Linda Solomon is founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Vancouver Observer. She speaks on topics such as journalism and the business of digital media, women in media, and the power of story.
Award-Winning Publisher and Editor-in-chief:
In 2012 the Vancouver Observer team was honoured with a Canadian Journalism Foundation Excellence in Journalism Award (Small Media). In 2010 the Vancouver Observer team was the winner of a Canadian Online Publishing Awards for “Best Online-Only Articles” (Green Category). It was a finalist in three categories, including Best Articles, Best Overall Site, and Best Design. In 2011, the Vancouver Observer was a finalist for Best Overall Site, Best Articles, and won silver for Best Newsletter. In 2012, the Vancouver Observer was honored as a finalist for Best Articles, again in the Green category. Most recently, the Vancouver Observer was nominated for the 2013 Canadian Journalism Foundation Excellence in Journalism Award. The Excellence in Journalism Award honours an organization that embodies exemplary journalistic standards and practices.
Award -Winning Journalist:
While working at the Tennessean newspaper in the seventies, Linda won the United Press International Award for Best Public Service Reporting and the UPI Award for Best Investigative Reporting for a series of articles on Industrial Life Insurance (co-authored with Carolyn Shoulders and written under the direction of John Seigenthaler, who was publisher of the newspaper at the time.). US Senate Hearings were held as a result of the series and the committee received testimony from a number of the public housing project residents who were being sold burial insurance policies with fine print that ensured they would never pay off. The hearings, led by Senator Howard Meztenbaum resulted in federal regulations regarding "industrial insurance" being changed to make the sale of it illegal. In 1978, the editors of the Tennessean made a nomination of this body of work for a Pulitzer Prize in the local reporting category.
Linda won the Lincoln University Unity Award for Economic Reporting for a series on life in Nashville's public housing projects produced with Dwight Lewis, also under the direction of Siegenthaler.
A second time her reporting led to federal hearings, this time based on a series she wrote on discrimination against nurse-midwives by doctors (chaired by Al Gore who was then a U.S. congressman, as well as a former Tennessean reporter).
Books: "Why I Love Vancouver", by Linda Solomon, 2009, Vancouver Observer Publications, Out of Print
"Extract: The Pipeline Wars, Vol. 1 Enbridge", by Vancouver Observer reporting team, edited by Linda Solomon, Carrie Saxifrage, Jenny Uechi, released 2012 by Vancouver Observer Publications, buy it here
Short Story Publications: Linda's short fiction and literary nonfiction has appeared in Alabama Literary Review, Cimmaron Review, Gulf Coast Review, St. Anne's Review, Orion and Geist Magazine. Her writing on the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has been anthologized in a collection published by Parallax Press. In 2007 she was short-listed for a CBC Literary Prize in short fiction for her story about a United Nations media specialist working in Cambodia entitled, "A Point in the Battle".
Web: Linda was an early Internet pioneer, co-founding and co-writing in 1996 thecouch.com, a faux reality show and comedy about 8 New Yorkers in group therapy. The New York Daily News described thecouch.com as "The New Yorker meets Rent in cyberspace". When she first came to Vancouver, she wrote and reported occasionally for The Tyee. Her 2007 story on a Vancouver therapist who was googled by customs officials at the U.S.-Canada border and was then refused entry to America became the basis for a Colbert Report.
Radio: Linda briefly produced and was a host on WBAI radio in New York City.
Teaching: Linda has led workshops on many aspects of the reporting and writing process from The Women's Institute of Continuing Education in Paris to, most recently, Emily Carr University of Art + Design where she taught "The Art of Blogging".
Education: Linda received an MFA from Vermont College and did her undergraduate studies at Northwestern University.
Linda lived for six years in Paris before moving to New York City in 1994. She immigrated to Canada in 2001 and became a citizen in 2012.
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