Why Are You Telling Me This?: Eleven Acts of Intimate Journalism

Each summer, The Banff Centre's Literary Journalism program takes in eight senior journalists and writers and charges them with a simple, if daunting task: Write about something you really care about. In this installment of the Banff Centre Press's literary journalism series, participants push boundaries and arrive at some of their most passionate work.

Heather Elton is a full-time yoga teacher and has worked as a freelance writer/editor/photographer. She has written extensively on dance and contemporary art. Heather was a travel writer for Rough Guides and Fodor's, and her articles have been published in a number of international magazines. She was the editor of Dance Connection, Canada's magazine for contemporary dance, and Last Issue, an interdisciplinary arts magazine. During her tenure as editor of the Banff Centre Press, she published Chinook Winds, a chapbook on contemporary Aboriginal dance and Why Are You Telling Me This?, an anthology of creative non-fiction. A nationalist and lifelong journalist, Barbara Moon was the author of hundreds of major articles in magazines such as Maclean's and Saturday Night and features in newspapers such as the Globe and Mail. She wrote dozens of television documentaries, among them several segments of the experimental CBC-TV Images of Canada series, and books, including The Natural History of the Canadian Shield. From 1992 to 1998, she was a senior editor for the Creative Non-fiction and Cultural Journalism Program (now called the Literary Journalism Program) at The Banff Centre. Among relevant honours, Moon held a Maclean-Hunter first prize for Editorial Achievement, the University of Western Ontario's President's Medal, and the National Magazine Foundation's Award for Outstanding Achievement. Barbara Moon died in April 2009 near her home in Picton, Ontario, after a brief illness. Don Obe is a professor emeritus of magazine journalism, a former chair of the school and founder of the Ryerson Review of Journalism. His professional experience includes editor-in-chief of The Canadian magazine and Toronto Life, and associate editor of Maclean's. From 1989 to 1999 he was senior resident editor in and, at times, the director of the Creative Nonfiction and Cultural Journalism Program at the Banff Centre. He won a gold medal in the National Magazine Awards for ethical writing and, in l993, his industry's highest honour, the National Magazine Award for Outstanding Achievement. He retired in 2001.