Colleen Kimmett is a finalist for a National Magazine Award in the category of Best Short Feature, the nod coming for her Tyee-published first-person account of falling in and out of love with raising chickens in her Vancouver backyard.

Kimmett is a regular contributor to The Tyee, and writes about food, the environment and business for the Tyee Solutions Society and other publications.

Earlier this year Kimmett won a Canadian Online Publishing Association Gold award for her in-depth series on strengthening local food economies in B.C. and Ontario.

“Colleen’s piece ‘Raising My Chicken Monsters’ richly deserves this latest recognition,” said Tyee editor David Beers, “for its humour and insight and beautiful writing. The nomination demonstrates her fantastic range as a journalist. She’s won accolades for hard-nosed, explanatory journalism about complex social and economic issues, and now she is being recognized for the wit and elegance of her prose in a quite different format.”

“We’re proud that Colleen’s excellent work appears often in The Tyee,” Beers added. “All of Colleen’s colleagues here gave her a big cheer when the news came.”

Other finalists in the Best Short Feature category are: Heather O'Neill (Chatelaine); Elizabeth Hay (ELLE Canada); JJ Lee (ELLE Canada); Michel Arseneault (L'actualité); Ken MacQueen (Maclean’s); Maddie Chang (More); Camilla Gibb (Toronto Life); Deirdre Dodds (The Walrus); Lisa Gregoire (The Walrus).

The National Magazine Award winners will be announced June 7.