Annual General Meeting for Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph Editors Canada, 2019-2020

KWG twig members, please join us for our annual general meeting (AGM) next Friday, June 19, from 7:00 PM to 7:30 PM. The AGM will be entirely online this year, and it’ll be a time to recap the 2019-2020 year and look ahead to the fall.

All twig members are encouraged to join.

If you plan on attending, please register by email.

Photo by Justin Buisson on Unsplash. (The photo depicts an empty conference room filled only with chairs laid out in one direction.)

April Events (Virtual Meetups!)

Things aren’t easy these days. Both in-house and freelance editors–like everyone else–are experiencing anxiety and insecurity. But it’s during these times that we should reach out and share.

This month, we have moved our networking socials online:

Our first online networking social will go live on Wednesday, April 1 from 7 to 8:30 pm. There’s still time to sign up if you’d like to join us: RSVP by email. (Note. This month’s event is only open to members of our twig.)

(Online) Webinar Club is a go:

This club was imagined as an opportunity for in-house editors, and members with daytime obligations who can’t participate in live webinars during the day, to review recorded webinars and discuss them with fellow editors. (Both members and non-members are welcome to join.)

Join Sophie Blom (@sewblom) on April 5, 2020 from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm for an online discussion of Sonya Poller’s Writing & Editing for Non-Profits: Making an Impact. A recording of this webinar is available on the Editors’ Association of Canada website.

And the Editor’s Book Club has gone virtual:

Our first online meetup will take place during the last week of April (date TBA) and we’ll discuss What do Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Editing by Peter Ginna. Or, if you’d like to follow our reading list on your own, please send us an email: we’d be happy to share the list!

And please consider supporting small businesses during this time. Both Words Worth Books (Kitchener-Waterloo) and the Bookshelf (Guelph) are offering free delivery services for book orders.

Photo by Duy Pham via Unsplash

[CANCELLED] March Networking Social (Kitchener, ON)

Snowstorm? What snowstorm? Even with a snow event warning, we had a wonderful turnout at the social last month. Thank you!

The networking social this month is taking place at the beautiful restaurant La Cucina in downtown Kitchener. The food is great and the atmosphere is perfect for discussions about style variations of capitalizing after a colon and other such vagaries of an editor’s mind.

Restaurant: La Cucina

Website: https://www.lacucinakitchener.com/

Address: 320 King St W, Kitchener, ON N2G 1B7

Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Time: 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

Parking: There are many public parking lots available in this area and street parking along King Street, Charles Street, and most of the side streets.

Please RSVP by March 20, 2020 via an email (kwg.twig@editors.ca) if you’re planning on attending the event.

Photo credit: Louis Hansel @shotsoflouis on Unsplash

February Networking Social (Guelph, ON)

Who doesn’t want to get out and meet up with other editors in February? It’s cold these days, and it seems like the grey days outnumber the blue ones: come out and join us at a warm table at Miijidaa in Guelph, Ontario.

And for our ice-breaker, our theme will be social media and networking: what’s working, and what isn’t. (And is it that simple?)

Please RSVP by Friday, February 22, 2020 via email to kwg.twig@editors.ca. Non-members are welcome. And as always, if you’re interested in carpooling, please make a note in your email.

DETAILS

Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Time: 6–9 pm
Location: Miijidaa Café + Bistro
Address: 37 Quebec Street, Guelph, ON N1H 2T1

Website: www.miijidaa.ca

Photo credit: Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Live Editing for Editors

FEBRUARY WORKSHOP WITH KWG EDITORS CANADA

What does a professional editor do anyway? How does a copy editor approach the text? How does this differ from a developmental edit? A stylistic edit? How might editing poetry differ from editing a material chemistry paper? What gets flagged or changed? Should we stet or leave a comment?  

The Kitchener–Waterloo–Guelph twig is excited to announce a live editing workshop for twig members. In a comfortable and congenial space, members will share their expertise across textual genres, styles, and types of edits to facilitate dialogue on editing.

Topics covered will include developmental, stylistic, and copy editing in the genres of non-fiction, science, poetry, and fiction. 

