Newsletter of the Society of Editors (NSW) Patron: Hazel Hawke

ISSN 100-2557 P.O. BOX 254, BROADWAY, NSW 2007 Phonk (02) 552 0039 APRIL 1994

Irina Dunn's address to

the March meeting This evening represents a personal symmetry for me in a very special way. Let me read you a few lines from a reference I received 25 years ago in 1969 after my very first job in publishing as a sub-editor...

That reference wassigned by Mrs Robin Appleton, Editorial Assistant at Sydney University Press, now your President. Whether her assess-ment of her former employee was apt I'll leave it to you to judge. It seems appropriate that a quarter of a century later, Robin, should be the President of her professional body, a group which is dominated by women, and I should be invited here to speak as Co-ordinator of the NSW Writers' Centre. Thanks for that ref-erence Robin, it's certainly got me a lot of interesting jobs since you wrote it. What I would like to talk about— share with you as they say—are the very interesting avenues my pub-lishing career has led me down over the years, avenues I did not dream were possible when I approached my vocational guidance counsellor at school. I was offered the options of school teaching^ urs in g, librarian-/^ r ship, but not the interesting option of working in publishing.

In fact, in 1969 when I worked at Sydney Uni Press, I was taking a year off from my studies in English Literature at the University of Syd-ney to examine career options. I was learning how to^inake leather^? sandals at a hippy enclave in Woolloomooloo for part of that year and in the last school term I went to Frensham School as a French and English teacher. I discovered I had no aptitude for crafts at all, and that I did for teaching, but especially I

enjoyed the work that Robin had given me and it launched me on my career in publishing.

After I completed my honours year in English in 1970 I found I could not cut my umbilical ties with the English Department for another three years and remained there as a tutor. After a brief flirtation with the restaurant business, which was noth-ing like the Left Bank image I had held of it—no Simone de Beauvoirs or Jean-Paul Sartres visited my little French restaurant in Balmain called L'Ironique (The Ironic), only Rex Mossop with various friends — I finally applied for a job jks an editor with Hamlyn Books and was thrilled when I got it. Alison Pressley, who was also working there at that time, and I used to make the 45-minute trip in my old bomb up to Dee Why every day to the luxurious Hamlyn offices where I worked on a huge list of general books at every stage of production. I discovered that all the

people who had anything to do with the content of a book—the authors, editors, designers — were paid a pittance compared to the salesmen and marketers whose expensive cars with personal number plates were parked in the leafy car park. That realisation was soon to lead to in-dustrial action.

After a year at Hamlyn's I was ready to apply for another position, and when I got a job at Pleasantville's Reader's Digest as a Project Editor on 50% more salary — an increase from $7,000 to $10,000 — I realised how much leeway there was in edi-torial salaries. In my next position as Senior Editor for Pergamon Press, I got together with several women editors—some of you may remem-ber Pam Clements, Jane Arms, Jacqueline Kent, and others — and we started to work for an award for editors, most of whom were female.

(Continued on page 2)

NEXT MEETING

The next meeting of the society will be held on Tuesday, 5 April, at

6.30 pm at the Rooftop Function Centre, 4th Floor, Australian

Museum. Enter from William Street.

Our guest speaker will be Liz Pearce, Industrial Officer for the

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Liz will speak on recent

improvements in the Book Industry Award and employment matters

for freelancers including superannuation, training, and the benefits

of setting and enforcing recommended freelance rates.

Drinks and light food will be provided.

RSVP by 3 April by phoning Robin Appleton on 5601017.

Members $10; non-members and those who forget to notify us before the RSVP date, $12.

(Continued from page 1) There was still, even at that time, a sort of bluestocking attitude in pub-lishing, and we as editors were to regard our salaries more as an hono-rariumpaid for theprivilegeof work-ing in an interesting industry.

Our idea was to obtain an award for editors under the former Aus-tralian Journalists' Association um-brella. We based our award on the Metropolitan dailies award and tried togetparitybetweenjournalists'pay and thatof editors. Over manymeet-ings at the Journalists' Club in Chalmers Street we thrashed out an award we thought suitable for our industry and presented it to our rep-resentatives in theAJA,Sid Crosland and Jim North. Sid was one of your old-style union reps (he used to lick his thumb and index finger before turning a page), and Jim North was a choleric individual with bright red hair, florid features, and a short tem-per. Neither understood why we objected to their calling us 'girlies'. We had to educate them before we could get them to represent us to the publishers, with whom, it seemed, they had more in common. I remem-ber one meeting in Melbourne when we were all seated around the table and negotiating over a maternity clause in the award. Our reps did not have the right arguments, and had no answer to the publishers' sarcas-tic comments such as 'Why don't they getpregnantin their own time?'. We wanted the award to be renego-tiate after one year, but the publish-ers, of course, wanted it to run for three years, and when our reps com-promised on our behalf with a two-year award we felt that we had been robbed of six months. Sid Crosland did comment that Two years is not half of three' but did not argue the point on our behalf. At lunchtime the union reps lunched with the publishers, while the editors were left on their own.

