Editing Boot Camp Friday 16th – Sunday 18th May 2014
Finished your manuscript? Thinking about submitting it/finding an editor/getting an assessment?
Before you do, why not bring it along to our 3-day intensive Editing Boot Camp. You’ll learn what editing is, who does it, how to learn the craft, advanced grammar and writing rules, then move on to self-editing techniques and practical exercises. You’ll be trained by professional editors and get to hear tips from editors and publishers that might just be what you need to get that manuscript over the line.
You’ll also be on your way to learning valuable editing skills that are an excellent way for writers to supplement their incomes and help build a literary career. Bookings via [email protected] or 08 8223 7662 by COB 13 May.
DAY 1 | FRIDAY 16 May 2014
WHAT IS EDITING?
With Katy McDevitt
10.00am – 12.30pm
Editing has been called ‘a bloody trade’, but it’s a critical step if you want to publish with polish. In this workshop, you’ll explore the essentials of editing in its different forms – from developmental editing to copyediting and proofreading – and find out what you need to do to get your manuscript ready for its editorial close up.
Through exercises and group discussion with an experienced, accredited editor, you’ll get to know the types of editorial service available and develop your ideas for how your book should be edited. We’ll explore the various purposes of editing; putting you in the position of the client and giving you the tools you need to get started. There’ll be plenty of opportunities to ask questions and delve into the practicalities and challenges of editing, including:
• Why work with a professional editor?
• What different kinds of editor are there?
• How can you find the right editorial professional for your book?
• Before you hire an editor – how much can you do yourself?
• What does an editorial brief look like and how do you prepare one?
• How long will it take?
• How much will it cost?
Outcomes
• You will gain a sound understanding of what editors do, and what they bring to your book.
• You will learn how to locate, engage and brief a freelance editor.
• You will practice techniques and gain tools for getting your manuscript ready for
editing.
Dr Katy McDevitt AE has been an editor and publisher since 2001. She has collaborated with authors on dozens of books and digital publishing projects during her career, including as Academic Commissioning Editor at Cambridge University Press and Business Publisher at Pearson Education. She now works direct with authors as Principal Editor at Katy McDevitt Editorial Services, and as Publisher at Simply Ebooks SA (launching 2014). She is also Vice President and Communications Coordinator at the Society of Editors (SA).
EDITING – WHO NEEDS IT?
Exploring ways to improve your text for publication. With Anna Solding
1.30pm – 4.00pm
You think your manuscript is perfect. You have read it a million times and so have your friends, neighbours and their dogs. Miraculously, it is accepted for publication. Then what? In my workshop, we will discuss what actually happens to your manuscript after it hits the editor’s desk.
What can you expect from working with an editor on your manuscript? As much as we’d like to think we have polished our manuscripts to perfection, we can all learn from working with an editor. Editors provide a new pair of eyes on a text that we have become intimately familiar with. Structural editors look at how the big picture of a text works and copy editors help polish the manuscript before publication. In this workshop, I will take you through some editing tips you can employ to maximise your chances of publication.
Whether you are writing short stories, memoirs or novels, every text has to be given the best chance of publication. Often this involves cutting out favourite passages or removing characters we have come to love. Killing our darlings. But it can also mean the opposite: padding out the narrative with more descriptive language where it is too spare, or more sensory input when dialogue takes over. Practising self-editing and editing other writers’ manuscripts is a great way to start, as this workshop will show.
Outcomes
• Familiarise participants with the editing process at a small publishing house.
• Give general advice on how to give your manuscript the best chance of reaching an
audience.
• Give specific advice on how to improve your manuscript through critical editing.
Anna Solding’s first ‘novel constellation’ The Hum of Concrete was published in 2012. It was nominated for People’s Choice Award, the Most Underrated Book Award and the Commonwealth Book Prize. She has co-edited a collection of stories, Cracker! A Christmas Collection, and has worked as fiction co-editor for literary magazines Wet Ink and Animate Quarterly. Anna earned her Masters and PhD in Creative Writing from The University of Adelaide and she currently works as editor and publisher at MidnightSun Publishing. She is passionate about punctuation.
Day 2 | SATURDAY 17th May 2014
FIVE QUESTIONS AN EDITOR WILL ASK OF YOUR NOVEL
With Kevin O’Brien
10.00am – 4.00pm
Learn five of the questions an editor will ask of your novel, so you can apply these approaches to your own writing and bring it one step closer to being the best version of itself it can possibly be. The better you can self-edit, the better your manuscript will be, and the better its prospects of being published.
Authors and editors share a goal: to make a novel the best version of itself it can possibly be. And authors often have an additional goal: to get published. The more that authors know about the craft of editing, and the approaches that editors are likely to take to their work, the more they can apply these approaches themselves. Through self-editing, writers will not only facilitate any professional editing their manuscript then goes through but also increase their novel’s appeal to anyone who reads it, including prospective publishers and agents.
Kevin O’Brien, a book editor with over 15 years of experience, will intensively take authors through five main questions on this five-hour course. The first four questions will relate to important aspects of fiction writing such as the narrator, characterisation and plot, and the fifth will deal with grammar and punctuation rules, which are vital to writing clearly and professionally.
MEET THE EDITORS
With Society of Editors (SA)
4.30pm – 5.00pm
Society of Editors (SA) President Marianne Hammat AE and Vice President Katy McDevitt AE will talk about the Society’s role as the lead organisation for editing in South Australia. There will be an opportunity to ask questions about the Society’s activities, find out about membership and explore any follow-up questions about editing based on what you have learnt over the weekend.
Society of Editors networking evening
5.00pm – 7.00pm
Please join workshop presenters and Society of Editors members for drinks and nibbles. All Welcome.
Day 3 | SUNDAY 18th May 2014
SELF EDITING AND ASSESSING YOUR OWN MANUSCRIPTS
With Patrick Allington
10.00am – 4.00pm
This workshop explores practical strategies involved in self-editing: the art of being ruthlessly honest with yourself. Sometimes fine details, even key phrases or words, can make or break a story; sometimes the architecture needs attention; often, it’s both the nitty- gritty and the big picture. We will also consider realistic ways of judging your manuscript’s progress. The workshop will make use of participants’ own works-in-progress.
Patrick Allington is a writer, critic and editor. His novel Figurehead (Black Inc.) was longlisted for the 2010 Miles Franklin award, and his short fiction has appeared in Meanjin, Griffith Review, Kill Your Darlings, The Big Issue, Southerly and elsewhere. His essays, columns and reviews have appeared widely, including in Australian Book Review, The Melbourne Review, The Adelaide Review, The Weekend Australian, The Monthly, The Advertiser and elsewhere. Patrick is completing a novel about Adelaide.
MEET THE PUBLISHER
With Michael Bollen, Wakefield Press
4.15pm – 5.30pm
Michael Bollen has been publisher at Wakefield Press for more than twenty-five years. He has helped build the company from tiny beginnings into a vigorous independent Australian publishing house. Michael works across all areas of this small, busy company, from the selection of titles, through to editing, design and the sale of books. Wakefield Press, based in Adelaide, publishes an eclectic mix of forty or so new titles each year. One of the company’s delights is taking South Australian voices to the world.
