Tag: editors

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Brendan O’Brien

Editors’ Association of Earth has 10,000 members!

October 29, 2019 by Brendan O'Brien | 1 Comment on Editors’ Association of Earth has 10,000 members!

Editors’ Association of Earth (EAE) is a Facebook group set up in February 2013 by Greg Ioannou and others, with the aim of fostering links between editors internationally. On Oct. 17, its membership reached 10,000. It’s a testament to editors around the world that EAE has become so successful. EAE has evolved in an organic […]

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Brendan O’Brien

The Aging Editor

August 20, 2019 by Brendan O'Brien | 19 Comments on The Aging Editor

A few months ago, some editors shared articles on Facebook about editing and aging. I didn’t read them properly, but I saw some of the comments. I recently turned 59 and have been a professional editor for more than three decades. I’m getting quite close to an age at which many people retire. What has […]

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Aaron Dalton

Empirical Editors: Acronyms

July 16, 2019 by Aaron Dalton | 13 Comments on Empirical Editors: Acronyms

Background I’m an in-house editor for the Alberta Energy Regulator. Authors are required to work with our group as they move towards publishing their documents. It’s essential that we cultivate and nurture relationships of respect and trust. One element of that is always being able to rationalize and justify our recommendations. There’s no room for […]

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Letitia Henville

More Twitter for Wordies

September 18, 2018 by Letitia Henville | 6 Comments on More Twitter for Wordies

A little over two years ago, Lori Burwash sang the praises of Twitter as “a forum where communication must be clear, engaging and concise” — and so of obvious appeal to editors. Since June 2016, Twitter has grown in the public consciousness, with some now seeing it as an echo chamber where extremist political takes […]

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Rosemary Shipton

An Academic Rock Star’s Advice for Editors

April 17, 2018 by Rosemary Shipton | 12 Comments on An Academic Rock Star’s Advice for Editors

Recently I was asked to speak at the memorial service for Francess Halpenny — a true powerhouse in Canadian publishing. In the course of her long life, she was head of the Editorial Department at University of Toronto Press (UTP) during its “golden years,” general editor of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, dean of the […]

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Tracey Anderson

Why Do So Many Teachers Become Editors?

March 13, 2018 by Tracey Anderson | 2 Comments on Why Do So Many Teachers Become Editors?

Someone recently asked me that question at a networking event. As an editor who came to this profession via a teaching career, I’d pondered this before, and wondered if and how my experience as a teacher shapes my approach as an editor. The Connection My teaching approach centred around two key beliefs, which I still […]

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Tracey Anderson

Editing Technical Instructional Material: Do You Need to Be an Expert?

January 23, 2018 by Tracey Anderson | 21 Comments on Editing Technical Instructional Material: Do You Need to Be an Expert?

“How can you edit that? You don’t know anything about being an electrician.” I often heard that question and variations of it — carpenter, instrument technician, welder — in my years editing technical instructional materials for apprenticeship trades in Alberta. This is how I answered the question. I am the target audience The goal of […]

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Rosemary Shipton

There’s No Clarity With Editors or Authors

September 5, 2017 by Rosemary Shipton | 6 Comments on There’s No Clarity With Editors or Authors

Editors say they love words, with finding just the right phrase for the context, but, ironically, they can only fail with two terms critical to the world of publishing: “editor” and “author.” When someone says she’s an editor, you have no idea what she does. Is she the editor of a newspaper or a magazine, […]

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Marion Soubliere

Attending Conferences at Home and Abroad? Aye!

July 11, 2017 by Marion Soublière | 2 Comments on Attending Conferences at Home and Abroad? Aye!

For editors, industry conferences are like chicken soup for the soul. Editing can be a lonely profession, but combining learning with camaraderie is a spirit-boosting elixir. Many of us are still brimming with ideas and newfound confidence following June’s 2017 Editors Canada conference in Gatineau. Such learning and networking need not stop with membership in […]

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Anita Jenkins

Editors Canada’s Karen Virag Award

July 4, 2017 by Anita Jenkins | 1 Comment on Editors Canada’s Karen Virag Award

Editors Canada established the Karen Virag Award in 2016 to honour the memory of a remarkable Edmonton editor. This award recognizes individuals or groups who do an exceptional job of raising the profile of editors and the editing profession. These skills and initiatives are somewhat exceptional among the editing ranks, since an editor’s usual role […]

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Margaret Sadler

The Weird and the Wonderful: The Art of Selecting Clients

January 24, 2017 by Margaret Sadler | 3 Comments on The Weird and the Wonderful: The Art of Selecting Clients

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 there. But then the warning […]

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Sue Archer

Should You Only “Edit What You Know”?

March 8, 2016 by Sue Archer | 3 Comments on Should You Only “Edit What You Know”?

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 fantastic way to develop your […]

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Rosemary Shipton

Editors and Their Clients

January 13, 2015 by Rosemary Shipton | 3 Comments on Editors and Their Clients

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 the challenges of writing and […]

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Abby Egerter

Six Volunteers Receive Honorary CPE Status

October 7, 2014 by Abby Egerter | 1 Comment on Six Volunteers Receive Honorary CPE Status

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 ways to demonstrate that editors […]

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Peter Midgley

The Lucky Ones

August 26, 2014 by Peter Midgley | 3 Comments on The Lucky Ones

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 statements also hint at a […]

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Cy Strom

Because … It’s Time!

August 19, 2014 by Cy Strom | 5 Comments on Because … It’s Time!

“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 to write about it.” This […]

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Anita Jenkins

Why Reading Is a Great Hobby for an Editor/Writer

June 10, 2014 by Anita Jenkins | 11 Comments on Why Reading Is a Great Hobby for an Editor/Writer

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. Reading makes you smart Those […]

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Wilf Popoff

An Editor Who Laughed at Her Work

March 4, 2014 by Wilf Popoff | 4 Comments on An Editor Who Laughed at Her Work

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, but Karen went further. She […]

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Melva McLean

The Envelope, Please

January 16, 2014 by Melva McLean | 7 Comments on The Envelope, Please

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 me if I saw any […]

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Rosemary Shipton

Editors and Self-Publishing Authors

June 25, 2013 by Rosemary Shipton | 15 Comments on Editors and Self-Publishing Authors

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 less than $500 all told. […]

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Frances Peck

New Tax Guidelines for Self-Employed BC Editors

March 26, 2013 by Frances Peck | 3 Comments on New Tax Guidelines for Self-Employed BC Editors

On April 1, 2013, the BC government will repeal the HST and return to the former GST + PST regime. What does that mean for self-employed editors? We’ve dug into the matter and are happy to share what we’ve found. Please note that these are our personal comments, not those of EAC. We are not […]

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Anita Jenkins

What’s an editor to do?

February 19, 2013 by Anita Jenkins | 4 Comments on What’s an editor to do?

Virginia Durksen recently stated in her blog post The Inner Editor: Reflections on Editing as Mindful Practice that an editor must “respect the writer’s voice and suggest only those changes that serve the writer first, and then the writer’s reader.” Certainly I agree; it’s a big mistake to indiscriminately apply a standardized style so firmly […]

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Nancy Flight

Are Book Editors an Endangered Species?

January 29, 2013 by Nancy Flight | 4 Comments on Are Book Editors an Endangered Species?

In  December 2012, the world was supposed to end, the U.S. was expected to fall off the so-called fiscal cliff, and some commentators had already pronounced Canadian publishing dead or nearly so. As we know, the world did not end, and the U.S. has avoided plunging over the fiscal cliff, at least for the time […]

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