Written by Holly Sawchuk; copy edited by Janet Millar
Have you ever thought about what you would write in a memoir? Not your full life story, like an autobiography, but an exploration of a particular situation in your life, its emotional arc, and what it ultimately meant.
Written by Janice Love; copy edited by Emma Caplan
Does your editing career need an edit? Are you doing the kind(s) of editing you want to do? Are you gaining the value, whether monetary or otherwise, you want from the editing work you do?
These are all questions I had, and so Lana Okerlund’s offer to help via her guided strategic retreat for editors was worth the winter trip to Vancouver from Vernon!
Written by Karen Smith; copy edited by Katie Beaton
This past June, I flew from British Columbia to Nova Scotia and joined Editors Canada in celebrating the organization’s 40th anniversary conference. It was both my first Editors Canada conference and my first time in Halifax. As a novice conference attendee, I wanted to learn as much as I could at the training sessions. I also hoped to make some new connections in the publishing world. However, as I prepared to fly east, I wasn’t sure what to expect at the conference and whether it would be worth the time and cost to attend. Ultimately, it was an overwhelmingly positive experience, and I was glad to have been part of it. In return, I hope that sharing my experience may give other editors insight into whether attending the conference will be of value to them.
Written by Nancy Tinari; copy edited by Katie Beaton
Ruth Wilson’s “Advanced Proofreading” seminar provided us with a wealth of information, tips, and exercises derived from Wilson’s decades of experience. The hours flew by as we learned, worked, and occasionally became sidetracked by those minute issues that editors love to debate.
Though the other participants and I had wildly divergent proofreading experiences, I’m confident that all of us found Wilson’s seminar to be valuable. Her material was extensive and broad enough to help near-beginners as well as those more experienced in hard copy markup, online markup, or both.
Written by Joanna Vandervlugt; copy edited by Maggie Clark
On Saturday, February 23, 2019, I attended Frances Peck’s seminar for Editors BC, “Getting the Message Across: Clear Writing Tips.”
Despite coming over from Vancouver Island, I found this seminar’s location convenient. The seminar was set up in Vancouver at the BCIT Downtown Campus. This place was an easily accessible one for those who were familiar with the SkyTrain routes like myself.
After reaching my destination from the SkyTrain and settling in, I got to know a bit more about the other class participants. We introduced ourselves, and it seemed that the seminar participants ranged from proofreaders, editors, writers, and academics. Many commented that they were a fan of Frances, and I soon learned why.
Written by Nancy Tinari; copy edited by Katie Beaton
The “Three-Degrees-from-Normal” panel event occurred on October 19, 2018, and it featured authors Kevin Chong (The Plague), Claudia Dey (Heartbreaker), Waubgeshig Rice (Moon of the Crusted Snow), and Rabindranath Maharaj (Adjacentland), with Claudia Casper moderating the conversation. In their new books, all of these authors wrote about crisis situations.
These writers also have in common tremendously vivid imaginations; however, the discussions about where the ideas for their books came from made these three-degrees-from-normal scenarios seem eerily plausible. Even though their settings and situations may seem extreme, they are all intimately related to what is happening in the world right now.
We got a taste of each writer’s imaginative world from Casper’s introductions and brief readings by the authors. Casper then asked the panellists to explain how the scenarios and ideas expressed in their novels could be related to current events.
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Written by Nancy Tinari; copy edited by Adrienne Munro
On Friday, October 19, I had the pleasure of attending the Vancouver Writers Festival on Granville Island. I’ve attended sessions there for many years now, and I invariably find the panels of writers inspiring and thought-provoking.
This year was no exception. In this article, I’m writing about an event entitled “Lives Off-Road,” featuring writers Kate Harris, Jan Redford, and Joanna Streetly, with moderator Amanda Lewis. (Lewis is the editorial director of Page Two Strategies, a company that helps writers with all aspects of producing self-published non-fiction books.)
Written by Ritu Guglani; copy edited by Maggie Clark
Iva Cheung, a certified editing professional and member of Editors BC, spoke to a room full of eager participants at Editors BC’s January 2018 meeting. Her presentation topic was editing for accessibility. While editors live in a world of nuances and judgment calls, Iva re-affirmed that it is always a good idea to use the basic principles of plain language to remove communication barriers for people with disabilities.
Written by Wendy Barron; copy edited by Katie Heffring
On Saturday, November 25, 2017, a group of 20 editors gathered at the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s downtown campus for Lesley Erickson’s seminar “Academic Editing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” Lesley has more than 20 years’ experience as an author and editor in scholarly publishing and is currently a senior production editor at UBC Press. Her session provided a glimpse into the cultures of both academia and scholarly publishing. Throughout it, she offered strategies to address challenges both common and unique to academic editing and practical tips and tools for editors to give and get the best from the editing budget.
by Nancy Tinari; review of presentation by Christine Middlemass, Manager of Collections & Technical Services at Vancouver Public Library (VPL) on the evolving landscape of our libraries, held at the March 19, 2014 EAC-BC branch meeting
Christine Middlemass, a librarian since 1978, provided a lively, fast-paced and thorough overview of how libraries have changed over the past two decades. Accelerating times have caused many challenges for libraries. Yet if librarians have half the competence and humour of Middlemass, book lovers can be confident that these establishments will remain the cornerstone of communities. As Vancouverites, we can feel smug: the Vancouver Public Library is the third largest in Canada and recently was rated number one in the world, tied with Montréal’s library network.
West Coast Editor 