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I just came back from a short vacation to Jacksonville, Florida. Or JAX, for short. I was visiting family and touring the Floridian countryside, seeing firsthand how hot and dry it is. Draught is a serious problem for the southern U. S. right now. My sister told me that in June and July there were over 300 fires burning in Florida, including a fire in...
Read MoreIn early June, Michael Redhill announced his departure from Brick. After over 10 years of editorial involvement with the literary magazine, #87—which is already on newsstands—is Michael’s last issue as the proprietor and publisher. This news left me feeling a bit sad but also hopeful. The sadness comes from the sentiment that Michael’s exit marks the end of an era. Under his direction, Brick has built up a...
Read MoreHappy Canada Day and Happy Pride Day! It’s July and summer has arrived. We’ve been keeping busy through May and June with new and ongoing projects. We thought we’d provide you with an overview of a few of them here. Substantive Editing Beth is collaborating with Allyson Mitchell, a professor of women’s studies at York University, on the substantive edit of her book manuscript. Beth met Allyson ten...
Read MoreEvery editor’s nightmare is this: finding a spelling error in the printed publication of the manuscript you just edited after the fact. It is devastating. Finding an error at this point in the process can undermine your self-worth to the nth degree. I know this is an occupational hazard: missing things. I know we need to "step away from the book” at some point and accept the inevitable...
Read MoreNothing has ever shaken my editorial self as much as this comment did. It came from an influential editor from a successful publishing company who was telling me about what to look at when considering a book. The advice had little to do with the uniqueness of the work, the style, the quality; instead it was all trends, what was in season. And then I was told to...
Read MorePlagiarism has become rampant in this age of instantly accessible information. There have been countless cases of stolen words, images and art, from student essays to photographs to musical compositions and lyrics. Just a few days ago, one of our clients found a website had included a large chunk of writing from one of her monthly newsletters on its homepage without her knowledge or consent. She asked...
Read MoreFor a while I thought I was hearing things. The sounds came and went so fast, it was impossible to confirm them with the naked ear. But yes, with closer attention, I proved myself right. A new form of “is, is” has arisen in everyday speech, and it is clearly here to stay. The new “is, is” is far different from, for example, the grammatical use of...
Read MoreEditors and writers: some see them as bitter enemies, some describe a beautiful partnership—and some say that editors are just writers who’ve given up. It’s common to hear that you can be an editor or a writer—but never both! I’d like to protest that. You can certainly be both … and you might be already. As many famous writer-types have said, “Good writing is rewriting. ” Editing is inherent...
Read MoreWhen I was in elementary school, from book reports to geography projects, the tried-and-true resource for all assignments was the local Toronto Public Library branch. It wasn’t all about school, though. My weekly trips to the library allowed me to indulge my love of reading. One particular weekend, when I was seven years old, I approached the checkout desk with five children’s novels in hand. My mom held up...
Read MoreWe thought we’d give you a quick overview of some of the projects we’ve been working on here at The Editing Company. We’re keeping busy, and there’s nothing better than sharing an office with a team of editors who are focused on their work. It’s what makes this editor hum. Editors at Work Nina Hoeschele, our academic/non-fiction editor and proofreader, has taken on an indexing project. Yes, Nina...
Read MoreOkay, maybe I should’ve stayed out of it. But he caught my attention, and I wanted to see what he’d do. This morning, at 9:22 to be precise, I was coming up from the College St. subway stop and there, at the turnstiles, was a tall young guy. He made an attempt to jump over, with one eye on the TTC collectors’ booth. He hesitated and...
Read MoreIt’s official: “LOL” has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. So has “OMG,” for that matter. In my last blog post I expressed affection for linguistic mutants. Now I’m starting to feel a little afraid. Of course, these familiar acronyms aren’t the limit of what happens to language when you cram it into a text message or a tweet. Letters, sentence structure, and general coherency...
