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Presentation at Canberra Society of Editors
I will be speaking at the February 2018 meeting of the Canberra Society of Editors on all things freelancing and editing. Stay tuned for more details.
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Evolving tools for digital publications: Stephen White’s presentation at IPEd 2017
This session was really eye opening. Stephen started with the question of what exactly constituted a digital publication. What is a digital publication? He urged us to think beyond text alone on a page. Digital publications can include maps, atlases and other interactive works online or offline. But there is a problem with editing such works. While the tools to create and deliver such works exist, there often are no simple functions built into the tools for the ease of editing the information in the work. Information within the works has to be pulled out, edited in other software and pieced back into the work, looked at in context with…
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Mentoring writers as an editor and writer
This blog post is intended to be a summary and cheat sheet on my part of the mentoring panel on 15 Sept 2017 at the IPEd 2017 Conference in Brisbane. Proceedings will be published online by the conference organisers so you can always check those out for more information but here are my tips, tricks and my experiences of mentoring writers as opposed to mentoring editors. First, a definition of mentoring and what I mean by it: I don’t mean actively editing a writer’s work but more reading it and discussing how they go about developing the story, how they go through the process and if it’s a business/practice related…
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Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship 2017 Report – Annabel Blay
Every two years, one lucky editor gets to go on an all expenses paid research trip to work with publishers in the US as part of the Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship and this past year it was Annabel Blay. Part of the Fellowship involves speaking at the next IPEd Conference on what the outcome of the research was and presenting a report to IPEd that is made available to all members and the public. Annabel Blay wanted to see what the role of the editor was in commercial fiction in the US and compare it to the role in Australia. In point form below are some of the things she…
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IPEd Conference 2017 is next week and guess who is going?
Yay! I am off to the IPEd conference! And then of course you would ask “Yeah, ok Mari, what does IPEd stand for?” IPED: Institute of Professional Editors. Professional society of editors working either in-house or freelance throughout Australia. Basically, once every two years, somewhere in a state capital, the IPEd conference is set up and run by the local branch of IPEd. In 2013, it was our turn in Perth and yours truly was the IPEd Conference convenor. Yes. There is a video on the about me page. Go watch it. We were cool. In 2015, the IPEd Conference was in Canberra but I could not go. I was…
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My year in writing: 2016 and the freelance writer life
Marisa Wikramanayake writes about what 2016 has been like for her as a freelance writer, editor and journalist and what it meant for her career.
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The Rockstar Freelance Lifestyle
Speakers/Presenters: Sarah J H Fletcher, Abigail Nathan, Patrick Horneman, Karen Strain, Dinesh Aggarwal and Marisa Wikramanayake The idea originally came about via a Twitter discussion between Sarah, Abigail and I. We had met at Sydney in 2011 where Abigail had the both equally pleasurable and painful experience of helping to plan a conference and I was about to embark on it myself. But then there was much waving of hands. We wanted to make it fun as well as helpful. And I ran into Patrick Horneman at the MediaPass Student Industry days for journalism graduates and students where I was expounding on freelancing as a journalist and he was expounding…
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What do you mean there is a conference in four days' time?
About two years ago I put my hand up to be conference convenor for the 6th IPEd National Editors Conference in Perth in 2013. We are now a mere four days away from the event and no one on the committee can quite figure out how we got here and where all the time went. Is everything done? Is everything ready? Well, yes, it is. Don’t worry. On that front we are fine. On the emotional side of things? Well, we are not so sure. As a committee we were so focused on making sure that everything was ready that it has only just hit us that we should be…
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Interview with Nury Vittachi on the 6th IPEd National Editors' Conference 2013
[wpcol_2third id=”” class=”” style=””]So who exactly is Nury Vittachi? Well, apart from being a crime fiction writer and a keynote at the 6th IPEd National Editors’ Conference here in Perth in April 2013, I’ll let him do the talking: Nury Vittachi in a nutshell? A small, bald Asian writer who was born on earth and still spends a fair bit of time there. Yes, so just so you know, he’s also exceptionally funny. Writers are cool, right? Yes, but only because few of us earn enough money to pay our heating bills. Why does he want to come to the conference? Why bother? Well, we asked him to – some of…
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How to network at an editors' conference
Or any other conference really. And by network, I mean meet, chatter, gossip with, not just pop up, deliver your 15 word elevator speech, exchange cards and dash off again. And for those who are still a bit behind, this is the 6th National IPEd Editors’ Conference we are discussing which will be held in Perth in Fremantle in April 2013. In about three months’ time in other words. Before the conference (one is assuming you have already registered for it): Find the program – I have made it easy for you, it’s here. Check out the list of who will be there as speakers and presenters for each session.…