canadian writers group
Derek Finkle, Principal
Finkle has divided his career almost equally between editing and writing. After graduating from Princeton University, where he studied creative writing under Paul Auster and Russell Banks, he became Toronto Life magazine’s first editorial intern in 1993. He went on to be a regular contributor to Saturday Night magazine and The Globe and Mail, among other publications, before publishing his first book, No Claim to Mercy, in 1998.
An examination of the controversial Robert Baltovich murder case, No Claim to Mercy won the Crime Writers’ Arthur Ellis Award for best non-fiction and was named a Notable Book of the Year by The Globe and Mail. Joyce Carol Oates, writing in The New York Review of Books, hailed Finkle’s book as “a model of investigative journalism, ambitiously and carefully researched, and in its conclusions, original and provocative.” Baltovich was finally acquitted of killing his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, on April 22, 2008.
In 2000, Finkle was hired as a contributing features editor at the weekly Saturday Night. From 2002 to 2007, he was the editor of Toro magazine, which garnered more than sixty National Magazine Award nominations, including Finkle’s gold for investigative reporting in 2005.
At CWG, he will negotiate on behalf of CWG writers, support the other agents and staff, spearhead the agency’s various marketing efforts, including its web site, and liaise with legal counsel.
Samantha Francis, Agent
Francis is a seasoned publishing professional with seven years experience in both Toronto and New York. She has extensive non-fiction experience and began her publishing career in 2002 at Verso’s New York office as a publicist to authors including Tariq Ali and Edward Said. In 2004, Samantha joined Penguin Group (Canada), first in publicity and then as Associate Editor, leaving in 2008 to freelance in acquisition consulting and editorial services for publishers in Canada and the US, including HarperCollins, Doubleday, and The New Press.
Iain MacKinnon, Legal Counsel
MacKinnon is counsel at Chitiz Pathak LLP and is a leading Canadian lawyer in media, entertainment, and intellectual property law. He acts for writers, journalists, film/television producers, and documentary filmmakers, as well as media companies such as CBC and Quebecor Media.
MacKinnon has been a strong advocate for freedom of expression rights and regularly represents journalists in court with respect to defamation, publication bans, search warrants, subpoenas, and access to court documents. MacKinnon recently represented freelance journalists Derek Finkle and Lon Appleby in their successful attempts to resist handing over their confidential notes and interviews to Crown and defence counsel, who wanted to use them as evidence in criminal cases.
MacKinnon spent five years as in-house counsel at CBC, where he had worked as a journalist before graduating from Osgoode Hall law school in 1995. His interest in journalism – he was also a reporter at the Toronto Star – began while he completed his B.A. Honours in English Literature from the University of Western Ontario, where he spent most of his time working as a writer and editor at the student newspaper, The Gazette, instead of going to classes. MacKinnon continues to be involved with The Gazette by sitting on the newspaper's advisory board and providing ad hoc legal advice.
David Kuhn, Kuhn Projects, New York Affiliate Agency
Kuhn Projects, established in 2002, is a full service literary agency, representing a wide variety of writers on book projects, magazine articles, and their attendant film or television adaptations. Kuhn provides editorial and packaging services on book and magazine projects from conception to the proposal stage and often through to the finished manuscript. The company represents about eighty authors—journalists, novelists, children’s book authors, and figures in the world of politics, culture, and entertainment.
Prior to founding Kuhn Projects, Kuhn worked for many years as a magazine editor at Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Talk, and Brill’s Content.
Kuhn was the Editor in Chief of Brill’s Content for two and a half years (January 1999 – October 2001), where, in addition to building the ranks of the magazine's staff of writers, he also edited and published numerous writers from outside the magazine.
Prior to running Brill’s Content, Kuhn was the founding Executive Editor of Talk and Vice President of Talk Media.
Prior to helping launch Talk Media, Kuhn was an editor at The New Yorker from 1993 through 1998, where he edited “The Talk of the Town,” “Shouts & Murmurs,” and numerous special issues. From 1995 through 1998 he served as Features Director at The New Yorker, assigning and editing scores of articles and overseeing the assigning of many others while planning future issues.
Prior to joining The New Yorker, Kuhn was an executive at Longview Entertainment, a film production company with Universal/MCA, for which he opened and ran the New York development office for two years.
Prior to Longview Entertainment Kuhn worked at Vanity Fair as Arts Editor from 1985 to 1987 and a Senior Editor from 1987 until 1992.