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Frances Peck

On Editing an Editor: Leslie Vermeer and Frances Peck in Conversation

March 8, 2022 by Frances Peck | 6 Comments on On Editing an Editor: Leslie Vermeer and Frances Peck in Conversation

Editing a first-time novelist calls for a blend of sharp-eyed clarity, cheerleading and hand-holding. What if the novelist is also an editor? As part of a series of blog posts featuring conversations between author-editors and their editors, The Editors’ Weekly asked two editors to reflect on their experience of working together. Frances Peck is a […]

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Zoom Time

July 21, 2020 by Frances Peck | 6 Comments on Zoom Time

Oh, for those pre-pandemic days when “zoom” was just another word. For me, it mostly conjured up the “zoom-zoom” of that catchy Mazda ad. Once in a while, it was a video platform I used for teaching webinars or meeting authors about book projects. Now it’s a fatigue. In the COVID-19 world, media outlets from […]

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Vocation, Avocation: Margery Fee and Canadian Usage

July 9, 2019 by Frances Peck | 6 Comments on Vocation, Avocation: Margery Fee and Canadian Usage

We editors have our own celebrities. At the March meeting of Editors BC, which featured Stefan Dollinger, editor-in-chief of the DCHP-2 (A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, second edition), a name on the guest list caught my eye. Could it be? Really? It was. In the audience was Margery Fee, associate editor of the […]

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Freedom to Read, Willingness to Edit

February 26, 2019 by Frances Peck | 13 Comments on Freedom to Read, Willingness to Edit

Good stories, for me, have never been treacly. My father, an RCMP officer, put people in jail; my mother, a halfway house director, put them back into society. My childhood was one of sensational publications and limited adult supervision. By age 11 I’d read Jaws, Helter Skelter and The Eden Express, a memoir of schizophrenia. […]

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A Little Strategy, a Lot of Satisfaction

May 22, 2018 by Frances Peck | 8 Comments on A Little Strategy, a Lot of Satisfaction

Now that I am officially middle-aged, I can say that the most pressing urge is not the need to buy a convertible or meditate under the moon or urinate (thankfully). It is the desire to Pass Along Advice. Here is the top tip I wish I’d stumbled across when I was a novice editor/writer: Income […]

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The Story of Canadian English

November 21, 2017 by Frances Peck | 8 Comments on The Story of Canadian English

For those of us still grieving the defunct Canadian Oxford Dictionary, the release of the second edition of A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, on March 17 this year, lent some comfort. First published in 1967 to coincide with Canada’s centennial, the DCHP not only gives spellings and definitions but also tracks (and sometimes […]

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Editing and Empathy

June 6, 2017 by Frances Peck | 7 Comments on Editing and Empathy

I’m thinking more about empathy these days. So are other editors — witness last week’s post on the editor-author relationship. So are Canadians in general, judging by Google searches over the past decade.                     Source: Google Trends. Y-axis shows interest over time, defined as follows: “Numbers […]

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Keeping Up With the (Editorial) Times

November 22, 2016 by Frances Peck | 8 Comments on Keeping Up With the (Editorial) Times

As editors, we can never stop learning. Whether it’s to resolve specific questions, maintain a credential or generally stay on top of our field, we have to keep up with a dizzying array of books, articles, blogs, newsletters, interviews, Twitter chats, Facebook posts, webinars — and the list goes on. Ignore that information and we […]

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Perilous Punctuation: The Email Salutation

May 31, 2016 by Frances Peck | 20 Comments on Perilous Punctuation: The Email Salutation

An old friend from Ottawa recently visited me in Vancouver. We hadn’t seen each other in years. “One thing I’ll never forget about you,” said Ann (who is not an editor), “is that you taught me the right way to begin an email. Every time I write ‘Hi comma So-and-So period,’ I think of you.” […]

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Introverted Networking: Not an Oxymoron

December 1, 2015 by Frances Peck | 10 Comments on Introverted Networking: Not an Oxymoron

The best party I ever went to was in 1993. I was dating a drummer, and his band mates had invited us to an indoor beach party, their chance to meet the new girlfriend. I was beyond nervous. When the front door opened, we stepped into a gyrating, thumping mass of arms, legs and beer. […]

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