3 September 2010: CMOS Q&A
It's the start of a new month and so the Chicago Manual of Style online publishes the most recent batch of questions, and their answers. Among this month's jems: "When quoting from Scriptures, which are often interpreted as God literally speaking, is it grammatically correct to say 'Psalm 1:1 reads' or 'Psalm 1:1 says'?" Got to the CMOS Q&A page for the answer.

23 August 2010: Singing the Coast on Bush Telegraph
Tony Perkins, of Corindi Beach Garby Elders, and Margaret Somerville, of Monash University, speak to Bush Telegraph's Michael Cathcart on today's show about Singing the Coast. Go to the Bush Telegraph page to download a podcast of theinterview.

20 August 2010: eBooks Seminar
The Australian Booksellers Association is holding a seminar, "The Future is Now: eBooks and Bookselling in Australia". The seminar will be held on Tuesday 31 August, 10 am to 5 pm, at the NSW Teachers Federation Conference Centre in Surry Hills. It'll feature Len Vlahos (CEO of the American Booksellers Association), Mark Tanner (Google Editions), Brett Osmond (Random House Australia), Elizabeth Weiss (Allen & Unwin) and Angelo Loukakis (Australian Society of Authors. Cost is a very reasonable $45 for non-ABA members. Download a copy of the flyer (136KB) for further information.

9 August 2010: I Heart Art
The Indigenous Literacy Project, run jointly by the Australian publishing and writing community, is once again gearing up for its major fundraising day in September. As part of this year's effort over twenty book illustrators have donated artwork for I HEART ART, a "staggering collection of art" for sale from some of Australia's best-loved books. Work for sale includes a Peter Gouldthorpe watercolour from the award-winning book Queenie (written by Corinne Fenton), an Ann James illustration from Little Humpty (written by Margaret Wild), one of Bruce Whatley's original illustrations from Josephine Wants to Dance (written by Jackie French), and a colour preliminary illustration from Tohby Riddle’s upcoming picture book My Uncle’s Donkey. There will be entertainment on the night of the sale and Shaun Tan will talk and draw "live". The sale will take place on Wednesday, 25 August, 6–8pm.

28 July 2010: Meanwhile, back in Australia
I posted last week about the forthcoming 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, due out late August. This month's Blue Pencil (the newsletter of the Society of Editors (NSW)) reports, that here in Australia, progress in the preparation of a new edition of the Australian Government's Style Manual is also in train.

AusTender, the Australian Government's tendering service administered by the Department of Finance and Administration, released a "request for expressions of interest" on 12 May. IPEd, the Institute of Professional Editors made up of the various state and territory societies of editors, has lodged an expression along with Adelaide company Website Criteria the Australian Graphic Design Association. This alliance has been made in order to meet "the need for extensive coverage of online wrting and editing, a field that has changed almost beyond recognition since publication of the 6th edition of the Style manual in 2002". If successful, the IPEd bid may well involve the contribution of distinguished and accredited editors, a process very different to that of our friends at CMoS.

21 July 2010: Fashion: turn to the left ...
Editors across North America must be getting twitchy with nerves: the long-awaited sixteenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style is due for release in late August. As part of the run-up to its release, senior editor and CMOS blogger Carol Fisher Saller has been drip-feeding changes to the fifteenth edition through her personal blog.

Among the changes I'm okay with are "Brand names that begin with a lowercased letter followed by a capital letter may not appear at the beginning of a sentence. Now they may. iPad is an example." Changes I'm not okay with include "A page may not end with a single line from a new paragraph. Now it may." Sanctioning widows and orphans?! Time for an interrobang!

16 July 2010: Keeping Aboriginal languages alive
Friday morning on ABC Radio National's AM, Jeff Poole of Desert Channels Queensland described languge maintenance efforts in that state through a picture dictionary project. As the AM blurb says, "Language is a critical part of any culture, yet for many Indigenous communities their grasp of traditional language is fading. In some parts of the country it's already been lost. In an effort to revive 14 languages in outback Queensland, natural resources company Desert Channels Queensland is spearheading a project to develop pictorial dictionaries."

And if you haven't got five minutes 25 seconds to listen to the show, go to Jeff's staff page at DCQ and read his biog. Much more interesting than mine!

14 July 2010: Singing the Coast launch
Aboriginal Studies Press and Yarrawarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre will launch Singing the Coast by Margaret Somerville and Tony Perkins on Wednesday 21 July Nuralamee Conference Centre, Yarrawarra at Corindi Beach. (Download a copy of the invitation here, 88 KB PDF.)

Contact the organisers on 02 6640 7100 if you can make it. Singing the Coast has been described by Deborah Bird Rose as "one of the most beautiful and important books to enter our world in recent time ... Read, enjoy, and find yourself ambushed by its subtly transformative power" and by Gary Foley as having "opened up part of the NSW coastline through language and stories both traditional and contemporary, that are lived but have been, until now, largely unspoken".