Finally the award was introduced in the Industrial Commission and book editors were, for a short while, protected by the wages and con-ditions set down in the award. It was an early step in the recognition of the valuable work editors perform in publishing houses and forced pub-

lishers to increase their paltry edi-torial salaries to a reasonable level. Regrettably, editors did not continue to maintain and update the award and the last I heard, acouple of years ago,ithadslippedbehindinitswages and conditions and became known as the 'slum award'.

To backtrack a little, my work at Reader'sDigestopenedanewworld of the Australian environment for me. I was Project Editor of a book called Scenic Wonders of Australia, and despite the title, it was a scien-tific work and brought me into con-tact with Dr Harry Recher, a refugee from the US who had been the first postgraduate student to study with Paul Ehrlich. From that time I fell in love with the Australian environ-ment and subsequently became in-volved in writing and editing many publications, including the first text on Australian ecology which won a prize from the Royal Zoological So-ciety. Had it not been for the almost accidental occurrence of-my appoint-ment as Project ̂ Editor, this wonder-ful field of interest might never have been opened to me. It has not only provided me with continuing edito-rial work (to the present) with nu-merous scientists, government bod-ies such as National Parks and Wild-life, and specialist science publish-ers, but also contributed to my ap-pointment as a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Policy after my stint in Canberra had ended.

After Ueft Reader's Digest, I went to Pergamon Press where I experi-enced my first sacking when I used my business card as Senioi»Editor to protest an advertisement by WestafF office employment agency at North Sydney. The advertisement showed headless men and women, with the difference being that the women were all very young and dressed in clothes more suitable for a disco-theque —hot pants, lowcut dresses — than for office work. There was worse, too. On a large billboard on top of their building in North Syd-ney, there was a large photograph of a young woman's face under which was written The most desirable woman in Australia'. This young woman was a model and actress who had played the role of a secre-

tary who slept with her bosses in a television program called, I think, "The Box'. The subliminal message was clear. In my letter to the Manag-ing Director of Westaff I threatened a national campaign against his com-pany if he didn't stop<ftie sexist ad-vertising. Westaff's 'Managing Di-rector called up the then Managing Director of Pergamon who was so upset he sacked me on the spot, pu-sillanimous creature that he was.

And so I was thrown out of the publishing nest and had to fend for myself. That began a really interest-ing career as a freelancer, and took me into the NSW prison system as editor of the prisoners' newspaper, Inprint That must have been one of the most difficult jobs I have ever had as an editor. The PrisonOfficers' Association was vehemently op-posed to the publication, which en-couraged prisoners not only to write creatively, but also solicited com-ments from them on the findings of the Nagle Royal Commission into NSW Prisons. After all, who had more of an interest in gaol condi-tions than prisoners? My editorial policy was to be open, to censor as little as possible, and to encourage prisoners to find a voice for them-selves. One or two of them, upon release fromgaol,won grants to write up their life stories.

While I was working in the gaol system I came across a very/interest-ing case that offended my sense of justice and challenged my intellect. I met the three men who;had been blamed for the Hilton Hotel bomb-ing, although they had never been charged with it, and after I had read the transcripts of their trial I decided to get involved. My editorial experi-ence really came in handy over the next six years while I worked on the campaign to free the Ananda Marga three. Handling a large list at Hamlyn's helped me to absorb the large volume of material I had to read for the case. It helped me to write and edit the material we put out for the campaign. And when I finally got sick of speaking to vari-ous groups about the case in person and decided to make a documentary about it to stand in my place, the editing skills I had learned in pub-

2 Blue Pencil

lishing were directly transferable to another medium in the construction of a documentary.

As part of the making of the docu-mentary we interviewed about 25 people and transcribed (by type-writer in those days) all interviews onto paper. Then, using my editor's technique of cut and paste, I literally used a pair of scissors to cut up the statements I wanted to use and pasted them on to cards which I could then juggle in the order I wanted to present the arguments. I also used other editing techniques in the over-all construction of various sequences of the documentary, sometimes feel-ing my way through a sequence at the editing desk just as a book editor might intuitively work on the 'feel' of a piece of writing. The documen-tary was shown widely and contrib-uted to the release of those three men in May 1985.