Bring your laptops! After registering, attendees will receive five select passages to review and edit before the workshop. (The live edit will be facilitated by session leads, but everyone will asked to participate and share.) This will be a safe space to ask all your questions and compare editorial styles—come out and join us!

DATE: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2020

TIME: 7–9 PM 

LOCATION: Kitchener Public Library, Central Library

ADDRESS: 85 Queen Street North, Kitchener, ON, N2H 2H1

ROOM: Meeting Room C (in the basement) 

LIVE EDITORS (in alphabetical order): Maxie Bai Martin (KW Copyeditor), Paula Chiarcos (Moon River Editing), Angela Gradish (March Hare, Editing and Consulting), and Maggie Morris (Indie Editor). 

This workshop is only open to members of Editors Canada. Please RSVP by FEBRUARY 13, 2020 to give yourself enough time to review and edit the material. If you’re not a member but you’re interested in joining us for a similar session in the future, please email us. 

To RSVP, email us at kwg.twig@editors.ca.

Credit: Photo of a live concert by Danny Howe via Unsplash.

We’re starting a webinar club!

KWG Editors Canada is starting a webinar club!

You can focus on professional development, be accountable, learn something new, share expertise, and meet other KWG members across southwestern Ontario from the comfort of your own space.

Please RSVP by February 29, 2020.

 

Here are more details from one of our coordinators, Sophie:

 

Hi everyone!

 

I work in-house full time, which means I’m not often able to attend the live webinars that I would like, especially those held on weekday afternoons. For all of 2019 I fully intended to buy webinar recordings and watch them on my own, but I managed this exactly zero times. To paraphrase Gretchen Rubin, what can happen any time often happens at no time, and I think some outer accountability is in order. Does anyone else have this problem? Would there be any interest in a “book club” for webinar recordings?

 

How I envision this:

• If you’re interested, contact me with suggestions of available webinar recordings that you would like to discuss.

• A webinar would be chosen and a date worked out with those intending to participate in the discussion.

• This date would be the deadline for purchasing and watching the recording: you would be expected to have run the webinar prior to us meeting, rather than us getting together to watch the webinar.

• With membership discounts, purchasing about ten webinar recordings in a year off-sets the price of membership, so these meetings would run almost-monthly (ideally).

• Participation does not require commitment: you could participate once and skip the next nine, no questions asked.

• Discussions are open to members and non-members.

• Discussion meetings could be attended in-person or virtually.

If you’d like to participate in something like this, feel free to let me know which webinars you would most like to discuss at sblom@editors.ca or kwg.twig@editors.ca

Photo by DISRUPTIVO on Unsplash

January Networking Social (Cambridge, ON)

Editors and writers in the Cambridge area, please join us!

Kitchener–Waterloo–Guelph Editors Canada is hosting this month’s networking social in Cambridge, ON, at the gorgeous restaurant and wine bar Blackshop on the last Wednesday of the month.

For members, this is a great opportunity to come, meet other members, and make connections in person. But

Non-members are welcome to join our networking socials.

Please RSVP by Wednesday, January 22 by email to kwg.twig@gmail.com.

If you’re interested in carpooling from Kitchener–Waterloo or Guelph, please make a note in your email.

DETAILS

Date: Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Time: 6–9 pm
Location: The Blackshop
Website: http://www.blackshop.ca/

Photo credit: Nick Hillier (Unsplash)

*Change in location* KWG Editors Canada Networking Social in Waterloo this November.

Sorry for the last minute change, but we’ll be meeting in Waterloo this evening! And we’ll see you in 2020, CAMBRIDGE, ON! We’re looking forward to connecting with our more westward members.

Both members and non-members are welcome.

Date: Thursday, November 28, 2019
Time: 6 to 9 pm
Place: My Thai Restaurant
Address: 51 King Street North, Waterloo

RSVP to kwg.twig@editors.ca

As we close this calendar year, let’s reflect a bit. Bring your stories about the best and the worst lessons you’ve learned, and experiences you’ve had, while editing in 2019.

