Our proposal editing team works closely together on high-stress, fast-turnaround projects. When a large, technical document is divided between us, each editor depends on the others, as we make hundreds—sometimes, thousands—of tiny decisions that add up to the effect the client wants: “one voice.”
That said, we’re all home-based workers. Though we may know each other’s voices and capitalization preferences, many of us hadn’t met in person. Last week, we changed that.
After a day of planes, trains, and automobiles, Dragonfly editors from across the country descended on Washington, D.C. Six of us were electronically fingerprinted for one of our security-minded government contracting firms. As a bonus, we had time to visit with our contacts over lunch.
The next day eight of us attended the American Copy Editors Society (ACES) (http://www.copydesk.org/) Editing Boot Camp regional workshop at George Washington University. Dragonfly President Samantha Enslen tag-teamed as one of the presenters, along with journalism professor Andy Bechtel of the University of North Carolina and David Sullivan, assistant managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
After previous regional workshops in Chicago, Tampa, and Albuquerque had topped out at about 20 participants, ACES organizers were pleasantly surprised to have more than 70 editors register in D.C. In fact, that got attendees speculating about whether the ACES national conference would do well in the National Capital Region, where the population of editors is unusually high—but so are hotel rates. Hmm…
All in all, it was an informative weekend—both as a refresher on editing and a chance to get to know our fellow editors. Check back over the next few weeks for more on what we learned.