Not all my editing experiences have been pleasant. I have made two grown men cry during the course of editing their work. One was a geol-ogist whose very academic descrip-tion of the formation of the Blue Mountains I converted into readable prose, and the other was a novelist who insisted that there be no para-graphing in the 10,000-word chap-ters of his autobiographical novel, and that the iambic pentameter of his prose should not be interfered with — even for sense. I can hardly claim to have been the editor of his book. I nearly provoked a break-down.

As you will all know, the editing process is one of refinement of the written word to facilitatebettercom-munication. Editors have to pay at-tention to detail while keeping their eye on thebig picture of structure, be fully conversant with the rapidly changing usages of English and grammar, and be on the cutting edge of linguistic reform. As Marshall McLuhan said, The medium is the message'. This was demonstrated to me years ago when I read a book about the brain by a leading British neurosurgeon, Dr Ian Rose, who in his Preface said that because the pur-pose of his book was to re-examine all the theories about brain function, he was also re-examining the lan-

guage in which the theories were expressed and came to theconclusion that sexist language, in particular the use of the generic 'mankind' and 'he' to represent all humans, was no longer acceptable. I myself havebeen in the position to influence numer-ous writers on just this very matter, and if the charge of sexism was not enough to persuade writers to change their language, then the ac-cusation of being old-fashioned was.

In the late 1970s, editors regularly met at the Hero of Waterloo Hotel at The Rocks, the oldest pub in Sydney. Your selection of venues is still be-yond reproach. Thank you for invit-ing me here this evening. I feel that I've returned as a prodigal member of the Society of Editors after all these years and thank Robin and all of you for bearing with me during my meande rings along a somewhat erratic editorial career.

To Talk of Other Things This is the age of the word processor and other more complicated com-puters, cellular telephone, fax, teleconferencing, interactive video, CD-ROM, electronic books, voice and e-mail, and bulletin boards, and so on.

Often what is lacking in the elec-tronic environment is direct interac-tion, negotiating, awareness of the outside world. We are becoming in-ternalised, more isolated, less avail-able for other people.

Think how many times during a telephone conversation the tell-tale clicking of a keyboard has punctu-ated your communication, belying the attention given to you.

Who needs people? Who still needs to resort to flesh-pressing, face-to-faceconferences?The author, edi-tor, and publisher do. The reading public needs to put a face to the written word, a body to the spirit of the tome.

I attended a party and was told the guest of honour would not be attending as he was 'caught up' with his computer, two storeys above the gathering.

Reports now tell of young people who use their word processors to the exclusion of interacting with their

families and that they have trouble communicating with their peers. They are also shunning children's television programs. They are inter-nalising their experiences and not developing their communication skills. Experts do not have answers to these 1990s' problems. The impli-cations are serious, as these are the leaders of the future.

To encourage fruitful relation-ships in the publishing world I be-lieve we must look at our ways of communicating with others in the profession and attempt to visit and talk with our clients in preference to a series of faxes and disks changing hands, or we, the promoters of good, clear communication, could become victims of our machine-driven en-vironment.

We need to remember to be ac-countable for what we do and can-not complain about the authorbeing unavailable if we limit ourselves to the twilight zone of desk lamps and reflected light from monitors of our word processors.

Robin Appleton

( A Special Note on Our ^ Committees

Thepresentcommittee wishes to thank the newly retired members of the 1993 commit-tee for their work, enthusiasm, and offers of their continued support.

Our new treasurer is Charles Beelaerts, a society member, writer, and finance editor; Terry Johnston, for-merly a member of the Victo-rian Society of Editors, is our caterer from the May meet-ing. Welcome. We look for-ward to a successful year.

Ofourcommitteemembers Carol works at the University of Technology, Sydney, Rhana at the University of Sydney, Val at the University of New South Wales, and Terry at Macquarie University. John is at the Department of School Education, and Robin, Charles, and Robyn are free-

April 1994 3

lance.

Style Council 94 Prologue Drinks at the Australian National Dictionary Centre at the ANU on Friday evening, 18 February, af-forded a pleasant prelude to Style Council 94. The old cottage in a cor-ner of the campus, looking out to Lake Burley Griffin and with the evening sun streaming in, was a lovelyplaceforparticipants to gather at after the trip to Canberra.

Act One On Saturday, 19 February, Parlia-ment House opened its doors, just for us it seemed (ordinary tourists weren't up yet), and when we had passed through the security screen-ing and sorted ourselves out, the seventh Style Council was opened by Rodney Cavalier. Thirteen more papers followed over the two days.

Participants numbered 130. Rep-resentatives of the Society of Editors (NSW) included Robin Appleton, Rhana Pike, Jeremy Steele, Ann Atkinson, Susan Butler, and myself. At least 45 of the participants ap-peared to be from Canberra. This included 20-odd Hansard staff, and onepersonalonerepresentingAGPS.

