Keynotes and Copyediting Fiction with Amy J. Schneider
Red Pencil is back after a four-year hiatus, and we’re pleased to announce that Amy J. Schneider, a veteran editor and author of the new book, The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s conference. If you haven’t registered yet, the deadline for the Early Bird registration has been extended to March 13, so don’t miss out! Read on to hear from Amy about her keynote, staying current in the publishing industry, and how her StetPet, “Alice the Land Shark,” helps her work.
Presenting at Red Pencil with Joanie Eppinga
The deadline for submitting presentation proposals and ideas for Red Pencil 2023 has been extended to Sunday, October 16, so if you’ve got something you want to share with the editing community (or you have an idea you want to suggest someone else share, especially if they’re local!), please get in touch with our conference planning committee. In case you’re nervous about speaking in front of a large group, we want to assure you that Red Pencil is just about the friendliest group you could start with! I sat down with Guild member and past Red Pencil conference and ACES presenter Joanie Eppinga to chat with her about her experiences and advice about presenting.
Building Relationships: A Post-Conference Conversation
To all the editors who participated in the Northwest Editors Guild’s Red Pencil Conference 2019 in September, we’d like to say once more—thank you for joining us! It was a day full of new perspectives, new ideas, new skills, and new voices. It was also a day for celebrating editors and our commitment to creating bridges between writers and readers.
We would also like to thank once again the many supporters who stepped up to make the Guild’s first scholarship program a reality this year. Six Voice & Voices scholarships were awarded to encourage six editors to attend their first Red Pencil Conference. We hope they will continue to add their voices to our growing editorial community.
Red Pencil Conference 2019: Access to Learning
Accessibility can mean many things. Everyone’s needs and experiences are different. In the writing and editing world, plain language is defined as language that allows users to find, understand, and use the information they need. This definition focuses on the end result—it’s about people getting what they need. Along those lines, my current definition of accessibility is an environment that allows each of us to find and use the space we need to participate and to learn. That includes physical, mental, emotional, and even social space.
Red Pencil Conference 2019: July Conference News
On the blog last month, the June conference news post shared a first peek at sessions you’ll have the chance to attend in September. This month we’re offering a peek at the rest of the lineup—from presentations on building your business and taking care of your health to sessions that address the conference theme of Voice & Voices in different ways and from different perspectives.
Red Pencil Conference 2019: June Conference News
Have you noticed we’re excited about what’s coming this September? The Northwest Editors Guild’s Red Pencil Conference 2019: Voice & Voices is getting closer and closer, and we hope you’re excited too. Registration is open now, and you’ll get the best price if you register before July 31 at the early bird rates.
Red Pencil Conference 2019: Welcome Keynote Speaker Viniyanka Prasad
The 2017 Red Pencil conference, which I attended as I was transitioning into full-time freelancing, was my introduction to the Northwest Editors Guild. In that one day, I learned an enormous amount from both the presenters and other participants, and I remember being particularly inspired by the keynote speech given by Karen Yin, creator of Conscious Style Guide. When guild member Kyra Freestar asked me to join the 2019 conference committee, I wasn’t sure what my role would be, but I knew I would gain a lot from the collective knowledge and perspectives of the other members.
And indeed, we’ve had several long and stimulating conversations about the conference theme and programming, including about what we would be excited to hear in a keynote.
A Long-time Guild Member’s First ACES Conference
This year I joined ACES: The Society for Editing just in time for their annual conference in Providence, RI, on March 27-30, 2019. I pictured the trip as a pilgrimage to the New England of my youth, complete with grime on the streets, weeds growing up through cracks in the sidewalk, a vague smell of fish . . . Nope, nuttin’ like that.
Instead, it was about putting faces to institutions, such as Peter Sokolowski to Merriam-Webster or Helen Eby to the new Spanish Editors Association. Experiencing the buzz around AP style, particularly this year’s “gasp moment”: cutting hyphens from common constructions like “third grade teacher.” (I am sure glad most of my own clients prefer Chicago style!) The event was also about finding one’s place in the world of editors and freelancing. I definitely had the feeling of being among my people! Both Boston and Providence have seen major renovation since I lived there. A bonus: delicious food.
Red Pencil Conference 2019: Voice & Voices
The Red Pencil conference is a gathering to share in a day of making connections with fellow editors and puzzling with words. This year’s lineup features over twenty professionals from a variety of backgrounds, some whose names you will recognize and some who we are thrilled to welcome into the Red Pencil community for the first time. We’ve designed a mix of sessions to help us tighten our craft, strengthen our business and self-care skills, and stretch our understanding of our place as intermediaries in a dynamic and evolving field.
Our theme, Voice & Voices, explores how we as editors engage with the concept of voice at its many levels. Beyond the daily practice of editing voice on the page, the conference examines our part in championing the unique voices of the under- and unheard and our role in fostering communication rather than acting as gatekeepers. We will look at how we can do this and why it matters. Most importantly, we will look at how editors can better support the voices of a greater range of writers, publishers, and readers, with a professionalism and polish that lifts and honors their words and needs.
What We Learned at ACES 2018
Approximately a dozen Editors Guild members convened in Chicago with more than 700 other editors during the ACES 2018 conference April 26–28. ACES: The Society for Editing (formerly known as the American Copy Editors Society), a national organization for professional editors, hosts its annual three-day conference in a different U.S. city each spring.
The ACES conference is often the venue where the major style guides and dictionaries announce upcoming changes in spelling, style, and usage. It is especially well known as the conference where each year the Associated Press announces updates to its Stylebook in a room full of gasping and cheering editors. (The 2016 lowercasing of the word “internet” brought a mix of applause and disgusted harrumphs, while this year’s comparatively tame removal of the hyphen in “3D” didn’t cause nearly as many emotional reactions.)