Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Good News about a Sad Story

The annual National Magazine Awards were announced yesterday afternoon, and I was thrilled to pick up a nomination (in the Sports & Recreation category) for my story "A Deadly Crossing", which appeared last May in explore magazine. It's good news but for a story that was based on a sad and tragic event—the death of two kayakers in Howe Sound during a training day gone horribly wrong—that should have never happened. The incident formed the Epilogue to Fatal Tide; it occurred just as I was sending the final draft of the manuscript to my publisher. Over the following months, I interviewed close to 40 people involved in the incident to reconstruct the chain of bad decisions and worse luck that led to two men dying from hypothermia—and two of their friends nearly perishing as well. It was a tough story to work on, and hopefully the honour of being nominated for an NMA will continue to raise awareness about the perils of cold water. An online version of the article can be read here

2 comments:

richard said...

Congratulations, David! Wonderful news - and it justifies getting out of helping at the ASLE conference, which I take is the entire purpose of your journalistic career, yes? Good on you.

And with marking almost done, I can almost dive into Fatal Tide - looking forward to it.

richard said...

And congratulations on the win -- plus Theresa Kishkan says well done, too.