16 June 2010: Singing the Coast
Just received a comp copy of a book I worked on earlier this year. This is Singing the Coast, the story of two people's coming together in Gumbaynggirr country, on the north coast of New South Wales. Margaret Somerville is an academic with a particular interest in questions about landscape, identity and belonging, while Tony Perkins is a cultural knowledge holder, member of the Garby Elders and former CEO of Yarrawarra Aboriginal Corporation.

Singing the Coast can be purchased directly from Aboriginal Studies Press and from good bookshops.

15 June 2010: Hunter editors' morning tea
It's on again! Any editors working in Newcastle, the Hunter, Central Coast and wherever are welcome to my place on 15 June at 10.30 for morning tea. No need to bring anything; Georgetown Cake Shop will be catering.

28 May 2010: New incarnation for Skive
Skive is a long-running journal of creative prose fiction, poetry and photo essays curated and published by Newcastle's highly versatile Matt Ward. After many years in print, Skive has gone electronic. This first edition of Skive Future features "The Death of Pinky", the opening story from Mark MacLean's collection The New Landscape. Skive can be bought online for only 99¢ by visiting the Skive site, while editions of the print version of the original Skive can be bought via Matt's Lulu page.

24 May 2010: Need an editor?
The Society of Editors (NSW) has just released its revised Editorial Services Directory. The directory lists all NSW members, with information on their area of expertise, whether they're accredited through the national scheme, contact details and such like. You can search alphabetically or by using the "Subject specialities" function. A plug for ourselves: click here to find the Bruderlin MacLean Publishing Services entry.

10 May 2010: Herald review
The Newcastle Herald today (10 May 2010) published a short review of the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service's history of the Myall Lakes. The book—edited, designed and project managed by Bruderlin MacLean—was launched in March and has sold strongly.

15 April 2010: The etymology of "artichoke"
This evening's edition of ABC Radio National's Big Ideas focused on the impact of English on indigenous languages around the world. With recordings made at the 2010 Global Language Convention held at Wesley College in Melbourne, the show features a highly entertaining Ghl'ad Zuckermann (Associate professor and Australian Research Council Discovery Fellow in Linguistics at the University of Queensland) on why Shakespeare was an Arab and, of course, the etymology of "artichoke".

12 April 2010: Editing site
Since last year's Cultural Awareness Training for Editors workshop (see August 2009 news) I've been mulling over the idea of a forum for editors working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors; perhaps a wiki or a blog. I know that other editors have been thinking the same but, until now, nothing had actually happened.
I've put together a series of pages that attempt to tackle some of the issues we discussed at CATE. The pages are incomplete and really need your feedback, but please visit and send me an email with your comments and criticism.

15 March 2010: Hunter editors' morning tea
Lunch was obviously too ambitious for us hardworking types but finally, after several false starts, the Hunter Editors met for morning tea. All three of us. The plan is to have one meetingper school term (several of us have school-age children) in week 7 or 8; I'll send out a round robin closer to the time. If you'd like to be notified, drop me an email.

11 March 2010: Myall Lakes history book launch
The NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service has announced the date for the launch of Myall Lakes National Park: A People's History. The launch will be held at a morning tea on Friday, 26 March 2010 at 10:00 am, at the Shadwell Park House in Myall Lakes National Park. NPWS describe the launch as "an opportunity to get together and thank everyone who contributed their time and generously shared their personal stories, historical information and photographs".
Download a copy of the invitation here (764kb PDF). To RSVP or for further information, contact Leanne Ellis at the NPWS Hunter Region office, on (02) 4984 8254 or by email.

8 March 2010: Hunter editors' lunch, take 3
Nooo! It's off again, due to all manner of life-changing events. Those of you who are (a) still in the editing profession and (b) available, are welcome to come to BMPS on Monday, 15 March at 11am for morning tea. Send me an email or phone on 4961 0220 if you can make it.

7 March 2010: Hunter editors' lunch, take 2
It's (finally) on again: Tuesday, 8 March 2010, at the Cricketers Arms, Cooks Hill. Lesley booked for noon so I'll see you then.

1 March 2010: Contact on TV
I've reported previously on Contact, the film adaption of the Aboriginal Studies Press book Cleared Out, which Christine and I worked on. After its hugely successful premier at the Sydney Film Festival last year (see below), an edited version of Contact will now be shown on ABC TV on Thursday, 4 March at 9.30pm.

Aboriginal Studies Press are currently offering a package: buy Cleared Out and Contact from them for the one-off price of A$59.95; go to the ASP page for details.

27 February 2010: Lingua Franca
Bilingual eduction is a fraught topic in Australia. In Canada, however, there's an extra hurdle for those advocating the use of indigenous languages in indigenous children's education: the language of instruction in schools is already bilingual (English and French), so what room is there for a third language?

