Volunteer Spotlight: Meghan Fandrich 

Editors BC is proud to spotlight our March volunteer, Meghan Fandrich. Our volunteer coordinator, Justin Chevrier, asked Meghan a few questions.

Image credit:  Shelanne Justice Photography

What is your dream vacation destination? Why?

If I could, even just for a day, I would go home: home to Lytton, to the vibrant little village that existed before the fire. I would walk down the tree-lined street with my daughter, who celebrated her sixth, seventh, and now eighth birthday on the edge of a burned-up town. We would visit my art café and the neighbour’s ice cream shop, look up at the mountains, and our hearts would fill up. I can’t imagine a better place.

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Volunteer Spotlight: Michelle Hardy 

Editors BC is proud to spotlight our February volunteer, Michelle Hardy. Michelle volunteers as a Blue Pencil editor. In this interview, Justin Chevrier, Editors BC’s volunteer coordinator, asks Michelle about her proudest editing moment, her favourite punctuation mark, and more.

Michelle smiling, wearing a black shirt.
Michelle Hardy 

What or who makes you laugh out loud?

Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek. I love her confidence and style, her syntax and vocabulary.

What is your guilty pleasure?

Cookies. 

What is your dream vacation destination? Why?

Italy. I look forward to exploring Italian food, art, architecture, and coastline and listening to the language. 

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A photo of Hope, Tania, and Lynn.
Teamwork, startup, support, data analysis, brainstorming, meeting. Flat design vector illustration.
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Meet Our Volunteers!

By Amy Haagsma and Maggie Clark

Behind Editors BC’s programming is a team of amazing volunteers who make it all happen. Our volunteers put on our branch meetings and professional development seminars and support our participation in blue pencil sessions and events like Word Vancouver. We would like to express a heartfelt thank you to everyone who contributes to our branch and tell you a little about the people behind the scenes.

Unsurprisingly, most of our volunteers love to read, with 80% preferring fiction and 20% choosing non-fiction. Collectively, our favourite genres are literary fiction, science fiction, and fantasy, with an honourable mention for mystery/thriller. We may be a little too fond of the semicolon, with 37% of us choosing this pleasing symbol as our favourite punctuation mark. As Emma Caplan says, “I often use the semicolon; it is quite useful.” We have similar feelings about proofreading marks, with 33% of us choosing the delete symbol as our number one. Also mentioned were the caret and the transpose symbol, with the latter noted for the enjoyment of “drawing that fun little curve.” Chocolate ranked high among our guilty pleasures, and most of us are quite content with where we live, choosing a location in BC as our favourite place in Canada.

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Volunteers Needed for Blue Pencil Sessions

by Shelagh Jamieson, Communications & Social Media Chair

Volunteers needed!

For the first time, Editors BC is collaborating with the Vancouver Public Library (VPL) to offer a series of free Blue Pencil editing consultations to the public as part of VPL’s fall programming. We are very excited about this opportunity to get some mainstream exposure for Editors BC and are looking for volunteer editors to participate. It’s also a great opportunity for editors to connect with potential clients.

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Panellists Needed for Word Vancouver

by Shelagh Jamieson, Communications & Social Media Chair

Volunteers needed!

EAC-BC will be participating in Word Vancouver again this year. In addition to having a booth, we will be sponsoring a one-hour panel discussion on editing as a career. We need 4–5 volunteers to sit on the panel. We are looking for editors working in diverse fields and environments: freelance, in-house, traditional and self-publishing, academic, corporate, government, etc. Whatever your area of specialization, if you are comfortable talking about what you do and how you came to be there, and then answering some questions from the public, please contact bccsm@editors.ca by July 8, 2015. Please include a brief description of the kind of editing you do, to help us with the selection process.

The event will take place on Sunday, September 27 (time TBD), at the Vancouver Public Library downtown. This is a great opportunity to encourage people to consider a career in editing and to join EAC. You will also benefit from the chance to network, meet potential clients, have some fun, and check out Word Vancouver.

Word Vancouver is Western Canada’s largest celebration of literacy and reading. The festival promotes books and authors with workshops, free exhibits, performances, and hands-on activities for a wide range of ages and interests. More info on Word Vancouver is available at wordvancouver.ca.

EAC-BC is a volunteer-based organization, and without your help, we can’t promote our craft. Please consider volunteering an hour of your time at this popular event.

An Interview with Naomi Pauls, EAC President’s Award Recipient

Written by Frances Peck; copy edited by Joanne King

NaomiPaulsA highlight for EAC-BC over the summer was learning that Naomi Pauls, a long-time member of our branch, received a President’s Award for Volunteer Service at the EAC conference. The President’s Award recognizes outstanding service to the association by member volunteers.

EAC-BC member Frances Peck asked Naomi about the roles she’s taken on over the years and her most memorable volunteer moments.

First, a little background. Could you tell us how you got into editing?
Definitely through the back door. After majoring in anthropology, with a focus on museum studies, I worked in community museums in the mid-1980s. I enjoyed the research and writing aspects of this work, which also involved working with community volunteers. Moving on, I had ambitions of becoming a freelance magazine writer but ended up working on a small quarterly publication in an administrative role. Two years later, I was hired as an editorial assistant at a weekly newspaper, which is where I got real hands-on training in editing. I enjoyed editing, joined EAC, and have been an editor ever since. Now I work mostly on book-length manuscripts.
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