Who was Janet Mackenzie?

By Michèle Drouart

Could just 500 words do justice to the person in whose honour the Institute of Professional Editors’ most prestigious award, the Janet Mackenzie Medal, has been named? Hardly, but this brief sketch below should offer some sense of the remarkable person that was Janet Mackenzie DE.

With a Bachelor of Arts degree from Melbourne University, Janet Mackenzie took an editing job with Routledge in the UK. On a trip to Ireland she met Al, her life-long partner, and they travelled together, visiting many countries including Iceland, Norway, Kenya and India. In the 1970s they were back in Australia where son Sam and daughter Rosie were born, and where Janet continued to work for well-established publishing houses. Those were the days of editing with the blue pencil and driving manuscripts along bush tracks to the post office. The hard work brought rewards, but Janet also found time for her other loves, writing poems and songs and playing her guitar and banjo.

A founding member of the Society of Editors Victoria (established 1970) – the first Australian society of editors – Janet Mackenzie was its inaugural president and later an Honorary Life Member. Her pivotal work, The editor’s companion (Cambridge University Press, 2004), is “still considered an indispensable and authoritative guide for novices and experienced editors” (The Age, February 2019). With characteristic generosity, Janet left the copyright and royalties to the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd). 

Janet is best remembered by fellow professionals for her role in helping to establish the Council of Australian Societies of Editors (CASE, the precursor to IPEd). In that capacity she set up the first Australian standards for editing practice in 2001, and provided crucial assistance with revisions when Kerry Davies AE became the facilitator of the second edition in 2011. Kerry describes Janet as “phenomenal to work with – straightforward, intellectually sharp, eminently sensible and with a great sense of humour” (Gatherings, Oct 2023). Dr Renée Otmar DE refers to Janet as “a highly intelligent and astute person” as well as “a keen strategist” in sorting out “how to establish a national association for editors” (Gatherings, Oct 2023). Janet also played a vital role in setting up the Accreditation Board, and she contributed to the writing and assessment of the first accreditation exam in 2008. 

Editors can often feel the sting of intense work for little recognition, pay or promotion. Kerry explains how support comes from dedicated individuals who maintain professional standards, and who network and advocate for the profession and for sustainable pay rates and conditions. “These are the people,” Kerry says, “that the Mackenzie seeks to acknowledge” (Gatherings, Oct 2023). And that is, no doubt, just as Janet would have wanted it.

The Mackenzie wider family continues to generously support IPEd’s awards and prizes to honour Janet and her editing legacy. We, the current IPEd editors, are grateful to the Mackenzie family and to all passionate and dedicated editors, like Janet, who continue to advance the editing profession.