News, events, tips and updates from Editors Canada
In this issue:
1. EDITORS 21: Registration is now open for our virtual 2021 national conference
2. CONNECT: The Editors’ Vine continues to grow
3. STUDENT RELATIONS: Update
4. BOOST YOUR RESUMÉ: Get involved
5. PRESIDENT’S AWARD: Recognizing Editors Canada’s stellar volunteers
6. CLAUDETTE UPTON SCHOLARSHIP: $1,000 award for a promising student editor
7. PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION: A Solid Structure: Spotlight on the Structural Editing certification exam
8. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Mentorship
9. GOVERNANCE: New privacy policy and guidelines
10. MEMBER NEWS: Tell the world about your accomplishment
11. NEC: Notes from your national executive council
1. EDITORS 21: Registration is now open for our virtual 2021 national conference
Registration for Editors Canada’s upcoming virtual conference is now open! Editors 21: Editors Transform will be held online June 12–13, 2021. Check out the conference website for more details and to register.
Early bird prices end Monday, April 26. Don’t forget—Editors Canada members receive a discounted rate!
In case you missed it, our keynote speakers for this year’s conference are Amanda Leduc and Joshua Whitehead.
Amanda Leduc’s essays and stories have appeared in publications across Canada, the US and the UK. Her new novel, The Centaur’s Wife, was just released with Penguin Random House Canada. She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ontario, where she works as the Communications Coordinator for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD), Canada’s first festival for diverse authors and stories.
Joshua Whitehead (he/him) is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1). He is currently a PhD candidate, lecturer, and Killam scholar at the University of Calgary, where he studies Indigenous literatures and cultures with a focus on gender and sexuality. He is the author of Jonny Appleseed (Arsenal Pulp Press 2018), which won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction and the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction, was long listed for the Giller Prize, and is currently a contender for Canada Reads 2021.
2. CONNECT: The Editors’ Vine continues to grow
Our monthly virtual meeting, the Editors’ Vine, keeps growing. We currently have 149 people on the participant email list. Between 20 and 40 people attend the meetings, which take place on the first Thursday of each month, and the Saturday that immediately follows. The Editors’ Vine and the French-language monthly meeting, la Vigne des réviseurs, will report in the e-news update in alternate months.
Our March meeting, will feature a panel of editors who have figured out workflow practices that lead to healthy time management. In April, Sue Archer and the Editors Canada’s career builder committee will introduce their work. Both groups will invite discussion from Editors’ Vine members. If you are interested in presenting between May and August, please contact the meeting facilitators, Nicola and Lenore.
Visit the members’ area of the association website to learn more about the Editors’ Vine. If you wish to receive notification of the meetings, please email vine@editors.ca. For information about la Vigne, please email la_vigne@reviseurs.ca.
3. STUDENT RELATIONS: Update
At the end of December, the student relations committee successfully wrapped up its Facebook series about the Editors Canada Career Builder. Many student affiliates participated in the series, sharing their current successes and goals in their editing journey.
The committee is now in the midst of its third information-sharing series on Facebook. The team interviewed Editors Canada award winners about their experiences and is sharing answers from one award winner each week. Students who participate in the discussion will be entered into a prize draw for a $25 Indigo gift card. All Editors Canada members are welcome to join in the discussion in our student affiliates Facebook group! To join the group, make sure you answer the membership questions.
Virtual student social
We will be hosting our third student affiliate Zoom social on Saturday, March 13, at 1 p.m., PST / 4 p.m., EST. All Editors Canada student affiliates are welcome to come and meet other student affiliates and connect. The link to our Zoom social will be posted in our student affiliate Facebook group closer to the date. We look forward to seeing you there!
4. BOOST YOUR RESUMÉ: Get involved
Communications and marketing
The communications and marketing committee is putting together a sub-committee to work on a Google Ad Grants campaign and is looking for volunteers who have an interest in supporting the initiative. If you like working with and analyzing data, or want to learn about Google Ad Grants, please email the committee chair.
Keep your eyes peeled for the “Hire an Editor” social media campaign!
Please like, share or tag to help spread the word about the benefits of hiring a professional editor. The communications and marketing committee challenges everyone to share 10 times throughout the campaign. Are you up to the challenge?
Get published on The Editors’ Weekly!
Publishing a post on a national blog is a great way to promote your freelance business, boost your online profile, network and mentor fellow editors.
If you would like to propose an idea for a short blog post for The Editors’ Weekly—a topic you would either like to see covered or are willing to write about—please submit your suggestion to blog@editors.ca. We’d love to hear from members.
5. PRESIDENT’S AWARD: Recognizing Editors Canada’s stellar volunteers
Editors Canada does a lot of amazing work. We work on branch and twig activities, a national conference, publications, services, certification and so many other important things. And these are conceptualized, organized, coordinated and implemented by volunteers.
The Editors Canada President’s Award for Volunteer Service is one way we thank our volunteers for outstanding service to the association. Such service may include
- volunteering over a long period of time,
- identifying and solving a critical problem,
- meeting a specific need, or
- organizing an activity that advances our goals or inspires others to get involved.
Any member or student affiliate in good standing may be nominated for their contribution. From the nominations received, one outstanding volunteer will receive the Lee d’Anjou Volunteer of the Year Award.
