Editing Goes Global session summaries to come

Editing Goes Global, the first (and, in my view, hugely successful) international editors’ conference wrapped up yesterday, and, as I did in previous years, I hope to post summaries of some of the sessions I attended. If the past is any indication, though, I’ll probably have to take a few weeks to get through them all, especially because I’m attending another conference at the end of this week and will have to do a bunch of catch-up when I get back to Vancouver.

Highlights of the conference included meeting colleagues that I’ve thus far known only through Twitter, hearing Carol Fisher Saller’s and Katherine Barber’s side-splitting keynotes, and—what was probably the biggest thrill of all for me—being at the awards banquet when my dear friend (and partner in Microsoft Word tamingGrace Yaginuma won the Tom Fairley Award for her work on A Discerning Eye, written by Carol E. Mayer and published by one of my favourite clients, Figure 1 Publishing.

Many thanks to the conference committee, the National Executive Council, and countless volunteers for putting on such a smashing event. Editors Canada’s 2016 conference will be in my ’hood, and the next international conference will be in Chicago in 2019. See you next year in Vancouver?

Indexing Society of Canada and Editors’ Association of Canada conferences 2014—personal highlights

I’m back from four and a half days in Toronto, where I attended ISC’s and EAC’s national conferences. As in previous years, I’ll be posting summaries of some of the talks I attended—a process that, as I’ve learned, will take me several weeks. Both conferences were excellent, featuring a variety of sessions that appealed to novices as well as seasoned pros and that tackled not only the technical aspects of indexing and editing but also the business side of freelancing. Best of all was being able to see old friends and pick up conversations as if no time had passed, as well as meeting new colleagues and putting faces to names.

My days were packed: I had the privilege of introducing indexing superstar Enid Zafran at her talk about indexer–author relations at the ISC conference, and at the EAC conference I ran a two-part senior editors’ unconference: at a lunchtime session on Saturday, editors shouted out topics they wanted to discuss. I recorded the topics on a flip chart, then, with the help of sticky dots, the editors voted on their favourite ones. I ranked the topics based on votes and created our discussion agenda for our session on Sunday. It was impossible to get through all fourteen of the proposed topics, and it would have been great to have more time, but in general I thought the format worked reasonably well. It also helped that we had a great group; I’m consistently amazed by how much can happen when you just get a bunch of smart people talking to each other about what they know.

The highlight of my week, though, was the EAC banquet. Not only did we learn from Moira White that EAC has established a new award—for a person or organization that has helped advance the editing profession—in memory of our late friend Karen Virag, but we also saw Certification Steering Committee co-chairs Anne Brennan and Janice Dyer acknowledged for their enormous volunteer contributions to the association. Both won the President’s Award for Volunteer service—a well-deserved and long-overdue recognition of the hours and hours and hours of work they put into steering the certification program. Congratulations go out to all the President’s Award winners, including Lee d’Anjou Award–winning volunteer of the year, Michelle Boulton. (Just as note to the national executive, I would have loved to hear what these fantastic volunteers had done for EAC, not just their names! Please consider a giving one-sentence summary of each volunteer’s contributions at next year’s banquet.)

Congratulations, also, of course, to Claudette Upton Scholarship winner Daniel Polowin, and to University of Alberta Press’s Peter Midgley, who finally, finally received the Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence he so deserves.

For me, the most exciting part of the evening was being able to present, on behalf of the Certification Steering Committee, designations of Honorary Certified Professional Editor to six pioneers of EAC’s certification program. Without them, the program simply wouldn’t exist. As someone who’s benefited tremendously from certification, both as a CPE and as a CSC member who’s had the privilege to work for the past two and half years with some of the most brilliant, funniest people I know, I want to thank and congratulate these champions, mentors, and friends for their dedication: Lee d’Anjou, Peter Moskos, Maureen Nicholson, Jonathan Paterson, Frances Peck, and Ruth Wilson. I would not be where I am today without them.

If anyone has any photos of the presentation they could send me, I’d be grateful for them. Believe me—the amount of restraint it took to keep from spilling the beans about this surprise was enormous!

ISC/EAC conference notes and news

I’ve been back from the Indexing Society of Canada/Editors’ Association of Canada conference in Halifax for almost a week now but have spent these past few days trying to get caught up.

As with last year, I’ll be posting summaries of the talks I attended at the conference, but, as I learned last year, they might take me a few weeks to finish; the pockets of time I need to write have been elusive.

The ISC and EAC conference committees put on a wonderful event: the sessions were engaging and well balanced, and I loved being able to see and catch up with fellow editors and indexers from across Canada and beyond. I was also honoured to receive a President’s Award for Volunteer Service from EAC at the awards banquet—a million thanks to Frances Peck, Anne Brennan, and Eva van Emden for nominating me. I work on committees with some of the most dedicated people I know, and there’s no way I deserve this award any more than they do.

Derek Hayes wins inaugural Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize

Congratulations to Derek Hayes, whose British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas has picked up yet another honour! Hayes’s visually stunning opus has won the Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Book on British Columbia, a new award from UBC Library and the Pacific BookWorld News Society. More details here.

