Vancouver editor Barbara Pulling has won the 2000 Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence for her work on The Bear’s Embrace: A True Story of Surviving a Grizzly Bear Attack by Patricia Van Tighem (Greystone Books).
The judges said that Pulling “added immeasurable value to this story — she saw the gem of the book to be in a first draft, figured out how to encourage the author to enlarge it most effectively, nurtured a novice writer . . . and supported a person who had had a horrific experience yet had an inspiring story to tell.” They also commented on her remarkable vision; her creativity, flair and insight; and her high order of professionalism, sensitivity and respect for the author and her work.
Pulling was an editor at Douglas & McIntyre for 10 years and is currently a freelance editor. She also teaches at the Simon Fraser University Book Editing Workshop and in the SFU Writing and Publishing Program.
The runner-up for the 2000 Tom Fairley Award is Carol Berger, who was selected for her work on The Holocaust’s Ghosts: Writings on Art, Politics, Law and Education, edited by F. C. DeCoste and Bernard Schwartz (University of Alberta Press). The judges commented on Berger’s impressive editorial expertise in shaping this collection of academic papers and called her editing scrupulous, thorough and thoughtful.
This is the 19th Tom Fairley Award. Named for Tom Fairley, a distinguished editor and founding member of EAC who died in 1982, the award is made for a freelance editor’s outstanding contribution to a work published in Canada in English or French during the previous year. The three judges this year were Georgina Montgomery, freelance editor and co-winner of the 1999 Tom Fairley Award; Jonathan Webb, managing editor at McClelland & Stewart; and Jean Wilson, associate director of the University of British Columbia Press.
The award was presented on June 16 at the gala banquet of the EAC annual conference and AGM.