Red Pencil 2023: Seasons of an Editing Career

After a four-year hiatus, the Red Pencil conference returned with a new spring date and a new location that provided space for more sessions and attendees. The 2023 theme, Seasons of an Editing Career, highlighted the conference’s focus on providing engaging, useful content for editors at all stages of their professional journeys. As always, Red Pencil offered an in-person opportunity to learn from peers, socialize with colleagues, and engage with exhibitors.

Red Pencil 2023: Seasons of an Editing Career was held on May 6, 2023, at Lynnwood Event Center in Lynnwood, WA, and featured a keynote presentation by Amy J. Schneider, owner of Featherschneider Editorial Services (featherschneider.com) and author of the brand-new Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction.

For the first time in 2023 the conference was open to virtual as well as in-person attendees, with a live stream of main room sessions during the day of the conference and recorded videos of all but one session available after, along with scheduled online events to facilitate networking and expand on conference topics. We also held a newcomers meetup before the main conference began.

The Guild’s conference scholarship, again funded in part by generous donations from members, allowed us to facilitate attendance by editors connected to communities currently underrepresented in the Northwest Editors Guild, those attending the conference for the first time, and those who would find the cost of registration a significant barrier to attending.

The Guild recognized the contributions of former board president and volunteer MariLou Harveland at the closing ceremony of this year’s conference.

Highlights

• The Paper It's Written On with Dick Margulis and Karin Cather encouraged reluctant editors to take better control of their businesses by writing effective contracts, and explain the what, why, and how.

• Exploring “Passive” Income for Editors Who Need Flexibility with Tanya Gold discussed ways to increase your income that you can develop and maintain on your own time, at your own pace.

• Indexing Basics: What Editors Need to Know, with Heather Pendley

• Talking Points: Copyediting Dialogue in Fiction, with Amy J. Schneider

• Taxes, Licensing, and Banking in Plain English, with Jenny MacLeod

• The Business of Getting—and Keeping—Editing Business, with Ruth Thaler-Carter

• Copyediting Challenges in Nonfiction: Learning from Other Editors, with Erin Brenner

• A Non-Techie's Guide to Working with Programmers, with Sarah Grey

• LinkedIn for Editors: Learning, Growing, and Building a Professional Community, with Mary-Colleen Jenkins

And much more! Download the whole conference brochure for more details about sessions and presenters.

Red Pencil 6: Tracking Changes in Editing

Held in September of 2017 on the campus of Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington, our sixth conference was attended by more than 200 editors, approximately 65 percent of whom were also Guild members, and we welcomed several guests from affiliate editing organizations Editors Canada and Editcetera.

The Guild gave special honors to Beth Chapple for her extraordinary contributions to the Guild and the editing community. Attendees used event hashtag #EdsGuild2017 on social media to record the events of the day. We also introduced our popular mascot, the Giant Pencil!

Highlights

• Keynote presentation by Karen Yin, writer, editor, and the force behind AP vs. Chicago, a guide for anyone who gives “a dollar sign, ampersand, exclamation point, and pound sign about style,” and Conscious Style Guide, the first website devoted to mindful and inclusive language. A fellow of the Lambda Literary Foundation, Karen is also an award-winning fiction writer as well as a screenwriter and filmmaker.

• Academic Editing, with Joanie Eppinga.

• Proofreading 101: Tips, Tools & Advice, with Jennifer Karchmer.

• Publishing Project Management, with Rebecca Brinbury, Em Gale, Andrea Leigh Ptak, Karen Upson, and Amanda M. Vail.

• Boost Your Career with a Mastermind Group, with Laura Poole.

• Ecommerce Editing, with Devon Gualtieri and Mark White.

• Not Just Superheroes: Editing Graphic Novels asa Medium, Not a Genre, with Kat Kruger, Justin Norman, Amanda M. Vail, Kristy Valenti, and Jen Vaughn.

• Copyediting Fiction for Traditional Publishers, with Amy Schneider.

