By Cecile Shanahan
I enjoyed every moment of the conference: the chance to connect in person with fellow editors, the workshops I attended (both relating to Accreditation), the panels and presentations. Following is a very small snippet of some takeaways and highlights:
- Michèle Drouart HLM’s ‘whole text shape’ approach to structural editing presented a great new way (for me at least) of looking at narrative structure.
- Freya Howarth got me excited about fact checking and shared insights into how her workplace (an international magazine) makes it an integral part of a rigorous editing process.
- Emily Hart and Margaret Lloyd from Pink Shorts Press told us that women run Australian publishing but men sit at the top and they’re making small steps to change that.
- Tanja Gardner, when talking at “Where we’ve come from, where we’re going: The past, present and future of diversity, equity and inclusion in editing” got me thinking about making the world fairer, even if it may never be fair, and reminded us all to listen to our clients and learn from them. We were also reminded to accept otherness and to write about it, bring it out and encourage it wherever possible.
We also heard that sensitivity reading is essential when creating many nonfiction and fiction works and should be factored into any publishing budget – not added on as an extra if there’s a bit of money available.
Talking to people at snack and break times made me more aware of how many roles involve editing – no 2 people I spoke to had the same job.
Finally, having fiction-themed gin tastings on site was a stroke of genius!