Giving thanks
Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday. Lacking the hype of Christmas (at least in Canada), it’s a time to be grateful for the things that enrich us—family, friends, and food for body and soul. In the latter category fall books, of…
New partner
We are delighted to announce today that Lana Okerlund is a new partner with West Coast Editorial Associates. A Vancouver-based editor, writer, and indexer, Lana works primarily on non-fiction books and publications. She is a Certified Copy Editor and Certified Proofreader, a trainer…
Changing hats
Although I’ve been a writer and editor for almost 30 years, most of my work has been outside the book publishing world, and I’ve never worked in-house. So when I pitched a children’s book idea to Orca Book Publishers a…
I is for illustrator, A is for alphabet
Recently, my book club read H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. We discussed the book for the entire evening, a sure indication of a good read. At one point, Margaret, a former English teacher, opened the book at random…
See also, indexers
Indexers, like editors, regularly run into people who think human indexers have been replaced by computers. “Doesn’t Word have an indexing function?” they ask. “Can’t it index the book I’ve just written?” Those same people might also ask, “Why do…
Ring out some old rules
In his new grammar and style guide, For Who the Bell Tolls, David Marsh of The Guardian newspaper offers a host of suggestions for navigating the ever-changing grammatical peals of the English language. He recommends, for example, not fussing over split infinitives, conjunctions…
Humbug to book snobs
During December’s gift-giving tradition, book sales skyrocket. This is good news for book lovers and for all promoters of the value and joy of reading. According to BookTrust columnist Matt Haig, though, book snob grinches lurk everywhere. “If books ever…
The fine art of English spelling
If you’ve ever puzzled over why “limb” and “debt” have a silent b, and what’s with the “i before e except after c” dictum when there are so many departures from the so-called rule, here’s the book for you. “For every quirk of spelling, there's…