Written by Amy Haagsma; copy edited by Meagan Kus
Recap of EAC-BC’s branch meeting on March 18, 2015.
On March 18, EAC-BC hosted authors Margo Bates and Daniel Francis for a panel discussion about working with editors. Jenny Lee, a writer, editor, and digital journalist with the Vancouver Sun, moderated, adding details of her own experience and encouraging questions from the audience.
Written by Stephanie Warner; copy edited by Meagan Kus
Navy man, kung fu expert, Dungeons & Dragons player, musician, and movie extra! Meet Reg Rozee, editing student.
Reg is working toward an Editing certificate through SFU’s Writing and Communications program. He retired from the Canadian navy in spring 2014 and moved to Vancouver.
We met in a sunny Caffé Artigiano on Main Street. Unfortunately, Vancouver’s early spring had brought on a bad case of allergies. In spite of this, Reg enthusiastically talked about his naval career and his love of words. Sipping a large mocha helped his sore throat.
My first real career was the army. I’d just turned 20 and went to basic training. I was a radio operator and was posted to what was then called the Special Service Force. I spent four years there, and I did a UN tour in Iraq in 1988. Continue reading
Written by Eric Damer; copy edited by Meagan Kus
Like many people who find themselves working as an editor, I grew up in a household of word enthusiasts. My father, an English teacher, methodically circled spelling and grammar errors in the local newspaper or identified errors in environmental print, but he also loved puns, spoonerisms, double-entendres, and wordplay of all sorts. Well before I turned to editing as a line of work, I knew the value of saying what you meant, and meaning what you said—unless you had a joke to tell. Now, it seems, I have difficulty turning off my error-checker for the sake of a chuckle.
Written by Stephanie Warner; copy edited by Meagan Kus
Recap of EAC-BC’s branch meeting on February 18, 2015.
I’m a fan of British murder mysteries and police procedurals, so it was a thrill for me to attend a talk by Dr. Lorna Fadden, a real-life language detective. Dr. Fadden is an assistant professor at Simon Fraser University, where she teaches introductory linguistics courses. She also researches in the following areas:
Her website and SFU profile give detailed information on her research.
Written by Amy Haagsma; copy edited by Meagan Kus
Review of seminar Building a Successful Editing Business with Peter Moskos (offered by EAC-BC on January 24, 2015).
I was excited to see the topic for EAC-BC’s January seminar: Building a Successful Editing Business. The timing couldn’t be better—as a newish editor who is just venturing into freelancing, I really needed some advice in this area!
The seminar was led by Peter Moskos, a fixture within EAC and a member for 26 years. Now retired, he previously co-founded the highly successful Gordon Writing Group and was the company’s managing partner from 1995 to 2004.
What: EAC annual conference
When: June 12–14, 2015
Where: Metro Toronto Convention Centre, 255 Front Street West, Toronto | map
Compiled by Amy Haagsma; copy edited by Meagan Kus
EAC’s annual conference features industry speakers, professional development sessions, networking opportunities, an awards banquet, and more. This year’s conference will be held June 12–14, 2015, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Greg Ioannou is the conference chair.
Written by Frances Peck; copy edited by Meagan Kus
John Eerkes-Medrano is a freelance editor based in Victoria. A winner of the Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence and a former vice-president of EAC, he also taught for many years in Simon Fraser University’s book editing immersion workshop.
John talks to EAC-BC member Frances Peck about editing narrative non-fiction, working with talented authors, and some of the quirkier experiences from his long and rich career.
Continue reading
Written by Amy Haagsma; copy edited by Meagan Kus
Review of “Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business” by Louise Harnby, in association with The Publishing Training Centre.
Last week we reviewed Louise Harnby’s book Business Planning for Editorial Freelancers, a how-to guide for preparing a business plan. Harnby included a lot of great information on marketing, but she has also covered the topic in more detail in her more recent book, Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business.
Harnby touts this as “a book for editorial business owners, by an editorial business owner.” She promises that it is not a marketing textbook and that she’s done her best to avoid using jargon; rather, she’s tried to give editorial professionals real advice in the same manner she would in a face-to-face conversation.
Even the introduction is packed full of useful information, and the first item Harnby tackles is dispelling the notion that editors and proofreaders are not marketers. Everyone, she says, is a marketer, and having a marketing strategy is essential. After you’ve invested time and money in setting up your business, marketing is the next step to help you find clients and sell your services. Being good at what you do is not enough; you need to be found in order to be successful. Once you have built up your client base, regular marketing helps you stay in the minds of your clients.
Written by Amy Haagsma; copy edited by Meagan Kus
Review of seminar Beyond Track Changes with Iva Cheung, Grace Yaginuma, and Ann-Marie Metten (offered by EAC-BC on November 29, 2014).
For most editors, the majority of our onscreen editing is done using Microsoft Word. For many of us, it’s a love–hate relationship: we’ve learned to live with (or work around) the “features” we dislike.
EAC-BC’s November seminar, Beyond Track Changes, promised to help us get the most out of Word, tame its most irritating features, and work more efficiently, as well as to demystify advanced features like wildcard searches and macros. Naturally, the seminar sold out quickly!
Written by Frances Peck; copy edited by Meagan Kus
Roma Ilnyckyj is an editor at Vancouver-based Talk Science to Me. She sits on the EAC-BC executive as programs chair, which involves organizing the monthly meetings and social events.
Here, she tells EAC-BC member Frances Peck about the twisty road that led her to editing (a road that passed, interestingly, through China). She also talks about her book, her volunteer work, and her favourite editing habits and moments.
I work for a science communications company, and I do mostly copy editing and proofreading. I work on research reports, some books, and also websites. Lately I’ve been working a lot on blogs—editing blog posts but also doing search engine optimization and helping out with social media. Continue reading
