I received a travel subvention to attend the first week of TEMiC on editorial theory, taught by Professor Zailig Pollock during the first week of August 2011 at Trent University. It was an excellent opportunity to learn about editing from an instructor and editor with so much experience, alongside a group of graduate students who are doing such interesting work, and with input from other Canadian editors and scholars working with EMiC.
The readings and our discussions were very relevant to the work that i have been doing for the past year with Neil Besner on the Laurier Poetry Series. I regret that i could not have taken the course at the beginning of my year of RA funding through EMiC (i think EMiC has adjusted the TEMiC schedule to correct this problem). I was especially interested to read Dean Irvine’s essay on editing F.R. Scott; the F.R. Scott volume for the Laurier Poetry Series, edited by Laura Moss, is forthcoming.
It was great to hear from Melissa Dalgleish about her experiences working on the digital edition of Anne Wilkinson’s poems, and from Catherine Hobbs on archives and archival studies. All of the presenters were really fantastic!
This was my first time meeting other people working on EMiC projects. Getting to know EMiC-affiliated grad students from other Canadian universities was one of the best parts of participating in TEMiC. I have recently completed my work on the Laurier Poetry Series and i will graduate with my MA this fall. After TEMiC, i am looking for ways to stay connected with EMiC and i hope to work on an EMiC project again.
I will report back to Neil Besner on my experience at TEMiC, with a recommendation that Laurier Poetry Series editors and future RAs might benefit from attending TEMiC.
Thanks to Zailig and Chris Doody for your warm welcome and hospitality!
Since summer 2010, i have worked as an editorial assistant (RA) to Neil Besner for the Eli Mandel and F.R. Scott volumes of the Laurier Poetry Series. From Room to Room: The Poetry of Eli Mandel, selected with an introduction by Peter Webb and an afterword by Andrew Stubbs, was published in 2010; Leaving the Shade of the Middle Ground: The Poetry of F.R. Scott, selected with an introduction by Laura Moss and an afterword by George Elliott Clarke, is forthcoming.
My previous experience as a copy editor was useful in this Editing Modernism in Canada position. With Neil, i copy-edited and proofread the tables of contents, introductions, afterwords, and bibliographies, and poetry for the two volumes. New experiences and challenges included poetry editing, with the importance of paying attention to visual elements and spacing and of proofreading against original versions; research at the Eli Mandel fonds at the University of Manitoba archives; and correspondence with editors, contributors, and the publisher. I found my visits to the archives to be especially interesting. I read and scanned early versions of Mandel’s poems and made the satisfying discoveries, anticipated by Peter, of early and varied versions of important poems like the “Minotaur Poems”; of a missing title for “signs” in Mandel’s Out of Place; and of lines from “The Meaning of the I CHING” that were removed by editors and later returned by Mandel. It was new to me not to have the last (or nearly-last) word on style: Rob Kohlmeier at Wilfrid Laurier University Press gave me a good and gracious introduction to working with a book publisher and its house style. As an MA student thinking about an editing/academic career after graduation, i was privileged to work with such thoughtful and creative scholars/editors as Neil, Peter, Laura, Andrew, and George, who have been supportive and appreciative of my work and interested in my personal and professional development.
It has been a pleasure to work as an RA with EMiC and the Laurier Poetry Series, and i am grateful for the opportunity that the EMiC and University of Winnipeg grants have afforded me to work on this project. The year has passed productively and too quickly, but i expect that this experience will lead to promising academic and editing/publishing opportunities in the coming years.