President’s report
by Margaret Trudgeon AE
Season’s greetings to everyone! I hope the year has been kind to you and that you are able to relax and put your feet up for a little while over Christmas. I know I’m looking forward to a few days off after a pretty hectic year.
We began celebrating the end of the year at Editors Victoria a bit early with our annual in-person end-of-year event. This year we were treated to a conversation between historian, author, broadcaster and public commentator Professor Clare Wright and the Editors Victoria communications officer, Cecile Shanahan, at the Gertrude Hotel in Fitzroy. It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces and chat over a glass of prosecco and a slice of very delicious pizza. We were all captivated by Clare’s wonderful anecdotes as she recalled how her most recent book, Näku Dhäruk: the bark petitions, part of the Democracy Trilogy, came to fruition.
We also had a representative from the Brunswick Street Bookstore on hand to sell some copies of Clare’s 3 books after the conversation and our guest was kind enough to sign copies. I was thrilled to be among those lucky people to have my copy signed and am looking forward to reading Näku Dhäruk over Christmas. There were also some prizes given away to 3 lucky attendees, but I’ll leave those details to Amber Hall, who has written a report about the night, which you can read in this issue. Donald Ritchie has also provided a summary of the “Editing first aid” event held in November.
Our committee recently got together in person at The Wheeler Centre to have a planning and strategy day. We have great things planned for 2026. Look out for some advertising for a speaker event featuring Professor Jeanine Leane on “Challenges and approaches to editing anthologies with diverse voices” in February and a grammar workshop with Dr Linda Nix AE in February and March.
Over November we interviewed some editing students to select our latest student adviser. I’m pleased to announce and welcome Duncan Hale, who was the successful candidate. Duncan is studying for an associate diploma at RMIT and has a great interest in writing poetry, along with a fascination for editing. He’s previously done some volunteer work with the Emerging Writers Festival too. We also have 2 new student/graduate members, Chiara Oates and Sharon Paul, joining the Editors Victoria subcommittees. Welcome to everyone.
I have a mystery to try to solve for some of our longer-term members out there. I recently received an email from an author who is trying to track down information on an editor from the 1970s named Margaret Walkom. I believe she worked at CSIRO with Basil Walby, and both have since passed away. Anne-Marie Condé has written an article on Margaret for Inside Story. If anyone knew Margaret or has any further information on her could you please contact Anne-Marie at annemarie.conde@gmail.com.
I wish everyone well for the summer break and we’ll be back in February with more workshops and speaker events. See you all in 2026!