Eva van Emden (she/her), freelance editor

Certified copy editor and proofreader

eva@vancouvereditor.com

June 19, 2015

Editors Canada conference 2015

Newly certified editors. Photo courtesy of Paul Cipywnyk. All rights reserved.

I’m back from the Editors Canada’s 2015 conference “Editing Goes Global.” I have jet lag, a new copy of Merriam–Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, a stack of business cards, a list of LinkedIn invitations, a pile of receipts, and notes all over the place.

Conference co-chairs Gael Spivak and Greg Ioannou did an amazing job of putting together the conference. The attendance was the highest ever, and people attended from as far away as India and Australia.

Some highlights included John McIntyre on newspaper writing (some articles can’t be fixed), Carol Fisher Saller on assertionists, Sue Archer and Suzanne Purkis on networking (including the defensive handshake), Joe Kimble on legalese (the myth of precision: legalese isn’t really more precise than plain language), and James Harbeck on when to use bad English (to make yourself seem like “just folks”). Christina Vasilevski kindly invited me to stay with her during the conference, so I also got to chat about some of my favourite fiction on the way into town each day. An important part of the conference is awards and recognition. At the annual general meeting, I got my certified proofreader certificate, and at the awards banquet I was thrilled to see fellow Editors BC member Grace Yaginuma win the 2014 Tom Fairley award. Finally, I put a lot of faces to names as I met people who I’d only exchanged email with.

As I catch up, I’ll post some summaries from the sessions I went to.

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