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General Rules and Guidelines
*General rules and guidelines apply to all entries. Additional rules and guidelines may also apply to specific categories as detailed after this section.
- For every category, the magazines must be headquartered in Western Canada, defined as BC, AB, SK, MB, Yukon and NWT. Magazines headquartered outside of Western Canada are not eligible to enter the Western Magazine Awards.
- The 28th Annual Western Magazine Awards competition is open to Canadian magazines published at least two times in 2009 whose main editorial offices are located in any of the four western provinces, Yukon or Northwest Territories. Annual magazines that have published for at least two years may submit work, but may not enter Magazine of the Year categories.
- The awards are open to Canadian citizens and full-time residents of Canada.
- Work must have appeared in an issue dated 2009. Work that appeared in the December 2009/January 2010 issue of a magazine is eligible. Work in a December 2008/January 2009 issue is not.
- The Foundation considers self-description as the most important criterion in defining a magazine; e.g. if you call yourself a magazine, you are a magazine. However, the Foundation will make the final determination. Publications that enter as newspapers in other award programs are not eligible.
- Newsprint supplements to daily newspapers are eligible if they are self-described as magazines and, in general, are substantially distinct from the newspapers in which they appear.
- No entries will be returned.
- The Western Magazine Awards reserves the right to use the winning entries in the awards program, for exhibit, for educational purposes, for promotion and/or in a publication of collected works.
- A maximum of five finalists will be named in each category.
- The judges reserve the right not to grant an award if, in their opinion, no entry merits one.
- Entrants may be required to provide supporting documents (notes, references and other material) at the judges' request.
- Individual entries displaying advertorial and/or promotional content will be ruled inadmissible.
- Awards in the written categories are not open to articles published under "second rights", e.g. an article that had been published previously in any format.
- All decisions of the Board or of the judges regarding all aspects of the competition are final and binding.
- Entrants must notify the Foundation in the event that any submission is, or subsequently becomes, the subject of any legal action, so the Foundation may take appropriate steps to avoid legal complications that could arise from republication.
- If an apology or retraction related to an article has been printed prior to submission, it must be attached to the entry. If an article that has been entered becomes the subject of an apology or retraction before the awards presentation, the Foundation must be notified.
Rules and Guidelines for Written Entries (Visual Rules and Trade/New Magazine Rules follow)
NEW GUIDLINES for WRITTEN CATEGORIES!
-All judging is done online so you MUST upload a PDF of each entry when submitting to the competition. No tearsheets are required.
- Awards for writing are open to staff or freelance contributors.
- Excerpts, condensations or serializations from books or books in progress are inadmissible.
- With the exception of Category 6: Fiction, all written submissions must be non-fiction.
- The same written work may be entered as many times, in as many categories as you like. You do not need to choose only one category. All written entries may also be entered in the Gold Awards. Each category and each Gold Award must be entered separately and must be accompanied by the appropriate entry fee.
- An article made up of two or more components will be eligible if one component is presented as dominant and the others as subordinate to it, regardless of whether the components are written by the same or different writers. Thus, an editorial package consisting of a major article with one or more sidebars or companion stories, none of which are longer than one half the major article's length, would be deemed eligible.
- In case of dispute, the decision of the Board of the WMAF is final.
- For Category 5: Regular Column or Department, the entry must consist of three samples by the same writer or team. Please use the overall title of the Column as the name of the piece entered.
- To qualify for the Gold Award for a given province, an article must be distributed within that province and fulfil two of the three following conditions:
- - the writer resides in that province
- - the publication's editorial office is located in that province
- - the article is about that province
- Category 10: Service, refers to any explanatory article sorting out information of a practical and day to day applicability to the reader.
- Category 12: Student Writing refers the non-fiction or journalistic work (published in 2009 in a Canadian consumer or university/college magazine) of a full-time student. Students must be Canadian citizens or landed immigrants attending post-secondary school full-time during 2009. This award is sponsored by the Amber Webb-Bowerman Memorial Foundation, established in the summer of 2008 to honour and preserve the memory of journalist Amber Michelle Bowerman (nee Webb), and to help fulfil her dreams by supporting emerging artists and journalists.
- The intent of the Foundation is that all articles meeting the above criteria should be eligible for an award. If you have any questions, please contact the Foundation office for assistance.
Trade Magazine and New Magazine Guidelines
To qualify for Trade Magazine of the Year, a magazine must fulfil all of the following conditions:
- be published in Western Canada
- have its principle listing in the Business Publications section of CARD
- serve a particular profession or industry
To be considered a New Magazine, you must have had your first year of full production in the calendar year 2008 or 2009. The WMAF allows New Magazines to enter if they first published in the past two, instead of one, years. This allows New Magazines to submit three consecutive issues. A magazine may only enter this category once.
Visual Rules and Guidelines
NEW GUIDELINES for VISUAL CATEGORIES!
- All visual entries MUST be uploaded to the web site as a PDF.
- Best Photograph and Best Illustration entries must be shown in context. If the entry is not from a title page, please also upload the title page image.
- Awards for photographs and illustrations are open only to works commissioned by the magazine.
- Winners of awards for photography or illustration may be required to provide, on loan, prints, transparencies or original artwork.
- Awards for illustration and photography are granted to the creator of the work, not the art director.
- Awards for art direction are open only to art directors and their staff or freelance associates.
- Category 17: Best Photograph - Architectural, Landscape or Still Life, refers to all photography except portraiture.
- Categories 17 and 19 are for single image entries only.
- Entrants in the photography categories must declare the nature of any substantial and unapparent manipulations of images - such as major retouching, multiple exposures or computer/darkroom enhancement - for the consideration of the judges.
Lifetime Achievement Award
In 1998, the Western Magazine Awards Foundation introduced the annual Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is open to anyone in the magazine industry, from circulation managers to designers.
Nominations are welcome from everyone in the industry.
The winner of the award will be selected by a committee of the Western Magazine Awards Foundation Board.
Submissions (indicating the candidate's name, title and career achievements) must be received by June 25, 2010. No entry fee is required.
No refunds will be granted under any circumstances.