Attached is a photo of three people laughing while seated at a table. The photo is courtesy of rawpixel via Unsplash.

October Networking Social

This month’s networking social is going to take place in Kitchener: hopefully our members from the west, London and Cambridge, can join us! (If you’d like help organizing a carpool, please send us an email.)

Event details:

Date: Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: TWH Social (at the Walper Hotel)
Address: 1 King St W, Kitchener, ON N2G 1A3
Menu: https://www.twhsocial.com/dinner

Both members and non-members, writers and editors, are welcome. Members are encouraged to bring a friend.

Please RSVP via email to kwg.twig@editors.ca by FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2019.

Photo by Joshua Ness via Unsplash. The photo shows the arms and hands of two people holding mugs of coffee while seated at a small table.

September 2019 News

Welcome back, members! We have a new team of coordinators this year.

September has been a busy month for the twig. After saying good-bye and thank you to our outgoing twig coordinator from 2017–2019, Catherine Rupke (https://www.literallyperfectediting.xyz/), we welcomed Sophie Blom and Angela Gradish as incoming coordinators for 2019–2021. Maxie Bai Martin, our coordinator from 2017–2019, will continue as a co-coordinator with Angela and Sophie.

From Angela:

I’m excited to be serving as co-coordinator for the KWG twig, and I look forward to meeting more of you at our upcoming events! I’m an entomologist at the University of Guelph, and I started freelancing as a science/academic editor about a year ago. When I’m not editing, reading, or sciencing, you might find me hanging out with my two hounds, screen printing, or running. You can find Angela at https://mhediting.com/.

From Sophie:

I’m thrilled to step into the volunteer co-coordinator role for the twig. Currently I’m an in-house marketing and communications editor at Wilfrid Laurier University, with a background in management and literary publishing. I’m pretty quiet, but will talk your ear off about books, food, cats, horror movies, and true crime. You can find Sophie on LinkedIn and, for something more fun, on Goodreads.

From Maxie:

Hello everyone! I’m excited for the upcoming year as our twig continues to develop and grow to support our members. A bit about me: I’m a freelance editor and writer that loves learning and language. And I’m fascinated by all the elements that have to work together in order for us to communicate effectively, let alone elegantly. I love reading, editing scholarly non-fiction (yay, knowledge), and puttering in my tiny (but full) urban garden. You can find Maxie at kwcopyeditor.ca.

We also sent representatives to the annual NEC meeting this year (2019).

As a non-for-profit organization, the national executive council (NEC) of the Editors’ Association of Canada meets once each quarter. During the NEC meeting in Toronto last week, our twig was invited to present on our activities and voice our concerns . Angela and Maxie attended the event and found it to be an eye-opening afternoon. Here are some of my thoughts from our time with the NEC:

1. THANK YOU—The Editors’ Association of Canada is truly a volunteer-run organization, from the ground up, and we all play an important part in keeping our twig energetic and relevant. Thank you to the twig members who volunteer their services to keep our gallery up to date, represent us at local events, and join us for our networking socials. And thank you to the members who share their experiences and resources, and for welcoming informal mentorships that have developed.
   
2. VOICE—We have a voice within Editors Canada. With all the communication platforms that we can use these days, there are many ways to reach out and make suggestions, ask questions, or voice concerns with us (the twig coordinators) and the NEC. Send us an email or let us know in person. Let us know if there is a great event that you’d like to attend as a member of the association. Let us know if you need advice finding a resource. Celebrate your professional successes by sharing the news. Ask questions. Reach out anytime!
   
3. COMMUNITY—Nothing guarantees opportunity or stability these days. However the current employment situation is described (the gig economy, global economic instability, employment trends towards automation, etc.), the networks that we create help us to keep in touch with industry changes and trends that then keeps us relevant and working. Editors Canada can provide the networks and information to weather such changes—freelance to in-house editors—and support long careers in editing. (And what other communities promote silly dress and having a favourite form of punctuation?)

Article by Maxie Bai Martin. Photo by Perry Grone via Unsplash. The photo shows a close up on the arms and hands of a group of people in a huddle.