Author and literary festival director Jael Richardson has been named the winner of the Professional Association of Canadian Literary Agents’s (PACLA) inaugural Publishing Professional of the Year Award for her work developing the FOLD literary festival.

PACLA agents voted for the person who they felt “beneficially and enthusiastically contributed” to the Canadian publishing industry in 2022.

Richardson is founder and executive director of the FOLD (Festival of Literary Diversity), an annual festival that takes place in Brampton, Ont. She is also the vice chair of the Canadian Association of Literary Festivals (CALF).

The PACLA award was developed as a way to acknowledge the work of those in the publishing industry who “go above and beyond to bolster our authors’ work,” PACLA president Carolyn Forde said in a release.

PACLA is an organization made up of more than 60 professionals working in Canadian literary agencies.