FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Toronto, June 24, 2024—The Editors’ Association of Canada (Editors Canada) has announced that Helena Ramsaroop (she/her) of Oakville, Ontario, is the recipient of the 2024 Claudette Upton Scholarship.
First awarded in 2010, the scholarship is a $1,000 cash award intended to support continuing professional development in editing. The award was presented at the banquet of the Editors Canada conference in Vancouver, on Saturday, June 22, 2024.
Often editors come to the profession in roundabout ways. Some people study editing, writing, communications or journalism in school and move right into full-time editing. Others work in completely unrelated fields and embark on editing as a second career. Helena Ramsaroop definitely falls in the latter camp.
“People are always surprised to learn about my background in biological anthropology,” said Ramsaroop. “It’s not a field you often hear about, and I think people are even more surprised to know that I have a lot of field and lab experience working with ancient human skeletal remains.”
“I participated in an archaeological excavation in Italy and have conducted field work in France and Greece. For my MA, I analyzed chemical signatures stored in teeth to study the childhood diet of people in ancient Greece.”
Ramsaroop originally planned to get her PhD and be a professor, but she found herself burned out after completing her MA and looking for a career outside of academia. Realizing that writing and research were the aspects of her MA she enjoyed the most, she took Simon Fraser University’s “Introduction to Editing” course and unearthed something new.
“I loved that course and it felt like the right choice for me, so I kept taking courses with the intention of completing the certificate. Each course I took solidified my desire to be an editor and strengthened my interest in editing,” she said.
“After years of feeling lost, I finally found a new career that felt like the perfect fit. I completed the final course [in April 2024], and I’m happy to say that editing still feels right for me and I’m excited to begin my career.”
Bridging the divide
Without overstepping, how can editors use their skills to help authors “bridge the divide” with readers of different perspectives and enable meaningful discussions?
Relationships were at the heart of the essay topic for this year’s scholarship—relationships between authors and their readers, as well as the important relationship between authors and their editors.
In her essay, Ramsaroop said:
Writing is a powerful art form, and creating work that evokes a strong emotional response is a powerful way to connect with readers. However, meaningful dialogue begins with respect, a desire to understand other points of view, and a willingness to listen to others. Editors can encourage writers to handle sensitive topics with care, honesty, and respect, and to hold space for perspectives that differ from their own.
The selection panel for the 2024 Claudette Upton Scholarship commended Ramsaroop for her thoughtful, articulate reflection on the value of empathy within editing, discussing the need to fully explore the author’s intentions while also thinking critically about the impact of language, nuance and bias on readers.
As a book reviewer and content creator (@HelenaReadsBooks), Ramsaroop prioritizes reviewing and promoting work by BIPOC authors, and authors from other marginalized communities. “I’m excited to be able to take this a step further by supporting these voices as an editor.”
The selection panel was impressed to learn of Ramsaroop’s plans to launch a freelance editorial business “with an emphasis on supporting and promoting BIPOC and other marginalized writers.” The judges felt this would have resonated soundly with Claudette Upton, who during her lifetime was actively involved with causes that supported social justice.
“I often discuss social justice in my reviews because it’s something I’m passionate about and social justice issues are explored in a lot of the books I read,” said Ramsaroop. “This connection to [Upton] through social justice makes me feel like I’m upholding her legacy in some small way.”
And what about biological anthropology?
“I dedicated nearly eight years of my life to studying this field and it’s still a large part of who I am,” she said. “I hope to find my way back to biological anthropology as an editor.”
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This year’s selection committee for the Claudette Upton Scholarship consisted of three respected Canadian editors.
Georgia Atkin is an editor and proofreader based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was the recipient of the 2023 Claudette Upton Scholarship. Since 2014, she has supported the local poetry community as volunteer editor of Open Heart Forgery, a free monthly poetry journal that aims to energize Nova Scotian writers from the grassroots up.
Zofia Laubitz is a freelance editor and translator in Montreal, Quebec. She has been a member of Editors Canada since 1995 and has volunteered at the national and branch levels, most recently as awards coordinator. She is a former member of the Editors Québec branch executive.
Patricia MacDonald has served on several Editors Canada conference committees and task forces, as well as on the national executive council as director of volunteer relations. She oversaw the improving access to member services task force and was instrumental in creating the featured volunteer program, the Editors’ Vine virtual meeting group and the VolunteerConnect spreadsheet.
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About Editors Canada
The Claudette Upton Scholarship is an annual national award that recognizes a promising emerging editor. The award is named in memory of Claudette Reed Upton-Keeley, a gifted editor who loved the English language and was actively involved in social justice and environmental causes throughout her life. She is remembered for her wonderful sense of humour and her sharp mind.
Additional information about the Claudette Upton Scholarship is available on the Editors Canada website.
Editors Canada began in 1979 as the Freelance Editors’ Association of Canada to promote and maintain high standards of editing. In 1994, the word “Freelance” was dropped to reflect the association’s expanding focus to serve both freelance and in-house editors. As Canada’s only national editorial association, it is the hub for 1,300 members and affiliates, both salaried and freelance, who work in the corporate, technical, government, not-for-profit and publishing sectors. The association’s professional development programs and services include professional certification, an annual conference, seminars, webinars, and networking with other associations. Editors Canada has four regional branches: British Columbia; Toronto; Ottawa–Gatineau; and Quebec, as well as smaller branches (called twigs) in Atlantic Canada, Barrie, Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton-Halton, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph and Manitoba.
Media contact
Michelle Ou (she/elle)
Senior Communications Manager
Editors Canada
communications@editors.ca