Romancing the pen (and pencil)
As soon as the “Back to School” signs go up in store windows in late summer, I get that special feeling. Even though I haven’t started a full slate of classes since I finished university, lo those many years ago,…
Aids to editing
When I’m not editing, one of my favourite activities is horseback riding. For 10 years I owned my own horse, Cannon, a retired Quarter Horse “schoolmaster” with a huge personality—think Alistair Cooke with a glass of port and a wry…
Supporting self-publishing authors
In March, I had the opportunity to attend the Book Publishing Boot Camp. Put on by LifeTree Media and business coach Pamela Chatry, this day was a chance to connect with authors, hear about their work, and talk to them…
Handing over the red pencil
People often get a deeper insight into their profession when their table turns: teacher becomes student, doctor becomes patient, or, in my case, editor becomes writer. I’ve been writing for years and have been edited plenty of times. My graduate…
The beleaguered and exalted proofreader: Some things never change
While perusing 19th-century Canadiana for my bookselling history blog, I occasionally come across items about proofreaders—the catch-all term then applied to editors of any sort, it seems. Some of these are so amusing, and some so recognizable to anyone in…
What’s the point of an editor?
The big question for many people working for the first time with an editor is, why? Why is this step needed? Why must I allow my finely honed work to be trod on by someone who’s not a subject matter…
Putting a price on your work
There’s been a lot of fresh chatter recently among editors about rates. Maybe it’s because at this time of year we’re all looking over our accounts, reviewing how much we did—or didn’t—earn, paying bills, planning for the next 12 months,…
Spooks, zombie rules, and the singular “they”
’Tis the season for spooks, so what better time to talk about zombie rules? First, a little background. The term “zombie rules” was coined by Stanford linguistics professor Arnold Zwicky in a 2005 blog post: In the process of dissemination,…
The art of the query
Carol Fisher Saller, editor of the Chicago Manual of Style Online’s Q&A, writes in her book The Subversive Copy Editor, “To see the author-editor relationship as inherently adversarial is to doom yourself to a career of angst and stress.” Fisher…