Joseph Lo Bianco, Director of the National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia, was the key-note speaker and demonstrated his great insight into the status of English in a multicultural Australia. He is the author of the federal gov-ernment's national language policy of1987and had extensive input into the 1991 edition of the policy. He said thereisacontradictory tendency in asserting the Australianness of English for reasons consonant with the contemporary refashioning of thenationalimageandidentitywhile defining it in somewhat narrow and sometimes naive terms. The body of English language users in Australia is not homogeneous and the notion of a communicative repertoire for Australians involves many varieties ofEnglish,includingprestigiousand international forms, brqader forms, and also those spokenbyimmigrants and Aboriginals.

Bruce Bennett, Professor of English at the Australian Defence

4

ForceAcademy,talked aboutexport-ing Australian English. He meant first of all the education of overseas students, especially from Asian countries, who bring in a lot of rev-enue by paying for their education and take back with them the lan-guage and cultural knowledge from Australia when they return home. He also saw tourism and broadcast-ing radio and televisionprograms to Southeast Asia asother export chan-nels in this sense.

Although the Style Council, as usual, wasorganisedbythe Diction-ary Research Centre of Macquarie University and The Macquarie Li-brary Pty Ltd, it was co-hosted this time by the Department of Parlia-mentary Reporting Staff, led by Bernie Harris, the Chief Hansard Reporter. The conference coincided with the launching of the Macquarie Dictionary as part of the Parliamen-tary Database System. Senator Bob McMullan, Minister for the Arts and Minister for AdministrativeServices, did the actual launching at a cocktail party after the afternoon session of papers on Saturday and before the conference dinner at the Royal Can-berra Golf Club.

In his talk, .Bernie Harris ex-plained how the Hansard was pro-duced—each year more thanl8,000 pages of daily Hansard alone. Hansard staff also produce 450,000 pages of parliamentary committee transcripts each year and com-mission the printing of 100 million pagesofdaily,weekly,and thebound volume Hansard. Bernie has seen many changes over his almost 30 years on the Hansard staff. One of the recent major changes has been the computerisation of the produc-tion process in 1990, which has halved the printing costs per page. Demonstrating how the Parliamen-tary Database System works, Bernie lookedupcombinationsofthewords 'racing' and'hormones'andshowed that, this is a phrase vised-only by Senator Gareth Evans, the number of occasions it occurs in Hansard, who the other speakers in the con-texts were, etc.

The Hansard aims at preserving thestyleofindividualspeakerswhile

at the same time meeting the de-mands of parliamentary and pro-cedural disciplines. Politicians are not allowed to correct factual things in the Hansard record of their speeches, and a lot of new words and expressions emerge as a result of politicians thinking on their feet. To demonstrate this, Bemie treated us to a selection of mixed metaphors culled from parliamentarians. How about: • We have buttered our bread and

now we have to lie on it. • From now on, I'm watching eve-

rything you do with a fine comb. • Thisproblemcouldbethestickiest

wicketinthewholebagofwonns. • Don't throw the garbage out with

the bathwater. • We took the thunder out of his

sails. • You'vebeenburningthemidnight

oil from both ends. • He was flying against the current. • If s as easy as falling off a pie. • He's a little green behind the ears.

Pam Peters had used two Hansard samples, each from three parallel days of debate in the two Houses in March 1986, each about one-third of amillion words, to com-pare the language of the Houses. It appeared that concrete plain nouns and adjectives were more common in the Lower House, and more ab-stract ones came up in the Senate. There were also slightly different styles of abusive language. Mem-bers of the Lower House were very dhfect,,, whereas more (Complex phrases tended to be used in the Upper House.

Claire Woods,Head oftheSchool of Arts and International Studies at the University of South Australia, discussed the efficacy of plain Eng-lish used in public documents. Be-cause there is no generally accepted definition of the term, people mean different things with it. A simplifi-cation is usually -implied. Claire thought it was unrealistically ambi-tious to aim at making, for example, a complex piece of legislation (such asarecentSocialSecurityAct) acces-sible to persons without legal train-ing. She thought a more realistic aim might be to make it less in accessible.

Blue Pencil

On Saturday night at the confer-encedinner, the Royal Canberra Golf Club had a few male visitors with-out jacket and tie. Negotiations to make this possible had fortunately been concluded earlier in the day. The after-dinner speaker was Marion Halligan, author and chair-person of the Literature Board of the AustraliaCouncil.Shespokeofmeta-phor and The Wind in the Willows, spinning her yarn into a delightful accompaniment to the digestion of our meal, and she made those of us who had not read her books veiy keen to seek them out. Act Two Sunday, 20 February, started off with Sue Butler, Executive Editor of the Macquarie Library Pty Ltd, compar-ing the situation of Australian Eng-lish with Singapore English. Her ex-amples showed that Singapore Eng-lish, even the prestigious form of it and not just the more colloquial 'Singlish' (which is rich in vocabu-lary items borrowed from Chinese and other local languages), is indeed a separate form of English.

