What do you do when a clearly weird and off-balance writer asks for your professional services? “Run!” is the response I got from several editor colleagues, and that has been my gut reaction, too. Such projects can often feel particularly intriguing. And sometimes there’s a sense that good money is …
Writers are often told to “write what they know.” But what about editors? Should we only take on projects that are squarely in our comfort zones? When I asked this question online, I found that many of my editing colleagues endorse the idea of editing in new areas. It’s a …
Editors are shaped by their clients. Sure, we all share common knowledge, skills and talents, but we’re influenced by what our employers want from us. Over a period of years, that accumulated experience makes us the editors we are today. In recent posts to this site, Lori Burwash has described …
Back in the Wild West days of editing (about the late 1980s or so), there were no competency tests for editors and few if any educational programs designed to serve the needs of the publishing industry. Some members of the then Freelance Editors’ Association of Canada were looking for objective …
How often have I heard the comment that editors are failed writers — or, in the scholarly environment in which I work, failed academics. Even when said in jest, the underlying suggestion is that one way of interacting with words and ideas — the editor’s — is somehow inferior. Such …
“Whatever the current term for ‘hip’ is, that’s what we want to be …” This, I’m told, was the EAC Rebranding Task Force brief to the bilingual design team chosen to look into the organization’s midlife crisis, the youthful Costa Leclerc. “That’s a startling design — it will be fun …
The biographies of skilled communicators often reveal a lifelong, serious reading habit. I don’t think this is a coincidence. I have read constantly and voraciously since the age of five, and I give that habit (addiction?) a lot of the credit for the writing and editing skills I have developed. …
As an editor Karen Virag never seemed to flinch when she spotted a gaffe. Why should she? She had the smarts to identify the problem and the skill to correct it. She also recognized that without bad writing she wouldn’t have a job. Such virtues apply to any competent editor, …
I was at a film event the other night, and someone asked, “So what do you do for a living?” I, of course, answered, “I’m an editor.” They asked, “What movies have you worked on?” It happens all the time. But the other night, for the first time, someone asked …
As editors, we must break out of our anonymous shell and shout our virtues loudly and clearly for writers to hear. We’ve all heard the stories: a few authors who self-publish do extremely well, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while the majority have little success, bringing in …