Jessica McDiarmid was Canada's National Observer's Toronto climate reporter from February to September, of 2022.

Jessica's writing has been published in the Associated Press, the Toronto Star, Harvard Review Online, Maisonneueve, and Canadian Business, and others. Her first book, Highway of Tears, was published in 2019 by Doubleday (Canada) and Atria (US).

Jessica is a graduate of University of King’s College, Nova Scotia with a Master of Fine Arts in narrative non-fiction.

AWARDS & OTHER ACTIVITIES

• Finalist for the RBC Taylor Prize and the BC/Yukon Book Prizes’ Hubert Evans Award for non-fiction, and winner of the Jeanne Clarke Memorial Publication Award, for Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2019)

• Writer-in-residence for University of King’s College MFA program, 2020

• Speaker at numerous events, including Society of Environmental Journalists conferences in 2014 and 2015, the Toronto International Festival of Authors in 2020, UBC’s Green College lecture series and America Walks webinar in 2021; host and moderator for Toronto Public Library.

• Named one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 by This magazine in July 2011 for coverage of civil war in Ivory Coast

• Honourable mention in Atlantic Journalism Awards’ Student Awards for Excellence in Journalism, 2007