Pat Kreuiter made a comparison between Sydney and Melbourne terms, based on personal experience of having lived in both cities, and referred frequently to the more ex-tensive study by Pauline Bryant which was presented at the previous Style Council/^

Bill Ramson reported on a project attempting to establish a Western Australian perspective by sampling some 50 newspapers from that state between 1987 and 1993. For exam-ple, in Western Australia they have got not only flying doctors but also flying dentists, flying padres, and flying solicitors. They also have a rangeof real estate terms with mean-ings different from those in the east-ern states.

Jay Arthur has studied the English used by Aboriginal people throughout Australia. Aboriginal English began as the pidgin spoken between Aboriginal people and the Europeans in the 19th century and has continued as a dialect of Austral-ian English. Within that dialect there is much regional variation. Some forms vary only slightly from stan-

dard Australian English and others are close to not being English at all. The range of variation also depends on the amount of Aboriginal lan-guage words that havebeen adopted.

Donna Gibbs outlined the con-text in which the K-6 syllabus in NSW was developed and the impact of this on the content and structure of the present syllabus. She touched upon some of the more significant differences between the draft Eng-lish syllabus of June 1992 and the final version of December 1993 to highlight the ideological and linguis-tic underpinnings of the new sylla-bus and the role of the consultative process in influencing the nature of the end product. Teachers will now have to teach grammar, punctuation, and spelling, but in a context of writ-ing or speaking and not on their own. The texts that will be used will not only be conventional forms of literaturebutwillincludeotherwrit-ten forms, such as advertising.

Sue Spinks and Rhondda Fahey from Macquarie University had worked with Aboriginal students in a new diploma course in commu-nity management. At the start of the course, they discovered that the stu-dents did not have the language skills required for the course as originally designed, so they had to change the course content immediately to give the students the necessary tools to cope with the rest of the material.

Ingrid Day and Holly McCausland from the Distance Edu-cation Centre at the University of South Australia had been editing distance teaching and learning ma-terials and discussed the role of edi-tors as surrogate students in the test-ing of such material, i.e., that it does indeed convey the intended mess-ages in a coherent and appropriate form.

Michael Lewis of Brandle Pty Ltd, a consultancy in human com-munication, had done a small-scale study on the editorial steps in trans-lating a technical document from Japanese into English. He found that style problems which were not al-ways ironed out in the fined docu-ment included excessive nominalisation (e.g. strings of nouns used as adjectival phrases), prob-

WHAT MEMBERS

CAN DO

You can help the society by sending in information,

announcements for the Bulletin Board, and

articles to Blue Pencil. We are keen to hear your

ideas for future events. Bring a friend to the

meetings; share your experience and

encourage participation.

lems relating to economy (e.g. by trying to be concise but leaving out necessary things), and precision (e.g. in the use of articles).

The study showed that not hav-ing learnt formal grammar did not affect the capacity of the editors to solve syntactic problems. The prob-lems that remained were not syntac-tic. The lack of knowledge of formal grammar would, however, have hampered the editors in analysing the text in a rigorous way. Michael thought his argument warranted a larger study. He also challenged someone to carry out ongoing stud-ies of school students to see if they can produce better text under the new curriculum with its increased grammar content. Those studies should also then be compared with the work of people who were edu-cated under the old curriculum.

Epilogue TTielocals seemed quite friendly and concerned that visitors should cope well with their strange city. On two separate occasions I was asked if I found my way around all right, and this was not meant ironically. Can-berra, after all, is the oneplace where, if you don't find your way, you find your way around. I made several wrong turns and went around a few extra times, but I got there and back quite happily.

Maria Karlsson-Lillas

April 1994 5

EDITORS-IN-RESIDENCE Recently returned from her own Editor-in-Residence Fellowship at Griffith University, Queensland, Lesley Dow gave some valuable insights into the experience at the last society meeting when, on behalf of the members, she farewelled Beverley Barnes, whose fellowship at the University of South Australia began in March.

Lesley pointed out that it is not possible to define the exact role or tasksofanEditor-inResidence;what the editor does depends upon the faculty to which he/she is attached and what that faculty perceives to be its needs.

