FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Toronto, June 23, 2025—Gael Spivak of Ottawa, Ontario, is the winner of the 2025 Karen Virag Award, presented by the Editors’ Association of Canada (Editors Canada). This award, which comes with a $400 prize, recognizes exceptional efforts by an individual or organization to raise the profile of editing in their community. The award was presented during Editors Canada’s online awards ceremony on Wednesday, June 18, 2025.
Gael Spivak’s devotion to the editing profession has been instrumental in raising the profile of editing not only in her community but on a global scale. If you’re a plain language advocate, you’ve no doubt benefited from her work on the subject. She has been heavily involved in developing and promoting plain language standards around the world.
She’s a member of the International Organization for Standardization, where she sits on working group 11 of Technical Committee 37: Language and terminology, which published Part 1 of the ISO plain language standard in June 2023. She also works with the International Plain Language Federation, where she chairs the localization and implementation committee. The committee is focused on promoting the ISO plain language standard and helping countries around the world to translate, localize and adopt it. Gael led the committee’s team that planned and coordinated the communications for the publication of Part 1 of the standard (and is in the planning stages for communications for Parts 2 and 3).
Within Editors Canada, she has been a tireless volunteer since joining the association 17 years ago. Serving as president, helping to establish Editors Canada’s Equity Fellowship, and coordinating committees and national and international conferences are just some of ways her tireless efforts have helped to shape the association into what it is today. In recognition of her efforts, she was named the 2023 Lee d’Anjou Volunteer of the Year.
“Although she doesn’t tend to gravitate to the spotlight, Gael has worked tirelessly behind the scenes for many years to amplify the important role of editors, share information and ideas with other editors, and encourage discussion and learning about new trends and approaches to editing,” said her nominators.
She has worked in the federal government for 25 years, as a writer and editor. She champions the editing profession in her workplace, and is known as the go-to person for the singular “they,” plain language and many other components of the work editors do.
She also acts as an administrator and community builder for various Facebook groups that serve as communities of practice for editors, helping others who need an introduction to the profession. She encourages people to learn more, develop their skills and see their potential as editors.
“Her passion has not wavered, and indeed, seems to grow stronger each year,” said the selection committee. “She is an inspiration to editors everywhere. We are pleased that she will get the much-deserved recognition by receiving the Karen Virag Award in 2025.”
Three respected Canadian editors made up the selection committee for the 2025 Karen Virag Award.
Monica Laane-Fralick is a freelance educational content developer, editor and teaching assistant for online university-level courses. She has been volunteering with Editors Canada in various roles after joining as a student affiliate five years ago.
Carla DeSantis is a freelance editor, translator, authenticity reader, and indexer, specializing in scholarly/academic texts in the humanities and social sciences, especially multilingual texts. She has been a member of Editors Canada for nine years and is also a member of the EFA and an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP. She was awarded the Ewart-Davuley Indexing Award by the Indexing Society of Canada.
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.
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About Karen Virag
Karen Virag, a long-time member of Editors Canada’s Prairie Provinces branch, was the association’s director of publications from 2012 to 2013. In addition to co-chairing the association’s successful 2008 national conference in Edmonton and managing the production of Stylistic Editing: Meeting Professional Editorial Standards (2011), she represented Editors Canada for several years on the board of the Cultural Human Resources Council (CHRC). Virag was supervising editor at the Alberta Teachers’ Association, and a freelance editor and writer. She regularly wrote book reviews for the Edmonton Journal and articles for The Tomato, a culinary magazine. She also volunteered for Arts on the Avenue, an Edmonton community initiative, and along with Virginia Durksen was well known as one of the Grammar Gals appearing regularly on Alberta at Noon, a CBC Radio One call-in program.
About Editors Canada
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 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