Read MoreWriting / Writers Support Group
In the spring of 2010, two authors agreed to become our inaugural writers for The Editing Company’s Writers Support Package. Ann Eyerman and Barbara Fish came on board and were just as enthusiastic to participate in the package as we were to offer it. We all agreed on the mission: Within a time period of 18 months, Ann and Barbara were to each write a full-length manuscript. As...
Read MoreOne of The Editing Company’s missions is being fulfilled: We are building relationships with new businesses and associations. Over the past few months, our editors have been hired to proofread and edit corporate newsletters and brochures, website copy, and professional training materials. Plus we’ve even done a bit of photo research for historic images. Among our newest clients are Canadian First Financial Centres, the Purchasing Management Association of Canada, CARE Centre for Internationally Educated Nurses, and The Royal Ontario Museum...
Read MoreAs a recent addition to the TEC team, with responsibility for marketing and communications, one of my first tasks has been to update and “tweak” TEC’s own website. Needless to say, for an editing company, the textual quality of our website is a particularly important demonstration of what we offer to do for others. In other words, we have to show off our editorial and communications skills. If...
Read MoreWhen I was a kid, my parents’ bookshelves held an incredible 27-volume set of Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedias. I would frequently rush to Funk & Wagnalls with my many questions, carefully selecting the correct volume and flipping anxiously through its pages, hoping desperately that the answer could be found there. And if it couldn’t, well, then, tough. Go to the library, why don’t you? Those bookshelves still display...
Read MoreSheila Heti was TEC’s second adopt-an-author at last September’s Word On The Street Festival. I enjoyed reading Sheila’s earlier works — a short story collection, The Middle Stories, and her first work of fiction, Ticknor — and I was eager to read her third book, a (mostly) fiction tale in which the character “Sheila” explores the title question, How Should A Person Be? This was a difficult read for me....
Read MoreHas this happened to you? You set up a coffee date with a friend for a Sunday afternoon, feeling quite certain the name of that particular coffee shop is Starbucks. You know the one? you say. Next to The Carrot Common? Sure, responds your friend. See you then. This is how it started. My friend and I finally found an hour that we could share together. I...
Read MoreAs an editor, I’ve spent countless hours working with lines and lines of text—it’s hard to think of editing as anything else. But there seems to be an emergent popular interest in a medium that I’ve personally loved for a long time: the graphic novel. As graphic works become more prevalent, there is a growing need for editors in a medium where words are only a small part...
Read MoreWriting / Writers Support Group
We have been editing and proofreading a number of manuscripts over the past few weeks that have made us here at TEC come to realize just how hard authors work. This is not to say that I haven’t realized this before—having been an editor for so many years now, I have worked with an amazing array of writers. And I have always been in awe of how they do...
Read MoreAn apology to our readers! We know we are late in posting a blog. In fact, we are seriously out of sync. We have reasons for falling so behind, and we have a new schedule in place to help keep us on top of our postings. You’ll be hearing from us more regularly in the coming months. In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been up to...
Read MoreIn September, The Editing Company adopted two authors at the Word On The Street Festival, Sheila Heti and Richard B. Wright. As thanks for our sponsorship, we were generously given copies of each author’s latest book: Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be? and Richard B. Wright’s Mr. Shakespeare’s Bastard. After moving to our new office, I was finally able to sit down and finish...
Read MoreToday is our last day at 360 Bloor St. West, Suite 507. The Editing Company is moving on Monday, November 1, 2010. They say that with a new move, comes new opportunities. I believe that, because two years ago when we moved into 360 Bloor, we were just starting out as a company. Over the past two years, we have reinforced our existing networks while building new...
Read MoreLike so many of us, I watched the most remarkable rescue of the Chilean miners over the past few days. I am awed and inspired by this engineering feat and by the community – both locally and internationally – that came together to execute the plan. In addition to the engineering, there was the technology that brought the action to our computer and television screens. I would...
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