter. It’s home to a rattlesnake zone. And the modern cottage they built looks like nothing else on Georgian Bay.
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The Office Tower
An institutional profile of First Canadian Place in downtown Toronto, this story won an Honourable Mention at the National Magazine Awards in the One of a Kind category.
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Excuse me while I screef the duff
A chronicle of life in a treeplanting camp in Northern Ontario, this article won an Honourable Mention in the One of a Kind category at the National Magazine Awards.
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Highway to heaven
An investigation into the environmental, social and economic impact of carving a four-lane highway through the Canadian Shield, the piece won a Gold in the Public Issues category at the International Regional Magazine Awards.
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Essays and art catalogues
Andrea has contributed to numerous essay anthologies and art catalogues. Here are a few.
On Spirit Lake:
Georgian Bay Stories
From Church Street Press
A limited-edition book with wood engravings by Alan Stein
This collection of fiction and essays about Georgian Bay is hand typeset on a Vandercook #4 proof press. Andrea’s contribution, an essay called “The Stories We Tell,” is about the role of the “Sixth Great Lake” in her family and history.
“….Even now, I can’t travel anywhere in the world without comparing one place or another to Georgian Bay, wondering always if this new destination is quite as beautiful. The Bay has imprinted itself on me in a way that I couldn’t escape if I wanted. Of course, as with any great love, it is not uncomplicated. It is leavened with a healthy dose of fear. Georgian Bay is a place of volatile moods, big winds, big waves and cold, deep, unforgiving water…”—from “The Stories We Tell”
City of Words:
Toronto Through Her Writers’ Eyes
Edited by Sarah Elton
A collection of essays, fictional excerpts and photographs about Toronto, City of Words: Toronto Through Her Writers’ Eyes is published by Cormorant Press. Andrea’s contribution, an essay called “Paper Trail,” is about neighbourhoods and belonging.
“This book would make a wonderful Christmas present for someone returning to the city, full of regret as the days grow dark and the streets grow cold. It conjures a Toronto that is rich and vital.”
— Toronto Star
Dropped Threads 3:
Beyond the Small Circle
Edited by Marjorie Anderson
This essay collection is the third in the bestselling series featuring Canadian women writers chronicling their personal discoveries—about themselves, about love, work and life in general. Andrea contributed the essay “The Writers’ Circle,” about a writing group she helped lead for several years at a downtown Toronto women’s shelter.
“The stories in Dropped Threads 3 encourage women to be confident, to challenge what they have been taught, to recognize that they are not alone.”
—Canadian Literature
The Churches of Oro-Medonte
The Art of Joanna McEwen
Andrea contributed an essay called “About the pie: a meditation on history, women’s work and rural connections” to this stunning catalogue of egg tempera paintings by artist Joanna McEwen.
“McEwen’s church paintings could easily be read as elegies for a fading life and culture. She is a careful chronicler, a diligent student of history. In her books and her paintings, she conveys the urgency of “getting it down” before this rural life disappears… McEwen is not a sentimentalist, however. The precision of her technique and steady focus of her eye precludes nostalgia.”
—from “About the pie”
