News, events, tips and updates from Editors Canada
In this issue:
1. EDITORS IN REAL LIFE: Join us for our first in-person conference since 2019
2. WEBINARS: Stay connected to your editing community
3. MEMBER SERVICES: The Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection is free for Editors Canada members
4. FEATURED VOLUNTEER: Hanafi Hadjeres
5. GET INVOLVED: National Volunteer Month
6. MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS: Hire an Editor
7. WEBSITE: A new association website is coming soon
8. MEMBER NEWS: A round of applause!
9. NEC: Notes from your national executive council
1. EDITORS IN REAL LIFE: Join us for our first in-person conference since 2019
Registration is now open for Editors Canada’s first in-person conference since 2019, Editors 23: Editors in Real Life. The conference takes place June 17 and 18, 2023, at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Editors 23: Editors in Real Life is an in-person conference that follows local health and safety guidelines. Editors Canada is focused on hosting a safe and healthy conference and is adhering to all provincial health mandates, as well as providing sanitation stations outside of session halls and at group events. We will have hand sanitizer and masks for attendees. For those who cannot attend in person, we will be uploading all sessions to PheedLoop after the conference. They will remain available for purchase for three months.
What’s in store?
We have landed two amazing keynote speakers.
- Aimee Wall, longstanding French-English translator and author of the groundbreaking novel about intergenerational female relationships, We, Jane.
- David Robertson, a member of the Norway House Cree Nation and author of multiple books, including When We Were Alone and The Barren Grounds.
Here’s a taste of the sessions you can expect.
- Amy J. Schneider will present on Conscious Language and Copyediting Fiction.
- James Harbeck will speak on Love, Desire, and Tension: Structural Editing of Nonfiction.
- Tanya Gold will give a presentation for mid-career editors on Exploring “Passive” Income Possibilities for Editors Who Need Flexibility.
- Dick Margulis will speak on Guiding the Self-Publishing Process.
- Michelle Waitzman will speak about Real-World Networking for Editors.
Act fast because registration is strictly limited to 150 attendees.
Visit the conference website to register now!
2. WEBINARS: Stay connected to your editing community
Editing can be a fairly solitary activity—which makes it all the more important to stay connected to a community of editors that you can lean on and learn from. One way Editors Canada supports members in doing that is through our training webinars, in which experienced editors with expertise in specific areas share their skills and tools.
Upcoming webinars
- May 2: Editing Stories in Images (Julie Kay-Wallace)
- May 18: Copyediting Tips for Translators (Vanya Wryter)
See the full selection, including many recorded past sessions, on our webinars page. And don’t forget about another perk of membership: 40% off all webinars and recordings!
Present an Editors Canada webinar in 2023
Editors Canada invites all experienced industry leaders to submit webinar proposals for the 2023 Summer-Winter Cycle. Members of Editors Canada and non-members are welcome to apply. We offer competitive rates of pay to all of our webinar presenters. Interested? See the call for proposals for more information.
Training and Development Committee
Editors Canada
3. MEMBER SERVICES: The Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection is free for Editors Canada members
Did you know Editors Canada members and student affiliates get free access to the Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection for free via the association website?
Oxford Reference Online is one of the world’s most trusted reference products, featuring the contents of Oxford University Press’s Dictionaries (including The Canadian Oxford Dictionary), Companions and Encyclopedias.
What’s included for Editors Canada members and student affiliates?
Access over 500 Oxford titles for free through editors.ca!
Oxford Quick Reference: with core subject, language and quotations dictionaries, Quick Reference is for readers who want to check a fact instantly by accessing key, vetted information on a concept, person or term.
Oxford Reference Library: the Reference Library provides in-depth, specialized content from Oxford University Press’s award-winning Encyclopedias and Companions as well as works from distinguished partners, allowing you to further build your research in subjects ranging from archaeology to society and culture.
Plus: from Garner’s Modern English Usage to the Guide to Latin in International Law, enjoy free access to more in-depth, single-volume works from the Reference Library, including the renowned Oxford Companions.
Visit the members’ area to start using the Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection for free now.
Want to find out more about Editors Canada services, including partner discounts? Visit the member services page for exclusive benefits.
4. FEATURED VOLUNTEER: Hanafi Hadjeres
Hanafi Hadjeres is a truly international member of Editors Canada. He was born in Algeria, completed a BA in English Language and Literature as well as further studies in South African literature and history, and later taught business English at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce in Algiers. He subsequently moved to New York City, where he now lives, to work as a French-language verbatim reporter at the United Nations from 1994 to 2003. In 2004, he joined the Official Records Editing Section where he ensured that the French version of UN resolutions and decisions remained faithful to the original English version.
Hanafi retired from his UN work in 2017 and joined Editors Québec in 2020. “I already knew about this association, but I was not really involved in its activities,” he says. That changed when he joined the marketing and communications committee and provided translation work for the Hire an Editor campaign, LinkedIn announcements and The Editors’ Weekly blog.
“Human contact with fellow professionals is very enriching,” Hanafi says, although he admits, “it is not always easy to coordinate with other volunteers who live far apart.” Online gatherings help to make up for that. He has participated in many virtual meetings of La Vigne des réviseurs.
