Cynthia at the 2009 NMAs
Sadly, we lost a great writer, editor and fact-checker this past Saturday, when Cynthia Brouse passed away in Toronto, after a long battle with cancer. Cynthia contributed to AMPA's Tiny Template resources as well as taught fact-checking sessions for AMPA. She was a thoughtful and spirited person and will be greatly missed. I'm glad I got to see her at last year's NMAs where she was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award. Deepest condolences to her friends and family.
Here's part of her obit from the Globe and Mail:
CYNTHIA BROUSE 1957 - 2010 Canadian magazine readers who value the beauty and strength of accurate facts, immaculate punctuation and elegant, precise prose have lost a best friend. Cynthia Brouse, the country's finest fact-checker, copy editor and teacher of those same skills died on June 19, 2010 at age 52. For 30 years, Cynthia's diligent and spirited behind-the-scenes labour has burnished articles and news features in all of Canada's top-rung publications. She worked as a copy editor, researcher and writer for Maclean's, Chatelaine, Toronto Life and Saturday Night (where she was also managing editor for two years), Report on Business Magazine, Canadian Business, and the Globe and Mail. A natural teacher, she trained scores of current magazine editorial staff in the best procedures for fact-checking contentious quotes, assessing the credibility of sources and avoiding lawsuits they could ill afford. Her book, After the Fact, A Guide to Fact-Checking for Magazines and Other Media, is the go-to manual for both magazine interns and corporate communicators nationally. In 2009, she received the National Magazine Awards' most prestigious individual honour, its Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement. [The rest can be found here.]
Cynthia also chronicled part of her struggle with cancer on her blog, The Clothesline Saga.