• Editors Canada: Not Just for Canadians! with Wendy Barron and Anne Brennan.

• Working with Independent Authors: Challenges and Rewards, with Barbara Fuller.

• Our exciting final session, Introducing Chicago Manual of Style’s New 17th Edition, with Carol Saller, author of The Subversive Copy Editor.

• Professional headshot mini-sessions were available from Renard Williams of Killa’s Photography. Many of these sessions were purchased ahead of time, but Renard was also able to offer limited walk-up sessions.

• After the conference proper, our friends at 9 Yards Brewing hosted us from 5:15 to 7:15 for our second biennial conference after-party, with free appetizers and dessert, with additional food and brews available for purchase and word-nerd-riffic door prizes!

View the full 2017 conference brochure to see detailed descriptions of panels and workshops. Logged-in members may also download handouts and presentation files from the conference here.

Red Pencil in the Woods 2013

Held in October of 2013, on the campus of Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington, the fourth Red Pencil conference was attended by nearly 200 editors from Canada to California. The honoree for extraordinary contributions to the Northwest Editors Guild and the larger editorial community was board vice president Kyra Freestar. More than a third of the Guild’s 306 members attended the conference.

Highlights

• Keynote address and follow-on session by Bay Area independent editor and publishing insider Alan Rinzler, whose 50-year career in the book business has included editing and publishing the works of Northwest luminary Tom Robbins, Hunter S. Thompson, Toni Morrison, Clive Cussler, and others.

• Nuances of Editing for a Global Audience, with David B. Schlosser

• Editing for the (New) Web, with Niquette Kelcher

• Creating and Maintaining a Sustainable Editing Business, with Beth Jusino and Ina Chang

• Advanced Line-editing Immersion, with Jason Black

• Advanced MS Word Editing Tools, with Bill Thorness (handout)

• Discussion groups featuring experts on collaborative editing (Kyra Freestar and Connie Chaplan), working as a managing editor (Kerrie Maynes), editing for social media (Amanda Vail), editing food writing (Kris Fulsaas), and editing for STEM concepts (David B. Schlosser)

• Fiction Editing, with Ingrid Emerick and Leslie Miller of Girl Friday Productions

• IT Help Desk for editors, with Tim Hannon

• A fun spelling bee, with Randy Hilfman

View the full 2013 conference brochure for more information on speakers and sessions.

Beyond the Red Pencil No. 2

The second biennial conference hosted by the Guild was held in March of 2009 on the campus of North Seattle Community College. Though most attendees were from the Seattle area, we welcomed editors from as far away as Vancouver, B.C., and the San Francisco Bay Area. Of the 124 editors who attended, about half were Guild members. More than a quarter of the Guild’s 220 members attended.

Highlights

• A keynote address by Sheila Bender, an author, developmental editor, and founder of www.writingitreal.com, a website that focuses on the personal essay. She spoke on the working relationship between editor and writer.

• The Big Picture: Structural Editing of Longer Manuscripts, with Barbara Sjoholm

• Taking Control of Microsoft Word, with Hilary Powers

• When Work Becomes a Pain in the *#$, with Sevak Kroesen, D.C., and Jain Rutherford

• Back to the Future: Editing for Online vs. Print Publications, with Anne Dujmovic

• Dealing with Problem Clients, with Michelle Goodman

• Marking Up the Screen: Acrobat for Editors, by Wendy Katz

• Rigid Rules vs. Gentle Guidelines: Taming Miss Thistlebottom, by Kim Runciman

• Two discussion sessions in which editors talked informally with volunteer facilitators:

  • “Tooting Your Own Horn,” with subtopics on methods of self-promotion

  • “Wearing Many Hats,” with subtopics on different roles editors play

  • An opportunity to meet and network with other editors, look at editors’ materials, participate in a spelling bee, and browse word-related books at the University Book Store’s table.

View the full 2009 conference brochure for details about sessions and speakers.