Written by Frances Peck; copy edited by Karen Barry
Janet Love Morrison is a writer, editor, and speaker based in Maple Ridge. Her five books include The Crazy Canucks: Canada’s Legendary Ski Team, winner of the 2009 One Book, One Vancouver award, and the illustrated kids’ book Radar the Rescue Dog.
The Writers’ Exchange is recruiting volunteer literacy mentors. Literacy mentors have fun while helping kids build their literacy skills and self-esteem.
For more information, see the position description.
The Writers’ Exchange gets inner-city kids excited about reading and writing through free mentoring and creative writing projects. Our vision is that every child will have the literacy skills necessary to access a world where anything is possible.
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-BC monthly meeting
When: Wednesday, March 18, 2015, 7:00–9:00 pm
Where: Welch Room, 4th floor, YWCA Health + Fitness Centre, 535 Hornby Street, Vancouver | map
Cost: Free for EAC members; $10 for non-members; $5 for students with valid ID. Registration at the door.
Note: New members are invited to a special “welcome session” with our member services chair at 7:00 pm.
What do writers really think of editors? Do they love all that well-intentioned advice and criticism, or do they sometimes, just sometimes, resist it? Which editorial strategies work best for writers, and which are doomed to fail? Do self-published authors have different needs than the traditionally published? Our March author panel is your chance to eavesdrop and learn as three accomplished writers tell all about their editors.
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.
What: EAC-BC monthly meeting
When: Wednesday, February 18, 2015, 7:00–9:00 pm
Where: Welch Room, 4th floor, YWCA Health + Fitness Centre, 535 Hornby Street, Vancouver | map
Cost: Free for EAC members, $10 for non-members, and $5 for students with valid ID. Registration at the door.
Join in as Dr. Lorna Fadden takes us on a journey into the world of forensic linguistics. How do we know if someone understands their rights after they’re arrested? Can we demonstrate an escalation of threat in a series of letters? What does it mean to have a questionable confession? The intricacies of word choice and sentence structure, among other language features, can give us insightful clues into answering these questions.
Written by Amy Haagsma; copy edited by Karen Barry
Recap of EAC-BC’s branch meeting on January 21, 2015.
To kick off 2015, EAC-BC hosted Colin Moorhouse at our branch meeting on January 21. Colin is a Vancouver-based speech writer; he also offers presentation training and speech-writing courses. He’s found it to be an interesting niche, as he gets to share in his clients’ passions and learn about a lot of different things.
Colin explained that one of the key considerations when writing a speech is that the end product will be read aloud. Therefore, a good speech writer must appeal to the ear rather than to the eye. Rhythm, pacing, and metre are very important, as is using a colloquial tone and plain language. Speeches also convey emotion more directly than the written word.
What: EAC-BC professional development seminar
When: Thursday, March 19, 2015, 8:30 am – 11:30 am
Where: Library Square Conference Centre, 350 West Georgia Street, Vancouver | map
Workplace documents have one goal: to deliver a message quickly and clearly to a particular audience. But too often that message gets buried by weak organization, wordiness, abstract language, jargon, unhelpful design, and other barriers to readability.
This half-day introduction to clear writing shows you how to remove those barriers and build a document that says what it means. We’ll talk about the all-important reader, including the different types of readers and their varying needs. We’ll cover seven practical techniques for making written documents clearer. We’ll finish with a look at how page layout affects readability. (Detailed agenda below.)
The workshop includes short exercises to help you apply what you learn. You’ll also receive a list of recommended resources.
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
What: EAC-BC professional development seminar
When: Saturday, February 21, 2015, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Where: Renaissance Vancouver Harbourside Hotel, 1133 W Hastings Street | map
Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned editor, a would-be writer or a supervisor of others’ writing, this course will help you make your words work better.
Using a step-by-step process, the program identifies the most common factors that become obstacles for readers. It not only helps recognize the problems, it shows quick and simple techniques for fixing them. Professional editors tend to make these corrections intuitively. Eight-Step Editing helps them ensure they haven’t overlooked some crucial readability factor in their zeal to track down spelling or punctuation inconsistencies. Novice editors often suffer from paralysis. Eight-Step Editing gives them a starting point that doesn’t depend on subjective assessments of a manuscript’s worth. Freelance writers can use the Eight-Step process to improve their own materials before submission, enhancing their chances of acceptance. Business writers, trapped in traditional formulas from the filing cabinet, will benefit from a fresh vision for writing prose that can persuade and motivate. At the same time, supervisors and administrators who approve letters and reports will understand better what to look for.
