Iain Reid, well-known Kingston writer of both delightful memoir and chilling suspense, will join us for our November meeting. We’re excited that he’s able to fit us into his busy schedule!

We first tried to book Iain for our 2016 Authors Talk Editing event. At the time, he had recently won the $10,000 RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award for The Truth about Luck, his second book of memoir, which tells the story of a five-day “staycation” he took, at age 28, with his 92-year-old grandmother. Unfortunately, our date conflicted with an appearance he was booked for at an authors festival.

Since then, Iain’s literary star has done nothing but rise. He made a major switch in genres, producing two bestselling suspense novels: I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which Vice calls an “unsettling sensation” (and almost every reviewer calls “impossible to put down”) and Foe, which Goodreads calls “an eerily entrancing page-turner.” Both are being turned into films.

So we’re honoured that he was able and willing to come to our November meeting for his own Authors Talk Editing event. (Read about the great authors who did join us that night and the sequel with Merilyn Simonds and Wayne Grady.)

We can’t wait to ask him about his experiences of being edited and more—such as the differences in writing two such very different genres, and what it’s like for a former employee of the Screening Room in Kingston to have his novel adapted for Netflix by Oscar-winning director Charlie Kaufman.

Come join us! Whether you’ve read Iain’s work or not, you’ll hear a smart conversation about books and editing. (Read more about Iain Reid in the Kingston Whig Standard, in Maclean’s, or in Vice.)

As always, there will also be news from Editors Canada, networking, and snacks.

We’ve also invited Iain to bring books for sale; please come with cash if you think you might like to shop.

Join Us!

We’ll meet at the usual place and time: Ongwanada Resource Centre, 191 Portsmouth Avenue in Kingston, 7 to 9 p.m. (doors open at 6:30). Light refreshments, coffee, and cold drinks. All are welcome. Free for Editors Canada members; $5 for visitors (first meeting free)

The second meeting of the Kingston Twig’s ECE3 Book Club, held on October 9, 2019, at the Ongwanada Resource Centre in Kingston, was a success:

• Shockingly, everyone in the group was discovered to have opinions—in some cases, even feelings—about at least some hyphens to some degree.
• The hyphen in attributive adjective compounds (a hyphen use discussion / a hyphen-use discussion), on which the Associated Press recently changed its guidelines, was discussed.
• The suspended hyphen (e.g., three- and four-year-old children) was examined.
• The en dash was praised.
• The hyphen table in Chicago was consulted.
• Style variations in different types of publications were explored.
• The first two editions of ECE3, brought for show and tell by Lee, were admired.
• There was a side trip to discussion of the famous spelling variants table, wherein it was revealed that Elizabeth had been responsible for the most recent version thereof.

Clearly, editors know how to have a good time!

Two newcomers to the group—Carolyn, a one-time FEAC member who now works at Queen’s and is updating her skills with the Standards courses, and John, who described himself as someone who currently edits only recreationally—were welcomed.

Snacks were consumed.

The location of the June Editors Canada national conference, its second with an international theme, and expected to have speakers and attendees from the U.S., Europe, and beyond as well as Canada, was announced: Montreal.

An invitation is extended to all: join us next month!

Join Us

Ongwanada Resource Centre
191 Portsmouth Avenue
7 to 9 p.m. (doors open at 6:30)
Free for Editors Canada members
$5 for visitors

Find Us on Facebook

Whether or not you come to our gatherings, feel free to join our Facebook group and chat with other Kingston-area editors and assorted word nerds.

Stephanie Stone and Elizabeth d’Anjou

Editors Kingston coordinators

“This morning I deleted the hyphen from ‘hell-bound’ and made it one word; this afternoon I redivided it and restored the hyphen.”

The quote is from Edwin Arlington Robinson, an American poet (hugely popular in his day) who died in 1935. But let’s be honest: it could have been any one of us, right?

There’s been a flurry of discussion about hyphenation among online editing groups recently in the wake of changes made this year to the hyphenation guidance in the Associated Press Stylebook online. Thus, it seems as good a time as any to hold the second oh-so-official meeting of the Kingston twig’s Editing Canadian English Book Club, with a focus on Chapter 4, “Compounds and Hyphens.”

The third edition of this flagship Editors Canada publication was published in hardcover by UBC Press in 2016 and as an ebook in 2017, available in all major formats, at the bargain price of $9.99 (or less).

At a 2018 gathering, the twig discussed Chapter 2, “Inclusivity.” The format of using the guide as a jumping-off point for a discussion of the issue in the work of attendees proved so successful that we never got to discussing Chapter 4 as well as we had planned. We meant to schedule it last year, but our guest-speaker dance card (guest speaker dance card?) was so full we couldn’t fit it in!

What with the raging controversy over the AP announcement, we think the time has come.

ECE3 (as it’s affectionately known) is subtitled A Guide for Editors, Writers, and Everyone Who Works with Words. If that includes you, come join us!

Reading the chapter in advance is encouraged but not required. If you have a copy, bring it along. If not, that’s fine; there will be a few extras on hand, and we can project the ebook on our screen. (But, really, at under ten bucks, why not pick one up? See the Editors Canada website for details and links.)

If you’d like to read about the new AP hyphenation guidelines, try this article in Slate; it has a lot more links for anyone who wants to go down the rabbit hole!

Join Us

Ongwanada Resource Centre
191 Portsmouth Avenue
7 to 9 p.m. (doors open at 6:30)
Free for Editors Canada members
$5 for visitors

Find Us on Facebook

Whether or not you come to our gatherings, feel free to join our Facebook group and chat with other Kingston-area editors and assorted word nerds.

Elizabeth d’Anjou and Stephanie Stone

Editors Kingston coordinators

 

 

Nine members and friends of the twig attended the first meeting after our summer break for a discussion prompted by the phrase “Today I learned …” The acronym “TIL” is widely used on Twitter as a way of introducing a comment; attendees were asked to each share something they had learned recently that was useful to their editing work.

It turns out that twiggers have learned quite a lot lately, from tips for more effective responses to potential client inquiries to thoughtful new ways of approaching structural editing to tricks for using Word that save time and reduce aggravation. One newcomer to the group shared her new knowledge about how many resources are now available to editors, especially online, compared with her memories of a previous foray into editing over a decade ago.

The coffee flowed, the snacks were shared, old friends greeted each other and new visitors were welcomed. We’re back in business!

Hope to see you soon,

Join Us

Ongwanada Resource Centre
191 Portsmouth Avenue
7 to 9 p.m. (doors open at 6:30)
Free for Editors Canada members
$5 for visitors

Find Us on Facebook

Whether or not you come to our gatherings, feel free to join our Facebook group and chat with other Kingston-area editors and assorted word nerds.

Elizabeth d’Anjou and Stephanie Stone

Editors Kingston coordinators