Back-to-School Season: Of Food, Cocktails and Conversation

Now that it’s September, many editors may be daydreaming of going back to school — especially as some in-class learning resumes. Here’s a smattering of online and in-person professional development opportunities available this fall:

Niche editing

• Last April Judy Phillips wrote about what recipe editors do. The fall harvest season may inspire you to take her seven-week Editing Recipes and Cookbooks course at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Chang School of Continuing Education. Her course is available online and starts on Sept. 12.
• Editors Canada offers recordings of past seminars as well as a brand-new webinar series to members at a 40 per cent discount. Here are a couple of webinars happening this month:
  • Sept. 15: Personality-based Productivity (Sagan Morrow)
  • Sept. 26: Worldbuilding in Fiction Editing: Theory and Practice (Genevieve Clovis and Andrew Hodges)

Technical skills

• The Canadian Press releases a new edition of Caps and Spelling this fall and along with it, several live seminars at a 10 per cent discount if you sign up by Sept. 16. They also offer on-demand CP style seminars so you can learn at your own pace.
• If getting certified is one of your goals this fall, registration is now open for Editors Canada’s 2022 certification exams in copy editing and stylistic editing. Everything you need to know for training for the exam(s) is available from Editors Canada. Or you can take the Editing Essentials exam to assess your editing skills.

Language and the art of storytelling

• Cree author and playwright Tomson Highway delivers this year’s CBC Massey Lectures, Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death and Accordions, in person at five cities across the country this month. His lectures explore the human condition as it relates to language, creation, sex and gender, humour and death. If you aren’t able to attend the live lectures, you can listen to them on CBC Radio as of Nov. 14 or read the book.

Conferences

• The ACES Virtual Conference 2022 kicks off Sept. 21 with a two-day schedule of events, including a session about giving your own course: We All Have Something To Teach: Expanding Your Business by Offering Courses.
• Registration is now open for the Council of Science Editors 2022 Fall Virtual Symposium for scholarly publishing professionals. Sessions will run in November with attendees learning from case studies and workshops.

Cocktails

• I first heard about Famous Last Words cocktail bar in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood at the last Editors Canada conference. In addition to monthly book trivia events that include wordplay, the bar offers cocktail classes. In a public or private class setting, instructors follow a literary theme and will teach you how to make a range of drinks like a bona fide mixologist.

What’s on your course schedule this fall? Feel free to share your course load with fellow editors in the comments below.

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