Category Archives: Trips

SfEP Conference 2019: In the beginning, there was the word

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The annual conference of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), which took place in Birmingham from September 14 to 16, was an absolute blast. Not only were the facilities at the Conference Aston hotel absolutely luxurious, but the delegates were a delight as well. As a first-time attendee, I was invited for drinks with the council before the start of the conference, and everyone made sure that I felt welcome and included. The conference organizers set up a speed networking event and assigned us random seats for the gala dinner on Sunday, ensuring that we talked to new people. They had also provided us with pronoun stickers, which I thought was a great inclusive move! More entertainment and bonding opportunities were provided by conference choir The Linnet’s performance on Saturday night and the after-dinner quiz that same day, during which I learned that I really, really suck at guessing songs based on their first few lines being read out.

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Summer 2019: Lots of professional development!

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It’s been a while since I last blogged! My summer was filled with work, courses, and conferences. To begin with, I completed another course toward obtaining Queens University’s Professional Editing Standards certificate: Stylistic Editing, now renamed Copyediting Standards 2. This brings my total number of courses to three: Copyediting Standards 1, Fundamentals of Editing (completed this spring), and Copyediting Standards 2. I have two more courses to go before I can apply for the certificate! I also enrolled in a course from the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) titled “Brush Up Your Grammar,” which I have almost completed.

As it turned out, whatever I learned from my courses could be put in practice right away, as my summer schedule filled up with work. I edited two academic monographs, eight journal articles, two dissertations, two book chapters, a conference paper, some blog posts, and even a card game! Thanks to the courses, I have become quicker at spotting issues, and I more readily know what to do about them. The issues I encounter are not just spelling and grammar errors, but also language that is not clear, coherent, or concise. It is nice to feel more confident in my abilities to spot and correct these instances!

My skills were honed even more by the conferences I attended this September: the Annual Conference of the SfEP and the Professional Development Day of the Society for English-language Professionals in the Netherlands (SENSE). While attending two conferences in such rapid succession was intense and left me feeling a bit drained, I am very happy that I went, because I met many people and learned a ton of stuff. I am working on detailed blog posts about these two conferences, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, I am booked up until the end of October at least, having started work for Terreform’s publishing imprint Urban Research on a forthcoming edited volume that I’m very excited about: an anthology of essays in honor of legendary urban theorist Mike Davis!

Mini-conference in Newcastle

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The article below was originally published in the July/August issue of Editing Matters, the magazine of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP).

On 22 May 2019, the SfEP’s North East England local group organised a mini-conference in Newcastle. As a relatively new member, I was determined to attend my first-ever SfEP conference, even though it involved taking the overnight ferry from the Netherlands to Newcastle. People warned me that it was a notorious party boat and that I would probably not get much sleep. Thankfully, the trip was perfect: it was more like a pleasant mini-cruise than a hyped-up stag party (more on the boat trip here).

Expectations for this conference were high. Not only was everyone enthusiastic about the programme and looking forward to meeting up with old and new friends but a debate erupted on Twitter that raised the stakes for the treats served during the intervals.The pressure was on for co-organiser and cakesourcer, Kia Thomas!

After a wonderful trip, I met up with fellow editors the evening before for a pre-conference dinner. We went to a gorgeous restaurant in the centre of Newcastle, where we shared stories and had a few laughs about my unnecessary boat worries. I love how inclusive and welcoming the editing community is! The following morning, people arrived at the conference venue early, eager to get started. After registering, I socialised with old and new friends. It was great to recognise people from Twitter!

The pre-conference dinner venue in Newcastle.
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London Book Fair

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Mid-March, I attended the London Book Fair for the first time in my life. This is a massive event where publishing professionals from all over the world come to negotiate rights and sell and distribute their content. Over 25,000 people attend on average! I knew it was massive, but wow, it was really, really massive.

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This is just one hall… The Fair was held at Olympia London, a massive, nineteenth-century exhibition space.

I attended the Fair for several reasons. First, I wanted to better understand the publishing industry and its trends and challenges. Second, I wanted to see which publishers could benefit from my services and approach them. Third, I wanted to meet and network with other editors and publishing professionals.

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Canada trip: Meeting lots of editors and more!

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It’s been a while since I updated my blog! I’ve been ridiculously busy in the past few months. I completed a bunch of large editing jobs, including a language and copyedit of a fascinating academic book manuscript and a copyedit of a wonderful dissertation. I also did a literature review for a political scientist and a number of smaller editing jobs, ranging from a market research report to some new sets of Arcmage cards! My testimonials page has been updated and should be updated again soon, as work keeps on coming in! I’m also taking the Fundamentals of Editing course at Queens University as part of the editing certificate I’m studying for. I meant to write something about this and the copyediting course I took a while ago, and I hope to get to this soon! I’m barely able to catch my breath these days. I’m also going to give you a report of the London Book Fair I attended mid-March, which has already led to new work (I will tell you how I did that!) and lots of new contacts with lovely editors.

As my new cover photo shows, I went on a fantastic, two-week trip to Toronto in the second half of January, where I met many lovely editors who took me in, showed me around, and generally made me feel very welcome. I’m not mentioning everyone here, but Greg Ioannou let me use a desk in his Iguana books office and invited me for dinner at his home, which was such a great gesture. I attended a meeting of Editors Canada’s Toronto branch, where I met more great people and had the privilege to see the amazing writer Esi Edugyan in conversation with her editors. It was a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into the work of copyediting. I read Edugyan’s book Washington Black right away and it definitely kept me up late a few nights because I couldn’t stop reading.

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Toronto at nightfall 😍😍😍

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