Professional Development

Upcoming Seminars and Events


Past Seminars and Events

Winter Grammarfest!

When: Saturday, January 18, 2025, 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm PST
Where: Online via Zoom

In this session, Ellen Jovin covered intermediate and advanced grammar topics relevant to editors, took questions, talked about her favourite reference books, and discussed her unorthodox path to writing a bestselling grammar book. 

Ellen Jovin is the proprietor of the Grammar Table, a travelling pop-up grammar advice stand, and the author of the US national bestseller Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian (HarperCollins, 2022). 


Editors BC Student Networking Event

What: Student networking event for Editors BC student affiliate members

When: Saturday, May 11, 2024, 11:00 am to 12:30 pm PDT

Where: Online through Zoom

Cost: Free

A 90-minute online networking event on Saturday, May 11, to meet other student affiliates, share your knowledge and successes, and learn from your peers.

This free virtual event was designed to help student affiliates support one another in their business and editing practices.


Fact Checking with Iva Cheung

When: Saturday, April 13, 2024, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm PDT
Where: Online via Zoom

Editors, as fact checkers, are an essential bulwark against misinformation. But knowing what facts to check and how and where to check them requires judgment, persistence, and a healthy amount of critical skepticism.

With hands-on exercises to help participants put fact-checking techniques into practice, after this three-hour seminar participants were able to:

  • name the main ethical and legal issues related to fact checking,
  • identify which facts editors are expected to check for different genres and types of publications,
  • evaluate the reliability of information sources, and
  • list common tools and resources editors use in fact checking.

Iva Cheung is a Certified Professional Editor, indexer, publishing consultant, and policy researcher. She has won the Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence, President’s Award for Volunteer Service, and Karen Virag Award for promoting the editing profession. A long-time plain language advocate and scholar, she joined ASC’s Plain Language Technical Committee as an academic member. She is grateful to live as an uninvited settler on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ (>Halkomelem)-speaking peoples, including the Qayqayt First Nation.


AI, Tech, and Editing: A Pragmatic Toolbox with Perrin Lindelauf

When: Saturday, March 2, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm, and Saturday, March 9, 2023, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm PDT
Where: Online via Zoom

Headshot of Perrin Lindelauf

The sudden proliferation of AI text tools in 2023 has upended many industries in a very short span, creating in equal parts fear, confusion, and excitement for the future.

This webinar aimed to empower editors with a raft of AI tools to enhance their workflows today. It set aside ethical debates about the technology and instead took a pragmatic and clear-eyed look at useful tech and the direction in which the market is moving in the short term.

The first session provided background to large language models, what the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT are, and how they will affect the work of the editor in the foreseeable future.

The second session covered lower-tech tools with a sample workflow to incorporate them, the emerging market of writing-specific AI tools, and a brief discussion of practical uses that participants can foresee in their own workflows.

Perrin Lindelauf is a copy and structural editor living in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. He got his start as a professional writer and editor by writing travel guides about Japan for National Geographic Books. He’s a graduate of the SFU Editing Certificate program, currently working as an academic copy editor for a university publisher. A tech enthusiast, he has been fiddling with ways to increase his productivity for many years and is eager to see how new AI tools can improve both the art of communication and the editorial process alike.


Build Your Freelance Editing Business Website

When: Saturday, February 24, 2024, 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm PST
Where: Online via Zoom

Headshot of Erin Brenner

This seminar guided participants through creating and managing a professional website to attract new clients and grow freelance editing work.

  • Website technology basics. An introduction to domains, hosting, website builders, and key design elements. Erin demystified the jargon so participants can make informed decisions.
  • Better site content. What content do potential clients want to see? Covering the must-have pages and opportunities to keep visitors coming back. This section included an overview of search engine optimization (SEO) best practices.
  • Site launching and management. Do you need to launch every webpage at once? How do you keep your site running smoothly long-term? A peek into security, site backups, and site redesigns as well.

Erin Brenner is the owner of editorial services firm Right Touch Editing, which specializes in providing small and midsized organizations with writing and editing teams. Additionally, Erin provides freelance editor coaching and website reviews through Archer Editorial Training. She shares her expertise through her blog, The Writing Resource, and by speaking at industry conferences. Erin is the author of CIEP’s Marketing Yourself Guide (with Sarah Hulse), Copyediting’s Grammar Tune-Up Workbook, and 1001 Words for Success: Synonyms, Antonyms & Homonyms. Her book, The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors: How to Take Care of Your Business, Your Clients, and Yourself from Start-up to Sustainability, will be published by the University of Chicago Press in Spring 2024. Find Erin on the web at https://linktr.ee/erinbrenner


Crafting a Meaningful Land Acknowledgement: The Why and the How

When: Saturday, January 27, 2024, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm PST
Where: Online via Zoom

Headshot of Rhonda Kronyk

Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report was released in 2015, land acknowledgements have become an integral part of many events, websites, and email signatures in Canada. This three-hour interactive seminar gave participants the information they need to ensure that their land acknowledgements are sincere.

To guide participants, Rhonda briefly explained the history and issues related to using land acknowledgements. Using real-life examples, she showed how to research region-specific acknowledgements, what to include, and what to avoid. Registered participants prepared a draft acknowledgement prior to the session, and some were workshopped anonymously before participants refined their own drafts during short working sessions.

Participants left the seminar with a draft of a land acknowledgement that goes beyond those we see and hear, reflecting their values and reasons for creating a meaningful statement.

Rhonda Kronyk is a settler/Dene research, writing, and editing consultant. A member of the Tsay Keh Dene Nation (Treaty 8), she calls amiskwaciwâskahikan (Edmonton) in Treaty 6 home. A founding member of the Indigenous Editors Association, Rhonda provides workshops for publishers and university publishing programs on how to publish culturally respectful stories by and about Indigenous Peoples. She has worked on manuscripts by some of Canada’s best known Indigenous authors.

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