Member news (2021)

Member news is a regular website feature designed to tell the world about our members' outstanding and wide-ranging skills and talents.

November 2021

Editors Toronto student affiliate Erin Della Mattia is the 2021 recipient of the Robert Weaver Award for Editorial Excellence through the Chang School of Continuing Studies at Ryerson University. The award recognizes a student who has demonstrated excellence in editing and a sound career plan with books.

October 2021

Editors Québec member Agnès André is pleased to announce the publishing of her first translation, Seasons: Desert sketches, a collection of short radio essays by Utahn nature writer Ellen Meloy (Torrey House Press). The book, with a foreword by Annie Proulx (Brokeback Mountain), is a sharp and humorous criticism of our relationship with nature and a celebration of her natural habitat–the American Southwest. The book is available from Hobo Diffusion or éditions blast.

Editors Atlantic member Claire Wilkshire has published her second book, a collection of short fiction. Warm, funny and stylistically savvy, the stories in The Love Olympics follow an interlocking set of characters around St. John's. The book is about various forms of love—the ways love grips us, shakes us, releases or envelops us. The Love Olympics explores the aspirations, fears and vulnerabilities of people who feel both familiar and surprising; it celebrates their generosity and desire for connection, their willingness to see past flaws and appreciate other human beings in all their complexity. The Love Olympics is available from Breakwater Books.

September 2021

Editors Calgary freelance editor, writer and ghostwriter Lorna Stuber just published her first book—The Fresh Freelancer. In this how-to book, she draws on her experience of starting her successful business and advises new freelance editors, or those thinking of venturing down that path, on how to set up their own editing business. This book suggests training and software options, helpful resources (print and online), and useful strategies that new editors can use to get their business up and running. Although some of the details in this book are specific to Canada, the general ideas around tax information, registering a trade name, etc. can be applied to other countries as well. The book can be found on Amazon. Other information can be found on her website, her Facebook page or LinkedIn profile.

July 2021

In May 2021, Gael Spivak (Editors Ottawa–Gatineau) gave a presentation at the Access for All plain language conference. She spoke about the work of the localization and implementation committee, which she chairs on behalf of the International Plain Language Federation. This committee is helping countries around the world to plan for adopting and localizing the ISO plain language standard after it is published in the fall.

The Federation has links to Gael's May presentation, as well as others given on the standard in October 2020.

June 2021

The Unsuitable Bride by Pamela McGarry has been shortlisted by the 2021 Whistler Independent Book Awards (WIBA). Editors British Columbia member Sheila Cameron is excited and proud that this is the third WIBA shortlisted book she's contributed to. The others were Goodnight Sunshine by Mark Cameron (2016 awards) and 17 Weddings by Mark Cameron (2019 awards). As a freelance editor working alone, she often wonders if her editing contributions are worthy. It is a real boost to have WIBA recognize three books that she has had the pleasure of working on. WIBA began in 2016 and provides valuable manuscript feedback to authors.

Editors Toronto member Greg Ioannou is relieved to announce the long-delayed launch of his new company, PubLaunch, which connects writers, especially self-publishing authors, with pre-screened publishing professionals. You're all welcome to sign up as suppliers (e.g., editors, proofreaders, indexers and writing coaches). We've made the process as easy as possible. Professionally certified editors and proofreaders are automatically pre-approved for the areas in which Editors Canada has certified them. We're currently strengthening the roster of suppliers on the site. We'll start marketing the site to writers at some point in June. (At the moment, we're especially looking for experienced ghostwriters and illustrators. Please tell your friends!) Please check out www.publaunch.com.

March 2021

In October 2020, Editors Toronto member Betty R. Robinson self-published the first book in her Elizabeth series, Elizabeth Goes to Mars! Betty wrote the book to support the Space unit of the Ontario Grade 6 science curriculum. She is currently working on the second book in her series about light. This book is aimed at supporting students studying the Light unit of the Ontario Grade 4 science curriculum. The Light book is being edited by Editors Toronto member Susan Hughes and will be published later in 2021. For more information, please visit Betty's website.

January 2021

Editors Toronto member Carla DeSantis was awarded the 2020 Ewart-Daveluy Award for Excellence in Indexing by the Indexing Society of Canada for her index to Heather Bamford's Cultures of the Fragment: Uses of the Iberian Manuscript, 1100–1600, published by University of Toronto Press.

Editors British Columbia member Lenore Hietkamp was a guest on the Edit Boost podcast, presented by Malini Devadas, an Australian coach for editors. In Episode 28: How do I turn down familiar jobs so I can move into a new field of work? Lenore and Malini discuss navigating the tricky transition of moving to coaching from editing when you have ongoing work and steady stream of referrals.

Do you have an achievement you'd like to share? We'd love to hear from you! Send your news to the member news coordinator. Each news item will be posted once on the website and once in Editors Canada's e-news update.