Bio, Awards & Credits

“The saviour was supposed to come in the form of a skinny kid from a town with a long French name.” — first sentence of “50 Mission Cap”.

Author’s Bio
adrian-my-shantiI am the editor of the cancer-fighting cookbook “Inspired Cooking” (Fresh Air Publishing, December 2016). It has been called “the best cookbook of its kind” and “the best edited cookbook of the year” by The Best of Food & Wine radio show with Anthony Gismondi and Kasey Wilson. You can click here to listen to the broadcast featuring Vikram Vij and me discussing the cookbook.

“Inspired Cooking” features profiles of Canada’s leading chefs — including Vij, Michael Smith, Dale MacKay and Connie DeSousa — discussing the role nutrition plays in their lives and how their restaurants are helping to shape Canadians’ views of nutrition for the 21st century. The cookbook includes more than 60 recipes. It was produced by InspireHealth, a government-funded non-profit agency that provides supportive cancer care for patients across Canada. InspireHealth helped my beloved wife, Julia Pelish-Brijbassi, following her diagnosis of cancer in 2015. She passed away in March 2016 and the “Inspired Cooking” project features her amazing photography.

You can read my tribute/eulogy to Julia here.

The Editor’s Note for “Inspired Cooking” is published here.

MORE BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Adrian Brijbassi speaks at travel industry conferences and consults with travel and technology brands on developing effective content strategies that align with their overarching corporate and marketing goals. He is co-founder of Vacay.ca, the leading online travel magazine focused on Canadian destinations and culture, and its international sister publication, VacayNetwork.com. Adrian is also a former manager of social media and advocacy at Destination Canada, was the deputy travel editor at the Toronto Star, and has formerly worked at New York Newsday as an assistant news editor and the Vancouver Sun as deputy sports editor. Adrian won multiple awards for his writing while taking MFA courses at Southampton College in New York and has won numerous travel writing and travel photography awards. He has appeared frequently on local and national broadcasts, discussing creative writing, journalism and travel. His novel “50 Mission Cap” was praised by Writer’s Digest for presenting “an impressively complex look at young athletes and the potentially disastrous effects of the pressure placed upon them.”

Publishing Credits

Short Stories: Published
• *+“Scream” (Southampton Review, Issue No. 1, Summer, 2007)
• *#^“Nothing to Be Afraid Of” (Confrontation, Issue No. 84/85, Winter, 2004)
• ^“Canada Geese Mate for Life” (Confrontation, Issue No. 82/83, Summer, 2003)
• “Sharks in the Moonlight”(Proteus, Spring, 2003)
• “The Prince” (East Hampton Star, January, 2003)
• “Reject This!” (Proteus, Spring, 2002)

Short Stories: Looking for a Home
• ^“Repairs”
• “Protection from Friends”
• “Masquerade”

+Pushcart Prize nominee
*Finalist for Glimmer Train short story award
#Winner of the Sarah Tucker Prize for Fiction
^Winner of Southampton’s Whitman Award for Fiction

Novels
• “50 Mission Cap”

Novels-in-progress
• “Triumph the Lion”
• “A Final and Lasting Solitude”
• “This Sure Ground”

Travel Writing Awards