The deadline for nominations is Friday, April 9.
For complete nomination instructions and other information about the award, visit the President’s Award page.
6. CLAUDETTE UPTON SCHOLARSHIP: $1,000 award for a promising student editor
Calling all Editors Canada student affiliates! The application deadline for the Claudette Upton Scholarship is fast approaching.
This is a $1,000 scholarship to help support continuing professional development in editing. The recipient is encouraged to use the scholarship to attend our national conference, purchase Editors Canada publications, or attend association seminars and webinars.
How to apply
Visit the Claudette Upton Scholarship page for this year’s essay topic and other application requirements. The deadline for applications is Friday, April 9.
Spread the word
If you know a student who is not an affiliate of Editors Canada and who would be interested in this opportunity, please pass along this message and encourage them to join us.
7. PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION: A Solid Structure: Spotlight on the Structural Editing certification exam
Structural editing involves organizing a manuscript into shape prior to the finessing stage of stylistic editing and the more detailed work of copy editing. Structural editing is bigger picture work. Some sample tasks that a structural editor might perform include:
- Assessing the overall structure of material and reorganizing as necessary
- Making necessary additions and deletions to content
- Recasting material as needed
- Selecting visual elements and creating or securing appropriate supplementary or reference material
- Determining when permissions are necessary
Make 2021 the year you obtain professional certification in Structural Editing. The exam is scheduled for Saturday, November 20, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., local time, and will assess your mastery of the Editors Canada Professional Editorial Standards for structural editing (B1–B12) and the fundamentals of editing (standards A1 – A12). These essential skills apply to editing all types of print and digital materials, from books and magazines to corporate and government writing. The Proofreading exam will also be offered in 2021 and will be highlighted in a future e-news update.
Exam registration will open in July 2021, but it’s never too early to start preparing! So why not…
…Try a sample structural editing question:
You are editing a book in which the author has included a large volume of information on a subject outside the main topic. The author has spent a significant amount of time researching the material and is diametrically opposed to removing it.
How should you handle this issue?
a. Remove the extra material anyway, and tell the author they can include it in some future book.
b. Rewrite the material in plain language to reduce the word count.
c. Include the extra material in an appendix.
d. Weave the extra material into other chapters so that it doesn’t stand out so much.
8. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Mentorship
The Editors Canada mentorship program now offers two levels of mentorship.
Level 1
- designed primarily for student affiliates and those who have a small, clearly defined topic they want to discuss
- 4–5 hours over 1 month
Level 2
- designed for a more in-depth mentoring experience
- 10–20 hours over 2 months
- can be extended up to 6 months
Visit the John Eerkes-Medrano Mentorship Program page for more details and to apply to be a mentor or a mentee.
Testimonials
“My first mentorship term was a wonderful experience! My mentor was enthusiastic, knowledgeable and inspiring. She tailored our conversations to my needs and was very generous when answering questions and recommending resources. Working with her over these last two months has given me many different perspectives on my editing career. Thank you so much to Editors Canada for making this possible.”
– Sarah Jefferies, PhD
“What a great opportunity to learn collegially and to benefit from the experience of a senior editor: we’re lucky to have a program like this. Thanks so much for this opportunity!”
– Claire Wilkshire
9. GOVERNANCE: New privacy policy and guidelines
The national executive council (NEC) has written a new privacy policy and privacy guidelines. The previous one was outdated and it had incorrect information in it.
Editors Canada is not subject to privacy legislation in Canada (there are laws at the national and provincial level but we are exempt from these laws). Nonetheless, the NEC thinks it is important to follow basic privacy principles, so that your personal information is protected.
The new documents apply to branches and twigs, to the office, to committees and task forces, and to every volunteer. If you do work with Editors Canada in any of those capacities, you should read the new documents, to make sure you are following our guidelines and are protecting the personal information of your fellow members. You can find the documents on our policies web page.
10. MEMBER NEWS: Tell the world about your accomplishment
Editors Canada Member News is where we share information about members and affiliates who win awards, publish books and make their mark in other important ways.
Do you have an achievement you’d like to share? Are you excited about a new project or opportunity that has come your way? Let us tell the world all about it! Please send your stories to the member news coordinator.
11. NEC: Notes from your national executive council
The national executive council met on Sunday, January 17, for our first meeting of 2021. We discussed several topics, including the following:
- The insurance task force is making progress and has contacted several insurance providers to get more information. We should have an update on this in the near future.
- We also spent time going through the updates to all of Editors Canada’s policies and procedures. The documents that need to be voted on by members at the annual general meeting will go out for member review in advance of the meeting.
- Editors Canada’s webinar program was a huge success in 2020, and we have received proposals for 24 new webinars for 2021. We also applied for and received a Canada Book Fund grant for $25,000 to develop our French webinar program, with the following stipulations: “The recipient will hire a consultant to develop new French webinars for its francophone membership. They will hire consultants to assess the French market needs in professional development and to identify expert industry professionals to develop and present the content.”
This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada.
Look for a report from the NEC’s February meeting in the March e-news update. The next meeting is Sunday, March 21, at 1 p.m., EDT.
Heather Buzila
President
Answer
c. Include the extra material in an appendix.
The national e-news update is produced on behalf of the national executive council by the national office.