Welcome to new members
EdWA welcomes new associate member Vanessa McKay.
Editors in Conversation with Susan Midalia and Casey Mulder: A snapshot of an emerging editor’s experience
Casey Mulder’s experience as a mentee under Linda at Night Parrot Press wasn’t just about learning to be an editor. She was given the opportunity to work on Susan Midalia’s short story collection, Miniatures, with Linda (Susan’s editor on her first book with UWA Publishing and now friend) and Susan, who was also a freelance editor, mostly of fiction. It was described as a pleasurable and different experience for all involved and it far surpassed Casey’s expectations of the mentorship.
From the way Linda stepped out the publishing and editing process for Casey, talking her through the publishing schedule and how to allocate time, to how the work was divided, giving Casey the chance to edit the whole manuscript and read and compare Linda’s edits – it was valuable practical learning. Susan chose the beginning and ending stories but otherwise sequencing the stories was left largely up to Linda and Casey, who Susan felt chose the right mix of tones, perspective and content so reader’s didn’t know what would come next, helped by Susan’s mastery of writing the unexpected ending.
Being able to confer with Susan over Zoom made a big difference to the editing experience for Casey as well – not what would usually happen in a publishing context. Casey was able to discuss the edits and advocate in person for changes, learning quickly which changes were her own imposition of stylistic choice on the author’s work, and discuss with Susan the reasoning for certain placement and selections of stories.
Casey was also able to use her cultural knowledge and experience in sensitivity reading to work through some language and context changes with Susan – an added bonus for the author to have an emerging editor with such capacity. The Zoom conversations allowed for direct and frank discussion and genuine respectful listening, particularly with essential changes such as these.
Editing Susan’s short story collection involved mostly line/copyediting and the sequencing/formatting. There wasn’t a need to do the structural editing given Susan’s prior experience as an editor who described herself as “painfully meticulous”. Casey did have an opportunity to also work with Susan on a structural edit of a verse novel and the energy required to stay across all the elements of character, genre, and so on, was an eye opener for Casey.
Casey’s mentorship experience on Miniatures with Susan and Linda was out of the ordinary and she has since had to work in a different way for different publishing houses. Casey has continued in her emerging editor career with structural editing, working and learning in the junior fiction space. Her desire is to build her freelance editing business and find a balance with her existing education career.
Purchase the recorded presentation on the IPEd website.
EdWA Christmas lunch
Thank you from the EdWA committee to all who came to our Christmas luncheon.
The good food, great service and relaxed atmosphere at our cool long table was very welcome. Long-time members mixed with brand new members and guests, and a good time was had by all.
May we have many more …
A special thanks to Cathy and Kerry who made the event so special.