Places at this year’s conference at Lancaster University sold out quickly and the conference’s success has been blogged about by attendees since the event in September – here are the highlights.
There was swearing
Kia Thomas’s session on editing sweary stuff was clearly a highlight for many members; it inspired Howard Walwyn to title his comprehensive conference review ‘#SfEP 2018 – Let’s Get F***in’ Serious‘.
Hannah McCall also enjoyed the session, and the Coco Pops option at breakfast; this was her first SfEP conference experience, and she talks about the warmth of strangers and support of her conference buddy in her summary.
Editors travelled from far and wide
Every year, more and more editors based outside the UK attend, and present at, the conference. Claire Wilkshire discusses British politeness in her post ‘Editors, sheep, conferencing‘.
Presenters push the boundaries of their comfort zones
The conference director approached Kia Thomas during her ‘Saying Yes’ kick, and Kia elegantly discusses the process of preparing and presenting at a conference in ‘Conferences, confidence and comfort zones‘.
There were indexers there too
The Society for Indexers’ conference was at the same venue at the same time this year, enabling sharing of some sessions and the gala dinner. Tanya Izzard is an indexer looking to develop her editing skills, and made the most of the opportunity to attend two conferences at once.
Attendees learnt stuff
Pamela Smith lists her main learning points from the two days in her conference report – AND she won a fabulous raffle prize so the learning can carry on.
The learning wasn’t just limited to the sessions – the quiz on the opening evening of the conference warmed up brain cells and revealed the vast amounts of random knowledge that editors carry around in their heads. Oh, and Kia Thomas was on the winning team.
But it’s all about…
As Stephen Cashmore reminds us, the conference is all about the people: those who plan, prepare and attend it.
There’s more coverage of this year’s sessions in the November/December edition of Editing Matters, the Society’s digital magazine for members.
Compiled by Abi Saffrey, SfEP blog coordinator.
The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the SfEP.
Coming up
- Wednesday 7 November: Toronto mini-conference [SOLD OUT]
- Monday 12 November: Educational Publishing Update: A professional development day for editors working in educational publishing, London [SOLD OUT]
- Tuesday 5 February 2019: Proofreading 1: Introduction, London (workshop)
- Saturday 14 to Monday 16 September 2019: SfEP AGM and 30th annual conference, Aston University, Birmingham
- and loads of local SfEP group meetings.