Projects – West Coast Editorial Associates

Written Treasures: Medieval manuscripts and bookmaking

September 12, 2025
Amy Haagsma
Amy Haagsma, Books, Projects

The cover of Written Treasures.

“Every manuscript permits a sort of time travel – bringing us closer to an understanding of how people in the Middle Ages made, read and used their books.”
—Irene O’Daly

Last fall, I had the opportunity to work on a fascinating book about medieval manuscripts, Written Treasures, featuring 50 manuscripts from Leiden University Libraries’ Western Medieval Manuscripts collection. The book was compiled and edited by André Bouwman, a curator for Leiden University Libraries’ Special Collections, and Irene O’Daly, an assistant professor in Leiden University’s Centre for the Arts in Society. Bouwman and O’Daly also wrote the introductory essays and several of the manuscript essays.

Cover of book showing a rural road lined with mailboxes.

Fitting reward for a story of labour equality

Congratulations to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) on winning a Canadian Association of Labour Media award for their book Road to Equality! WCEA helped the union produce the book in 2024 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of rural…

Recognizing communications excellence for an important publication

Our warm congratulations go to Legal Aid BC on their recent receipt of a Communicator Award of Excellence for the booklet Keeping Aboriginal Kids Safe: Your Family’s Rights, published in 2019. Judged and curated by the New York–based Academy of…

Celebrating beautiful cookbooks

The Alcuin Society recently announced the winners of its 36th annual design awards, and we were delighted to see on the list a number of cookbooks copy edited or proofread by partner Lana Okerlund—in fact, all four of the titles…

BC bestsellers

We're always thrilled to see a book we have worked on appear on the BC Bestseller List, and especially when it hits the number-one spot. That is the case with A Matter of Confidence, by Richard Zussman and Rob Shaw, which…

Praise for “a seething record of human passions and frailties”

Congratulations to author and naval historian Barry Gough for the glowing Times Literary Supplement review of his book Churchill and Fisher: Titans at the Admiralty, edited by WCEA partner Audrey McClellan and published by Lorimer in 2017. "This enthralling book...is a work…

Invaluable from stem to stern

Earlier this week, BC's Office of the Ombudsperson released Special Report No. 39, Stem to Stern: Crown Land Allocation and the Victoria International Marina. Providing what the report calls "invaluable" editorial assistance was WCEA partner Georgina Montgomery, who completed her work on…

The stories that bind us

As West Coast Editorial Associates celebrates our 25th anniversary this year, we’ve been talking a lot about the partnership’s history. Past and current partners have shared stories and photos that have made us laugh (a lot), sometimes groan, and occasionally…

Canadian songbook

What better time than Canada’s 150th to celebrate our country’s musical legacy? That’s the idea behind vocalist Eleanor McCain’s True North: The Canadian Songbook. This years-long project features recordings of 32 iconic Canadian songs, a concert tour, a forthcoming documentary…

Mastery in action

Every once in a while, a writing or editing project provides an opportunity to work with a person who is a master in his or her field. Most often, it’s someone who works with words—another writer or editor—but not always…