Her duties in the Faculty of at Griffith included:

1. Conducting seminars at vari-ous campuses around Queensland on topics such as the Australian pub-lishing industry (Who publishes what?), how to submit a book pro-posal, manuscript preparation, edi-ting your own work, and style con-sistency.

2. Assisting 'schools' or groups within faculties on various issues including: developing a post-gradu-ate course in publishing and editing, the rebirth of a defunct University Press, a style guide for referencing for all undergraduates, developing systems (e.g style sheets, author brief-ing requirements, costings, sched-ules), and advising on the marketing and distribution of faculty publica-tions.

3. Giving individual advice to aca-demics, or making suggestions on: bookproposals,copyright,contracts, which publishers to submit work to, and careers in publishing.

4. Working with writers' groups and other community organisations.

Lesley found that breadth of knowledge rather than depth was required during her residence — dilettantism can pay off! But it is important not to underestimate the difference between the academic world and the world of commercial publishing. The individuality of aca-demic life is very different from the close teamwork that is characteristic of a commercial publishing house,

and those who pursue painstaking, ongoing research operate in a differ-ent time frame from those always hurrying to meet tight deadlines. Publishing priorities are also very different—producingamanuscript for a marketable book may be well down an academic's list after his/ her teaching commitments, research, drafting grant applications, or writ-ing papers for academic conferences and journals. But perhaps the basic difference of all is in the definition of what the word 'publishable' means: to the academic, quality of scholar-ship is paramount; to the publisher, the quantity of potential sales is the key element in deciding whether a book is 'publishable'.

REGISTER OF

EDITORIAL SERVICES

EXTENDED DEADLINE

If you didn't post your entry form for the register of editorial services by the deadline date of 15 March, all is not lost. You can still send it to us. It should only take you a day or two to find the March issue of Blue P e n c i l , complete the entry form, write your cheque made payable to Society of Editors (NSW), and post it all to:

Register of Editorial Services, Society of Editors (NSW), PO Box 254, Broadway NSW 2007.

So let's make the new deadline Tuesday, 5 April. After that, I'm afraid that's it. Don't forget that your non-member colleagues can also enter their names in the register, so remind them.

Your Committee

1994

President and Publicity

Robin Appleton Ph: 5601017 Fax: 560 1017

Secretary Val Phillips Ph: 697 4345 (w)

918 7031 (h)

Treasurer Charles Beelaerts Ph: 3881456 (w)

327 6273(h) Fax: 371 8635

Catering Terry Johnston Ph: 805 7465 (w)

Membership RhanaPike Ph: 569 7831

Newsletter John Fleming Ph: 529 8638 Fax: 529 9764

Robyn Flemming Ph: 326 2925 Fax: 327 2963

Carol D'Costa Ph: 954 0711

6 Blue Pencil

BULLETIN BOARD

The Writers' Centre

® The New South Wales Writers' Centre Inc^ provides a workplace, meeting area, and storage facilities for writers' organisations and individual writers, as well as advice and assistance on op-portunities, training, and professional develop-ment.

It is located in Garry Owen House within the grounds of Rozelle Hospital, Balmain Road, Rozelle Ph: 555 9757, Fax: 818 1327. The house has been completely refurbished and now pro-vides a very pleasant venue for the centre's vari-ous activities as well as housing the Australian NationalPlaywrightsCentre,theChildren'sBook Council of Australia (NSW Branch), the Fellow-ship of Australian Writers, the Guild of Craft Book Binders, the Jessie Street Library, and the Poets Union.

A statewide focus for writing and related art forms, the centre is a good contact point for courses, competitions, and companionship. In-formation and membership application bro-chures for the centre will be available at the next society meeting. A

£ Editing Seminars

Robin Appleton will present a series of weekend editing

seminars at the New South Wales Writers' Centre, Rozelle. The seminars will deal with the

important aspects of editing from manuscript to

proofreading.

Dates: 15,22, and 29 May; 4 and 5 June Time: 9:30 am to 5:00 pm Enquiries: Laurel Cohn, tel: 555 9757

Writer Seeks Editor

Jan Roberts, a writer, is looking for an editor to work on a manuscript of a historical biography for young adults. The book has a Chinese-Australian background and central character. Anyone interested can get details by ringing 918 8810, fax: 918 8884.

Australian Editing Handbook

This very practical companion to the AG PS Style Manual was put together by Elizabeth Flann and Beryl Hill, who have run courses on copy editing for the Society of Editors (Vic.). Copies ($29.95) are available from AG PS bookshop.

• Training Resources

The Society of Editors (NSW) is compiling a list of training resources for the information of members. We are interested in hearing about any courses/ workshops you have attended. Please provide information and contact details on the Feedback sheet included with this issue of Blue P e n c i l .

