AlbertaViews covers the province from a progessive perspective.

AlbertaViews and Spacing, both independent, small-circulation magazines run on limited funding, were nominated in the presitigious Magazine of the Year category, as finalists for the 2009 National Magazine Awards were announced last night in Montreal. Canadian Business, owned by Rogers Publishing Inc., was also nominated in the category.

Overall, The Walrus and L'actualité lead the way with 28 nominations apiece. In an e-mail to Masthead, Walrus co-publisher Shelley Ambrose wrote,"Have to say we are more than thrilled that we came out on top as economic conditions this year were such that we could only afford to put in half the submissions we had entered last year or the year before!"

Toronto Life, the 2008 Magazine of the Year, was just one nomination short of turning the top spot into a three-way tie.

Nomination leaders:

Magazine	Written	Integrated	Visual	Total
The Walrus	21	1	6	28
L'actualité	23	3	2	28
Toronto Life	18	5	4	27
Maclean’s	19	0	1	20
Report on Business	11	0	8	19
explore	15	1	0	16
Chatelaine	9	0	2	11
Cottage Life	5	2	4	11
Maisonneuve	5	2	3	10
enRoute	4	1	5	10

This year's Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement will go Cynthia Brouse. An instructor at Ryerson University's journalism school for nearly 20 years, Brouse is also a former managing editor at Saturday Night, the author of After the Fact, a guide to magazine fact-checking, and the winner of two previous NMA gold awards for writing.

Also noteworthy:

• Kris Demeanor was named Best New Magazine Writer for a his piece, "Get a Real Job," which was published in the January/February 2008 issue of Unlimited.
• Best Health, CARP, Canadian Running, Géo Plein Air, Kingston Life, Globe Investor and Worn Fashion Journal were all nominated for the first time.
• Chris Koentges led individual nominees on the writing side with 5, followed by Valérie Borde, Gerald Hannon and J.B. MacKinnon with 4 nominations and Mark Anderson, Kim Pittaway, David Hayes, Jay Teitel, Don Gillmor and Sophie Doucet with 3 each. 18 other writers are nominated at least twice.   
• Photographers Natasha V and Stacey Haines are each nominated 4 times. Roger Lemoyne, Martin Tessler and Chris Nicholls each received 3 nominations for their photographic work. Among illustrators, Sam Weber, Dan Page and Kagan McLeod each received 2 nominations.

The awards will be given out on June 5 at the Carlu in Toronto. Tickets are $90 each (early bird rate; $100 after May 22, 2009).