Award for Exploring Vancouver

Congratulations to authors Harold Kalman and Robin Ward and to photographer John Roaf! Exploring Vancouver: The Architectural Guide has won an award from the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals in the Heritage Communication category. The award will be handed out at a ceremony on Thursday, October 11, between 7:30pm and 9:30pm at the Montreal Masonic Temple.

In other Exploring Vancouver news, Harold Kalman will be signing books at the Chapters on Broadway and Granville on Saturday, November 10.

ISC Conference, Day 2—To award or not to award?

The Indexing Society of Canada is planning to establish a new award to recognize excellence in indexing. Indexing societies elsewhere in the world have their own awards, but Canadians aren’t eligible for most of them. At the ISC conference, Max McMaster of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers, Jan Wright of the American Society for Indexing, and the ISC’s Christine Jacobs discussed the considerations that should go in to the award criteria and judging process.

McMaster, a three-time winner of the ANZSI medal for outstanding indexing, has also been a judge for the medal. The judging panel consists of three experienced indexers, but they will consult an outside expert if the subject matter of a submitted work is too esoteric for them to understand. He suggests that the ISC be careful not to limit the types of works that can be eligible for the award and to provide a certificate or plaque to the publisher of the winning work as well—good PR for indexing. Publishers should be encouraged to submit their books for consideration, but more often it will be indexers who submit their own work. McMaster warns indexers that they’re at the mercy of the book’s editor and typesetter: he had once submitted an index he thought was award worthy before realizing that the publisher had inadvertently removed all of the index’s indentation, severely compromising the final index’s usability.

Jan Wright won the ASI’s H.W. Wilson Award for her index to Real World InDesign CS3. She hasn’t been a judge but has spoken to the judges on the panel that granted her her award. Submissions for the award go to the ASI’s chapters around the country, and they are anonymized. Cheryl Landes remarked that many indexers would be willing to pay a high entry fee to submit their work if it meant that they would receive feedback on their submissions.

Christine Jacobs gave an outline of what the ISC’s award might look like. The awards committee plans to announce the award at the next AGM and issue a call for nominations. They hope to accept submissions in either English or French and both print and online works. Currently there’s no cash prize attached to the award, but the awards committee is taking a step-by-step approach, and it may be part of the award later on. Jacobs emphasized how the award can be a form of validation for a winning indexer and that it would help raise the profile of the profession and encourage high standards.

An amazing honour

Holy crap! I won the Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence!

The award was announced at the Editors’ Association of Canada banquet on the evening of Saturday, June 2, and I was completely surprised. Thanks again to author Florian Werner, translator Doris Ecker, foreworder Temple Grandin and her wonderful assistant Cheryl Miller, proofreader Lara Smith, designer Naomi MacDougall (interior), cover designer Peter Cocking, and the whole D&M production department for making Cow happen. Thanks to Rob Sanders for trusting me with the project, and a million thanks to Nancy Flight for nominating me for the award and for encouraging me along the way.

Thanks to the EAC for having this award in the first place, and thanks to the donors, awards committee, and judges for this tremendous honour.

I had the pleasure of having a long conversation with fellow finalist Peter Midgley about our respective editing projects—both translations, interestingly enough. I’m very sorry he couldn’t have shared in the award with me, because it sounded as though we had parallel experiences. I look forward to reading the book he edited, The Man in Blue Pyjamas.

2011 Tom Fairley shortlist announced

I’m very excited to be among three editors shortlisted for the Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence, for my work on Cow by Florian Werner, translated by Doris Ecker. I’m extremely grateful to Nancy Flight for nominating me. When one of your most respected mentors deems your work worthy of an award, the nomination truly is an honour unto itself. Thanks also to Florian Werner and designer Naomi MacDougall for supporting my nomination.

Congratulations to my fellow shortlisted nominees: Smaro Kamboureli, for her work on Flux: Transnational Shifts in Asian Canadian Writing by Roy Miki, and Peter Midgley, for his work on The Man in Blue Pyjamas by Jalal Barzanji and translated by Sabah Salih. The winner will be announced at the EAC conference banquet on June 2.

An Alcuin Award for Fred Herzog: Photographs

Congratulations to D&M’s art director, Peter Cocking, who won second prize in the pictorial category at the Alcuin Awards for his design of Fred Herzog: Photographs, featuring text by Claudia Gochmann, Douglas Coupland, Sarah Milroy, and Jeff Wall. D&M’s design team has a tradition of doing well at the Alcuins, this year winning seven awards in four categories.

Find a full list of winners here.

BC Book Prize nominations

The 2012 shortlist for the BC Book Prizes has been announced, and Fred Herzog: Photographs is a finalist for both the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize and the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award. Congratulations to Fred and the book’s contributors—Douglas Coupland, Claudia Gochmann, Sarah Milroy, and Jeff Wall!

Winners will be announced on May 12, 2012.