W The Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship W

The Australian Book Publishers Association has sent to each of our society members a copy of the guidelines and application form for the Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship. Named after a distinguished literary editor, the fellowship honours her con-tribution to Australian letters, and it would be fitting if the successful applicant were a member of the Society of Editors (NSW).

The closing date for applications is Friday, 13 May 1994. Think about it seriously.

This could be-your

space!

Think about using it.

April 1994 7

TRAINING COURSES - EDITING AND PUBLISHING We present the following inform-ation on editing- and publishing-related courses for the general information of members. The soci-ety does not necessarily endorse all courses mentioned. Caveat emptor!

Macquarie University Graduate Diploma in Editing and Publishing

The current Macquarie University Graduate Diploma in Editing and Publishing enters this year its sec-ond and final year. Society members participating in the course will be pleased to leamthat efforts arebeing made to secure donation of suitable reference books from book publish-ers; books will be sought from other sources as well.

If students have had problems accessing reference books either for use in the course or to complement study, please let Pam Peters or me know. Especially useful will be in-formation on type of book, actual title, and frequency of inaccessibil-ity.

The diploma will not automa-tically place editors on a higher level or band in the award. However, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alli-ance (formerly the Australian Jour-nalists Association) is presently be-ing approached with a request for the diploma to be accredited.

Reader's Digest is continuing its generous support of students with cash prizes. For the second year two prizes of $500 will be given to the best student in either Science or Lit-erary Editing and the best student in either Marketing or Desktop Pub-lishing. Computer software compa-nies are presently being approached for the donation of prizes in the form of programs; lefs hope they, and publishers for books, can come to the party (in any way they can).

If any past or present student of the course has ideas on how the society can support members in the course, do let a committee member or me know.

Anymemberinthecoursewhois experiencing a problem associated with the course or who would like to voice dissatisfaction may present it to Pam Peters through me, espe-cially if it is desired to be made on a con-fidential basis. Alternatively, I can raise your problem or point of view at the next meeting of the course's management committee.

The next course begins in 1995. The cost is $4,000, which can be pay-able at $500 a semester over the two years. The unit descriptions are as follows (as taken from the course brochure):

LING871

Language, editing, and writing I

The unit covers the range of tasks associated withcopy editing, includ-ing both review of the ms and inter-personal skills in relating to the au-thor. Attention will be paid to as-sessing both content and structure of the ms, and adjusting the lan-guage in the interests of readability. The essentials of grammar will be discussed, and the basic techniques of copy editing; as well as issues in standardising style according to rec-ognised guidelines.

LING872

Language, editing, and writing II

This unit extends the work of Lan-guage,, editing, and writing I, with more advanced study of the issues inwrittencommunication, text struc-ture both implicit and explicit, and adapting language for different au-diences and purposes. Electronic methods of copy editing willbe dem-onstrated and practised.

LING873

Design and production of books

This unit aims to acquaint book ed-itors with the whole process of book production to broaden their know-ledge of typography and printing processes, as well as the pre-production design work, and the

business of printing and binding. Page layouts (by both manual and electronic methods) and the use of illustrations, tables, maps, and photos, will also be examined.

LING874

Publishing and management

This unit provides an overview of the economics of publishing in Aus-tralia. It also deals with a variety of management issues, including com-missioning and contracts with au-thors (including ethical and legal issues), the planning of production schedules, liaison with suppliers, and the problems of marketing and dis-tribution.

LING875

Practicum This unit involves a total of 26 hours placementatapublishingoperation, to observeandparticipateinthepro-cesses of book production. Through the collaboration of sponsor organ-isations, a variety of placements in industry and government publica-tions units will be available to com-plement the students' experience of their customary place of employ-ment and extend their acquaintance with other facilities and methods of book production.

LING876

Option I

Students take one of a number of specialised options, from among the following:

i) scientific writing and editing ii) legal writing and editing iii) literary writing and editing.

LING877

Option II

Students take one of a number of specialised options, from among the following:

i) book design ii) marketing iii) desktop publishing.

8 Blue Pencil

Admissions are restricted to a maximum of 30 students, and stu-dents must have either a degree or at least three years experience in pub-lishing. For further information con-tact Mrs Pam Peters on (02) 805 8773 or leave a message on (02) 805 8740. A brochure on the course is available on request.

Kevin Halpin

Kevin Halpin has represented the soci-ety on the Macquarie course commit-tee for several years and he regularly contributes ideas to the society's com-mittee.

Robin Appieton's Editing Seminars

See the Bulletin Board on page 7.

Women in Publishing - The World of Magazines

Not so much training as an intro-duction to the world of magazines. Three speakers discuss the position of magazines in Australian publish-ing; how to start a new magazine; new technology in magazine pub-lishing; and how magazines are put together.

