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Those Who Dwell Below
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Poetree
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Too Young to Escape
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Paths to the Stars
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Yipee’s Gold Mountain
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Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster
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I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust
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Mistress Pat
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The Land of Yesterday
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Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein
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Hungry for Science
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The Fashion Committee
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Ebb and Flow
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Miss Mink: Life Lessons for a Cat Countess
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Great
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Slip Jig Summer
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Reawakening Our Ancestors’ Lines
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Racing Manhattan
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Ramadan: The Holy Month of Fasting
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Optimists Die First
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The Journey of Little Charlie
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Bloom
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42 Is Not Just a Number
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Whispers of Mermaids and Wonderful Things
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Slug Days
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#NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women
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Saying Good-bye to London
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Kat and Meg Conquer the World
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Those Who Run in the Sky
MacEwan University had a little ceremony in November to celebrate their authors — both student and staff — and gave me a lovely little Certificate of Recognition for my publication of The Complete Canadian Book Editor.
Review: The Complete Canadian Book Editor by Leslie Vermeer When I first heard about The Complete Canadian Book Editor, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the notion of a “complete” resource on book editing. I edit the works of self-publishing authors, so my knowledge of the world of traditional book publishing is limited — gained mostly through conversations with other editors and my editing courses at Ryerson. Would this book provide useful information for someone like me, a practising freelance editor who would like to learn more about the inner workings of the book editing profession in Canada?
One of my wonderful friends asked me to take a photo of my book for sale, on a bookstore shelf. She herself is an author and says she regrets not having taken such a photo when her first book was published (although I would assure her that her book was prominently displayed in a downtown bookstore when I went into the store a few weeks).
Have arrived!
Well, this is it. The Complete Canadian Book Editor is at press at last and should arrive in bookstores on Tuesday, September 6. Woot! (And I guess I’m wincingly looking forward to discovering the first editorial mistake — eek!)
Above is the cover again, now with back-cover copy in place.
I hope you enjoyed the weekend!
Well, here it is: 383 pages of designed (Dragich Design ) and laid-out manuscript. Now I have two weeks to proof it and add an index before the final production details are worked through, and then it is off to the printer.
We are still hoping to have books by September.
The link to The Complete Canadian Book Editor — Leslie Vermeer at Brush Publishing
I’m so pleased to report that my book has just reached two big milestones.
First, the edit is finished. In late May I responded to the copyedit and numerous queries. I also wrote a large amount of new material. The weeks since then have involved signing off the copyedit and reviewing the large number of figures and illustrations created to support the written text.
“Why do you think I won’t like it?” a friend asked after I described a book I had read and liked but said he wouldn’t enjoy. I have been reaching for an answer, because simply saying It’s a feeling I have is insufficient. But Virginia Woolf, whose writing I adore, has provided a reason:
This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.
Over last fall and winter I wrote a book, tentatively titled The Complete Canadian Book Editor, which has been accepted by Brush Education in Calgary, Alberta, and is poised for publication in Fall 2016. To complement that project, this site will now be a destination for information related to my book, as well as my other interests.
The Complete Canadian Book Editor is a primer for students, teachers, and working editors about what a book editor is responsible for day to day, from manuscript acquisition to marketing.
When I was in my teens I read John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden, an assigned text that propelled me into studying the Modernists and Modernism generally. You may remember that the key to the novel is the word timshel:
But the Hebrew word, the word timshel — ‘Thou mayest’ — that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open.
In Smoke Proofs, Andrew Steeves offers a series of essays to ask critical questions about contemporary printing and publishing practices that most people in the industry take for granted. The essay “Why We Accept Shoddy Books” challenges literary publishers to think about how — and how badly — we deploy our limited financial resources in the making of cultural objects:
Strangely, the giant, profit-driven multinational publishers—those firms which are by their very structure and mandate most likely to become estranged from the literary and cultural values of the books they publish—tend to field more skilfully- and interestingly-made books than many of the grassroots, mission-driven and publicly-subsidized literary publishers.
Last year I heard Richard Nash speak about publishing and learning to manage abundance. Several times in my teaching this year, I have quoted his memorable comment “Abundance breaks more things than scarcity does.” The excerpt below, from Giles Clark and Angus Phillips, amplifies Nash’s idea and sets it into the specific relationships among publishers, authors, and readers.
However, scarcity is still present and comes in different guises, especially in respect of the resources needed to publish.
