President’s report
by Margaret Trudgeon AE
Salutations to all the Victorians who made the trip over to Adelaide for the recent IPEd conference! It was great to meet up with many of you, but apologies if I missed saying hello. I believe that over 50 Victorians made the journey! I would like to send Editors SA, the Conference Committee and the staff of IPEd a big thank you for putting on such a fabulous event, with some great panels and speakers. I know you must have put in many hours behind the scenes to bring it all together. It’s a mammoth task! My 3 favourite events were Eugen Bacon’s keynote address on Thursday, the panel event on diversity, equity and inclusion in editing, featuring Eugen, Lou Merrington, Camille Nurka and Tanja Gardener, and the discussion with Writers SA on sensitivity readings. I also found the AI-focused events very informative and strangely calming as I feel the editing profession is going to be reasonably safe at this stage. AI is still no match when it comes to human sensitivities in editing, although I do think it has a place for things like formatting text and spelling corrections.
Congratulations to all the winners of the awards handed out at the conference reception on Thursday evening: Julie Ganner AE (Janet Mackenzie Medal), Portia Abbott (IPEd Student Prize) and Emma Rafferty (the Rosanne Fitzgibbon Editorial Award).
I very much enjoyed having a bit of an escape to Adelaide. Editors Victoria organised a drinks night on the final night, but unfortunately the pub we had chosen turned out to be a very popular and noisy watering hole on a Friday night, so we had to relocate to a nearby bar, discovered by Stephanie Holt AE the day before. It had the perfect bookish feel as it was covered in floor-to-ceiling bookcases and even featured literary-themed cocktails! An ideal place to wind up the conference!
On the Saturday after the conference, I enjoyed taking my time to walk around the city streets and down to the nearby park by the river, although I got caught in a deluge! My umbrella was no match for the rain, but I did find a handy tree to shelter under for a while. I also checked out a couple of art exhibitions, and made a pilgrimage to see the Yuendumu School doors at the SA Museum.
Back on the land of the Warundjeri people, we are winding up our committee for this year, with our ABM taking place online on Thursday 14 August (6 to 7 pm). Please make the time to register and attend if you can. You will get to hear what your committee has been up to over the past year, and see the formation of our new committee for 2025–26. Afterwards we will be presenting children’s author Andy Griffiths and his wife/editor Jill as they speak to Cecile Shanahan about their writing and editing processes (free for all ABM-registered Editors Victoria members). It should make for an enjoyable and worthwhile evening!
I would like to thank our 2024–25 committee for all their hard work over the course of the year. We managed to organise some terrific events and workshops, along with the other tasks of the committee (for a full rundown, please see our ABM reports). Farewell and thank you to Sophia Chan and Rachel Chopping, who are stepping down. You both made some excellent suggestions for events and workshops and did a fabulous job in your respective roles. All the best for the future!
I hope to see many of you at the ABM! Bookings close on Monday 11 August!
Welcome to our new members
Associate member:
- Amanda Apthorpe
- Sandra Muller
Student and graduate member:
- Olivia Fourlze