Date: 24 May Enquiries: Robyn Lowe, Women

in Publishing, PO Box 1515, North Sydney NSW 2059

The Galley Club - Seminar on Desktop Publishing

This two-part seminar, offered by Jamie Robertson of City Desktop, is very popular, so numbers are lim-ited. If there is sufficient interest, however, another seminar could be arranged.

Date: 21 April (session 2) E?iquiries: Penny Martin, ph: 417

4288, fax: 417 7773

Queensland University of

Technology - Graduate Certificate in Writing, Editing and Publishing

This course covers:

• Written communication: theory and practice

• Issues in publishing

• Creative writing and publishing

• Corporate writing and editing.

Enquiries: Ros Murdoch, School of Communication and Organisa-tion Studies, ph: (07) 864 2977, fax: (07) 8641811.

Australian Institute of Professional Communicators — Principles of Writing and Editing

This course, introduced in 1978, is for people who would like guidance on how to write and edit corporate publications such as brochures, an-nual reports, and customer and staff journals, and improve their business writing. The course is designed for beginners or people wanting to re-fresh their basic skills.

Dates: 6,7,8,11,12 April (9 am to 5 pm)

Location Artarmon Fees: $1,050 (members of AIPC),

$1,150 (non-members) Etiquiries: Bill Smith, AIPC Course

Controller, ph: (02) 450 1342 •

BLUE PENCIL

1994 You will have noticed from the list of its members that the 1994 Commit-tee has acted on the advice of the former editor, Gary Hayes, to have more than one person sharing the job of producing the newsletter. For the March issue, after deciding who would do what and working out how three people would co-ordi-nate their efforts, we were content just to produce an issue before the April meeting. We did it (but only just) and confirmed that Murphy's Law still holds. We could not have done it without Gary's advice and assistance. Thank you, Gary, for all your help.

We think this is a better issue than our last and we hope you agree, but if you don't like the de-sign, style, or content, please let us know. The newsletter belongs to the society, not just to the co-edi-tors, and we would like it to reflect the ideas and report the activities of all the members, so send us your thoughts on any aspect of your work or our society.

You can contact us on the fol-lowing numbers:

• John, phone: 529 8638, fax: 529 9764

• Robyn, phone: 326 2925, fax: 327 2963

• Carol, phone: 954 0711(h)

You can also send copy by post to: The Editor, Blue Pencil, 49 Evans

Street, Sans Souci NSW 2219.

These are the deadlines for the 1994 issues:

• May: 12 April

• June: 10 May

• July: 14 June

• August: 12 July

• September: 16 August

• October: 13 September

• November: 11 October

April 1994 9

BOOK REVIEW

The Australian Editing Handbook by Elizabeth Flann and Beryl Hill, AGPS, 180 pp., $29.95, ISBN 0 644 29767 0.

The Australian Editing Handbookis destined to become an essential ad-dition to every editor's reference li-brary.

Even more importantly, it will provide a sound basis for more ex-perienced editors to develop their skills. It begins with an introduction to the publishing process and then guides thereader through eachphase of the editor's role in book produc-tion.

Both authors are working editors and it shows. They are fully aware of the multitude of tasks an editor must juggle and the varied skills these tasks incorporate.

The editor, therefore, must be a competent and confident liaison person and a good organiser; as well as being an arbiter of sense, structure, style and taste, a tact-ful yet firm adviser, and a watch-dog on schedules and costs.

To help the busy editor, they have provided detailed examples, handy hints and checklists in an attractive and clear layout. Thispracticalhand-book provides instruction and pro-cedures fordealingwithcopyediting, copyright and legal factors, non-tex-tual material, proofreading, indexes and references. There is a chapter on special publications such as childrens' books, scientific publica-tions, etc., as well as appendixes which list useful reference tools and give examples of briefs used in book production. The extensive glossary of publishing terms will also prove invaluable to the trainee editor.

The authors have succeeded in providing a handbook which com-prehensively details the role of the editor in the publishing process. The wealthofinformationitsupplieswill make the editor's task easier and more efficient.

Christa Munns

MEMBERSHIP REMINDER

A membership application/renewal form has again been enclosed with your copy of Blue Pencil. If you wish to join the society or renew your membership, complete the form and return it to The Society of Editors (NSW), PO Box 254, Broadway NSW 2007.

Annual membership fees become due on 1 February and expire on 31 January the following year. Members who do not renew their subscription by 5 April (the date of the next meeting) will be unfinancial and their names will be removed from the mailing list. Sorry, but we can't afford to keep you on if you don't pay.

There will be spare membership application/renewal forms available at the next meeting.

10 Blue Pencil