From the president
We are living through strange times, but the need for clear communication—and editors—has never been more critical. I hope you and those near and dear to you are all staying well.
While we are yet to finalise details for our next Tasmanian event, I have booked a couple of Zoom meetings with our interstate colleagues and I am really looking forward to them. IPEd-wide working parties and standing committees have been meeting by Zoom for a while, so it is not a completely new experience. I expect that once the current restrictions are lifted, we will continue to deliver at least some of our training in this way.
The committee always welcomes suggestions for speaker meetings—especially if you are offering to speak yourself! Or would you like us to schedule an informal catch-up or book club meeting? Contact the committee on edtas.secretary@iped-editors.org.
Elizabeth Spiegel
edtas.president@iped-editors.org.
Conference news
We are not (at least yet) planning to deliver next year’s Hobart conference remotely, so planning continues. Our patron, Roly Sussex, will chair a panel on literacy, while other keynote speakers will include:
- Adjunct Associate Professor Pam Allen
- Dr Lisa-ann Gershwin
- Graeme Innes AM
- Professor Greg Lehman.
You can expect to hear more about these speakers in coming months. We have also arranged for the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences to run the BELS exam in the lead-up to the conference.
We are looking for more blog posts: if you have anything to say about the ‘edges’ in your editing practice, or about conferences in general, drop me a line at conference2021@iped-editors.org.
Got something to share?
Would you like to review something you have read recently? Share a funny typo? Promote a book? Or just tell your colleagues about yourself? Send content to edtas.secretary@iped-editors.org.
Musings from the typeface
by Sheelagh Wegman AE
As our president says, we are living through strange times, and clear communication is vital. Social isolation has not diminished the need for writing and editing. If anything, it has increased that need. Daily reports on the COVID-19 situation, Zoom meetings and seminars: we are doing everything from serious corporate discussions to a cosy-ish chat over a cuppa (bring your own, natch). Not to mention the online shopping that has deliveries in overdrive. I have been singing in a virtual choir and we have all become experts on camera dropouts and audio delays.
Being freelance, the folk in this household do not notice so much difference in the daily work routine. It is usually just me and my cat occupying my own workspace and that has not changed. But what I do miss is the usual coffee shop meeting with a client where we can spread pages and photos across the table, being careful to avoid the coffee splodges and biscuit crumbs. The best coffee shops have nice, big tables and do not mind at all if we sit for an hour or two, drinking lattes while scribbling on the draft and shuffling papers. Zooming is not the same.
I have several self-publishers in my list of writers. Self-publishing was once scorned as ‘vanity press’, comprising self-indulgent writings that would never, EVER, be considered worthy of publication by ‘real’ publishing houses. Pooh! But publishing has changed and digital printing has made the publication of books far more accessible to any writer. This is both a good and a bad thing. It seems that everyone has a book in them, something that must be published.
This is an area of editing that I really enjoy and not least because of the things I learn while doing it. It is satisfying to enable someone to polish their writing, to make it attractive to the reader and to encourage sales of the work, but in the past year or so I have learned many things: about glow-worms, the bombing of Darwin, the early governance of the NSW settlement, the requirement to use the same pen when several people sign a legal document, how people make ice. (Yes, really. That kind.) Probably the most esoteric stuff I discovered was the particular diacritical marks for 15th century Arabic transliterations.
And there lies an opportunity for us editors. If a writer wants the book to be read, the writer needs an editor, not just to proofread and check the spelling, but to massage and shape the text, make it attractive and—dare I say—readable. I suspect that as we emerge from this lockdown, sated with sourdough and tinned beans and tomatoes and in need of a coiffure, people will have in their hands the journals and novels and poems written in their time of isolation. Who knows, they might even be written on loo paper from their stash.
They will most certainly need editorial help. I am ready.
Sheelagh Wegman AE is the secretary of Editors Tasmania and can be contacted on edtas.secretary@iped-editors.org.