An Editorial Conference and Three Cats

Plus upcoming events for editors, writers, and readers

Welcome to Coffee Break Friday, where I chat about life as a freelancer and offer tips to new editors.

ACES VCON24

Every September the editorial organization ACES: The Society for Editing holds a virtual conference. I highly recommend it—editors from all backgrounds can treat it as a crash course for catching up on freelance-friendly tech, business, and marketing skills. This year, I felt the presentations I watched had a common theme of personal accountability and responsibility. A psychologist taught us how to approach failure productively (because freelancers are constantly being turned down for stuff!), editor Natalie Silver gave us actionable advice for taking control of our work lives, and experienced freelancer James Gallagher taught us how to make extensive annual reports that track our goals, progress, and hold us accountable for the direction of our business.

a slide from Natalie Silver’s presentation “10 Ideas to Enliven Your Established Freelance Business”

If you missed the conference, Erin Brenner gave great live updates on her Bluesky.

Here are random recommendations I gathered from the conference (which I haven’t looked into yet):

• The podcast The Editor’s Half Hour

• The podcast The Deliberate Freelancer

• The EFA’s course for working with independent authors

• Helen Jane Campbell’s book Founders, Freelancers, and Rebels

• David Alan’s book Getting It Done

• Tanya Gold’s business coaching for editors

• Dr. Erin Maher’s Microsoft Word Track Changes course

Upcoming Events

There are virtual events coming up that might be of interest to editors, writers, and readers.

LIVE from NYPL: The New York Public Library has a great lineup of authors and poets—Richard Powers, Marlon James, Ada Limón—who are holding events both in-person and online—and tickets are free.

Greg Younging was a Canadian editor and member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation who wrote Indigenous Elements of Style, a very unusual and practical style guide focused on how to write on Indigenous topics and treat the copyright of Indigenous knowledge. His style guide can be read in a day, and I recommended it in my “What Books Should Copyeditors Read?” post.

Well, exciting news! A second edition is coming out, and on October 26, a “sneak peak” event is happening free online, where its editors will discuss changes made in the new edition.

Science Writers 2024 is coming up on October 16, and I believe it’s both in-person and virtual.

Editors Canada recently announced their fall webinar lineup.

Mini Monthly Reflection

I really liked editor Suzanne Arnold’s monthly update on Bluesky, so I decided to make one myself:

Now for Serious Business: A Kitten Update

In August, I told you that my friend was fostering three rescued kittens:

This week I visited a friend who was recently tasked with rehabilitating three kittens: Faith, Dozer, and Charlie. They miraculously survived a construction crew working on top of them for about an hour before they were discovered. Their mother was nowhere to be found, so they were rescued. They’re about three weeks old.

I’m happy to report that they’ve since been adopted! My friend’s friend helped take care of the lil’ kits for about a week, and while she was initially considering taking just two cats (a reasonable number), she ended up adopting all three (the best number).

Faith bonking out after eating dinner. She and her siblings are in their forever home now. <3

That’s all for this Friday. I’m currently deep in my October spooks reading, so you might get some book reviews from me soon.

Until next time,

Hannah Varacalli

Copy & Developmental Editor
www.hveditorial.com