The Editors' Weekly
Official blog of Canada's national editorial association
The Editors' Weekly
Navigation
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • editors.ca
  • reviseurs.ca
You are here: Home › Anne Louise Mahoney › Giving It Up for the Editing Community
← Freeing Myself from the Freelancer Title
Words We Love Irrationally Much →

Giving It Up for the Editing Community

November 26, 2019 | Filed under: Anne Louise Mahoney and tagged with: Anne Louise Mahoney, Black Friday, Claudette Upton Scholarship, Cyber Monday, donate, editorial excellence, Editors Canada awards program, GivingTuesday, Karen Virag Award, student award, Tom Fairley Award
GivingTuesday campaign logo

In anticipation of GivingTuesday, Anne Louise Mahoney talks about the Editors Canada awards program and the ways in which it recognizes outstanding editors.

Who doesn’t love awards? They offer us a moment to pause and recognize out-of-the-ordinary accomplishments and bask in the reflected glow as colleagues, friends or fans.

As editors, many of us work in the shadows, off stage. A small number of people — the author, client, managing editor or communications officer, for example — might see our work, but readers probably don’t think about us. As it should be. Still, once in a while we do well to shine a light on an exceptional seasoned or up-and-coming editor, for a whole lot of reasons.

Editors Canada has had a vibrant awards program for many years. The Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence honours an editor’s keen eye, sharp skills, good judgment and determination in the face of various editing challenges. The Karen Virag Award highlights someone who goes out of their way to raise the profile of our profession in their communities year after year. And the Claudette Upton Scholarship is given to a promising student editor. The total annual cash value for the three awards is $4,400.

But in giving awards to editors, we do much more than honour a handful of deserving nominees. Recognizing professional excellence — and the potential for excellence, in the case of students — through an awards program is one way we build and develop a professional editing community in Canada. Here is how that happens:

  • In putting the spotlight on the finalists and winners, the awards program reminds them, and all of us, that what we do is important and deserves to be appreciated in a public way.
  • Promotion of the awards, such as on social media, raises awareness in the wider community about the value of editing.
  • It gives both in-house and freelance editors credibility: this is a profession with standards to uphold, where we constantly strive for excellence and gather online and in person to network and learn.
  • It allows us to spread the word about the editing profession, which helps to attract clients and future editors alike.

That means giving to the awards program is really an investment in the future — for your profession, other editors and yourself. Now that’s a worthwhile investment!

You can donate anytime to Editors Canada’s awards program, but the GivingTuesday campaign allows you to give as part of a global movement for giving and volunteering. GivingTuesday takes place each year after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Described as the “opening day of the giving season,” it is a time when charities, companies and individuals rally for their favourite causes. This year, GivingTuesday will take place on Dec. 3.

In 2018, Editors Canada’s first GivingTuesday campaign raised $1,820 for the awards program. This year’s goal is $2,000. Give $5, $20 or whatever suits your budget so we can keep building up our awards funding and spreading the word about the value of editors. That’s a win for all of us!

Previous post from Anne Louise Mahoney: Listening With the Heart: Editing Indigenous Manuscripts

The Editors’ Weekly is the official blog of Editors Canada. Contact us.

Did you like this article? Share it with your friends!

Tweet

Written by Anne Louise Mahoney

Anne Louise Mahoney is a freelance editor who lives and works in Ottawa. She is a past president of Editors Canada and an active supporter of its awards program.

Visit my Website Follow me on Twitter
← Freeing Myself from the Freelancer Title
Words We Love Irrationally Much →

2 Responses to "Giving It Up for the Editing Community"

  1. Gael Spivak says:
    November 26, 2019 at 6:29 am

    I like this part. “In putting the spotlight on the finalists and winners, the awards program reminds them, and all of us, that what we do is important and deserves to be appreciated in a public way”.

    What we do is important. Thanks for saying that.

    Reply
    1. Anne Louise Mahoney says:
      November 26, 2019 at 7:30 am

      It’s good to remind ourselves of that point! It’s easy to feel like a cog in the process, but the editor truly helps the text to shine so it can get its message across to the reader.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

What we’re talking about

author-editor relationship authors book editors book publishing book reviews Brendan O'Brien business of editing business practices communication copy editing editing editor editor's role editorial skills editors editors at work freelance editors freelancing government editing grammar Inner Editor James Harbeck language language change linguistics Linguistics Frankly Marianne Grier networking proofreading publishing Rosemary Shipton rédaction révision self-publishing style stylistic editing traduction translation usage Virginia Durksen Wasted Words Wilf Popoff word choice writers writing

Email subscriptions

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 775 other subscribers

Most recent posts

  • Survey of Canadianisms
  • Words We Love Irrationally Much
  • Giving It Up for the Editing Community
  • Freeing Myself from the Freelancer Title
  • Sun Tzu and the Art of Words

Archives by month

By author

Follow Us Online

Facebook  Twitter  Flickr  RSS Feed

www.editors.ca

The Editors' Weekly is the blog of Editors Canada.

Report an error or a typo

Email us at blog [at] editors.ca

© 2019 The Editors' Weekly

Powered by One Designs