Hanafi’s interests reflect his cosmopolitan lifestyle. He loves film, including Hitchcock movies, as well as a wide range of musical genres and biographies of historical figures. Despite his appreciation of New York, he loves to escape by taking walks by the sea or visiting rural areas. “Vermont, which I discovered a few months ago, is my dream destination,” he says. And despite retirement, he adds, “I will do my best to bring my modest contributions to improve the visibility of French within Editors Canada.”
~S. Robin Larin
The featured volunteer recognizes the contributions of our dedicated people who keep Editors Canada going. Volunteers are the backbone of the association, and we are grateful for the many members and affiliates who answer the call when help is needed.
5. GET INVOLVED: National Volunteer Month
April is Volunteer Month in Canada! A big thank you to everyone who has volunteered for Editors Canada in the past. We are a better association because of you. In fact, we are an association because of you. Editors Canada would not exist without volunteers.
If you’re interested in becoming involved, now is a great time to get started. We’re currently recruiting for national executive council positions and committee chairs, as you’ve probably seen from recent postings. We always have room on our many national committees, and other opportunities are available as well. Most work is done remotely, so it doesn’t matter where you live.
Looking for volunteer opportunities?
If you want to volunteer for Editors Canada, check out VolunteerConnect, our resource for matching volunteers to tasks. You can use this searchable tool to
- find opportunities of interest to you and
- list yourself as a potential volunteer.
Volunteering lets you give back to your organization, but you also receive so much in return: experience, skills, contacts, friendships and a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Volunteer today!
6. MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS: Hire an Editor
Editors Canada needs your help planning the next Hire an Editor campaign. We want to build a campaign highlighting your skills and contributions to various businesses, and we would love to get maximum engagement from you. Watch your inbox for a survey that will ask for your input on what would make for an engaging and successful campaign. We’d love to hear and incorporate your thoughts and ideas. Stay tuned!
Marketing and Communications Committee
Editors Canada
7. WEBSITE: A new association website is coming soon
The website task force is pleased to report we have reached an exciting stage in the development of our new association website. After an intensive search, we have hired a website developer to build the new editors.ca. Work is already underway, and we are on track to launch the new site in the next two months.
Background
The platform the current website is built on reached end-of-life in November 2022. After spending over a year collecting information about the site, including its technical, organizational and functionality issues, the website task force came up with a plan for a new site, including what changes to prioritize within our budget.
Since the platform the current site was built on is no longer being supported, it is critical for the association to build the new website on a stable foundation for support, security and to facilitate future site redesigns. After much discussion and consultation, the national executive council approved our recommendation to build the new editors.ca on WordPress.
What to expect
To stay within our budget, we are tackling the new website in stages. This first stage is mainly focused on rebuilding editors.ca on a stable platform. That means we aren’t overhauling the look of the site now; however, we are building the foundation that will allow those redesigns in the future.
While the site will largely look the same as it does now, there are some usability and accessibility issues we are addressing right away, including reorganizing the content, improving the functionality of the site menus and the Online Directory of Editors (ODE), and building dark and high-contrast modes.
What’s next?
Our website developer is hard at work on building the new website and the website task force is preparing to move content from the old website to the new site. Once we get closer to the new site launch, we will need to “freeze” the content on the current website to ensure that what’s on the current site gets moved to the new site. That means putting a pause on revisions to the current site, including to ODE profiles. Keep an eye on your inbox for more information about this.
We hope to bring you a new site that addresses many technical, organizational, and functionality issues and improves the overall experience of Editors Canada’s website! Once the new website has launched, we’ll turn our attention to the association’s blogs and subsites.
Website Task Force
Editors Canada
8. MEMBER NEWS: A round of applause!
On April 15, 2023, Editors Toronto member Michelle Waitzman published her new self-help book, Be as Happy as Your Dog: 16 Dog-Tested Ways to Be Happier Using Pawsitive Psychology. It is available in paperback and ebook from online retailers worldwide. Toronto-based edibuddies are invited to join her at a launch party in support of Mattie’s Place animal rescue on Sunday, April 30, from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m., at Black Lab Brewing (Eastern Avenue and Leslie Street). The venue is a dog-friendly microbrewery. Michelle will be signing books and holding a fundraising raffle.
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.
9. NEC: Notes from your national executive council
The NEC met on March 19, 2023. Merel Elsinga, chair of the marketing and communications (marcom) committee, and Glenna Jenkins, co-chair of the career builder committee, presented their proposal to update and revive the Editors Canada LinkedIn company page. Heather White, co-chair of Editors Atlantic, also joined the meeting to give us an update of what the twig has been up to.
As always, the committees and task forces are hard at work on several projects. I am noticing more directors and committees collaborating on projects (such as the LinkedIn proposal from the marcom and career builder committees). Members and volunteers bring expertise from a variety of areas to the association, and these projects will benefit greatly from the diversity of skills and perspectives that are being applied to them.
I had the privilege of representing Editors Canada at the ACES (The Society for Editing) national conference in Columbus, Ohio. It was a pleasure to meet a few Editors Canada members there and to network with some American editors. In particular, I received a lot of questions regarding Canadian English, as many companies have consumers in both Canada and the United States. There is an eager market for Canadian editors and an updated Canadian English dictionary. ACES and Editors Canada have had a longstanding partnership, and I look forward to future collaboration between organizations.
Maria Frank
President
The national e-news update is produced on behalf of the national executive council by the national office.