On this week's Lingua Franca, Maria Ziljstra interviewed Dr Stephen Wright, Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. Dr Wright's research showed that educating Inuit children in the official state languages of English or French from the beginning of their schooling provided absolutely no gain in language proficiency compared with starting them off in their native tongue, Inuktitut. But Dr Wright's results went further, arguing that using either state language had a negative effect on the development of language skills. A great show, well worth listening to: visit the ABC Radio National Lingua Franca web page to download the audio or a transcript of the show.

12 February 2010: Gamilaraay rush job
A phone call from Br John Giacon, co-author of the Gamilaraay/Yuwaalaraay/Yuwaalayaay Dictionary, made this Friday afternoon suddenly very busy. Football legend Preston Campbell organised a fundraising rugby league game between an Indigenous All Stars team and an NRL XIII, and the coming weekend's Sydney Morning Herald would feature both a statement from Campbell in English and Gamilaraay, and a link to the Gamilaraay language learning web site production managed by BMPS.

For those interested, Br John has made available a document (100kb PDF) which not includes Preston's statement (Gamiliaraay and English) but John's own notes on the translation process. This in itself is interesting for its treatment of 'new' words (such as 'football' and 'indigenous') and words not known from the Gamilaraay archive (such as 'forgive' and 'devastate').

8 February 2010: Hunter editors' lunch postponed
I suppose it's good news in way, but all the Hunter editors are too busy to meet! We're postponing lunch till March: contact me me or Lesley MacCulloch to find out when the rescheduled lunch will take place.

24 January 2010: Hunter editors to meet again
Are you an editor who lives, works or visits the Hunter Valley or Central Coast? If so, please join a group of your fellow editors at noon on Tuesday, 9 Feburary 2010 at the Cricketers Arms, Cooks Hill for lunch and banter. The lunch is a (roughly) quarterly affair inspired the Society of Editors (NSW) and kicked off by local editor Lesley MacCulloch. Contact me or Lesley if you'd like to know more: we'd love to see you there.

11 January 2010: Back in the saddle again
Yes, folks. The Bruderlin MacLean offices are open and ready for business. Hope your break was as restful and fun as ours.

27 December 2009: Thank you, Santa!
I dragged it out for as long as I could in order to avoid finishing, but I've finally put down my Christmas book present: Carol Fisher Saller's The Subversive Copy Editor. Fisher is a senior editor at the University of Chicago Press and is the go-to person at the Chicago Manual of Style Online's Questions and Answers section. If you never visited this page, and visit no other, then do yourself a favour and go there now. The queries sent to CMOS range from the intelligent to the idiotic but the answers are always cool and informative.

TSCE is not a Flann & Hill-style how to, though it does contain many useful tips on scheduling, maintaining logs and maintaining communication. Fisher's writing style is humorous without being flippant in a way that reminded me of Janet McKenzie—a true hero of Australian editing.

I got my copy of TSCE from UCP, but I note that (at the time of writing) Abbeys in Sydney have copies for A$27.95.

17 December 2009: Office closing dates
Bruderlin MacLean Publishing Services will close on Wednesday 23 December 2009 and re-open on Monday 11 January 2010. We wish all our clients, colleagues and friends a peaceful Christmas and new year and look forward to seeing you all again in (I can't believe I'm typing this number) 2010.

12 December 2009: Book of the year!
This week Mark's new collection of short stories, The new landscape, arrived from the printer. The collection features the story Unte nthenharenye? (see article below on the David Harold Tribe Fiction Award). Copies are available from MacLean's Booksellers, and shortly will be available through Mark's web site.

26 November 2009: Language is power
Aden Ridgeway's passionate defence of bilingual education appeared in today's Sydney Morning Herald. Ridgeway's article was translated into Gumbaynggirr by Dallas Walker, Julie Long, Anna Ash and Gary Willams of the Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative.

11 November 2009: David Harold Tribe Fiction Award
A pleasant evening at the Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney, for the presentation of the David Harold Tribe Fiction Award. Mark came second with a short story, Unte Nthenharenye?, which we'll put up shortly on this site.

The evening was also part of the University's end-of-year soiree for its postgraduate creative writing course. Poetry students work with Judith Beveridge while fiction students work with Sue Woolf. Sue was also one of the three judges of the "DHT", along with Robert Dixon, Professor of Australian Literature at the University, and Geordie Williamson, chief literary critic of The Australian.

20 October 2009: Hunter editors' lunch
If you're an editor living and working in the Newcastle, Hunter Valley, Central Coast or Northern Rivers regions, please feel free to join a group of us on Tuesday 20 October at the Cricker's Arms, Cooks Hill for an informal get-together.

The lunchtime meeting is based on the Society of Editors (NSW) branch's monthly Freelancers Do Lunch; while you don't have to be a member of the Soc Eds to come along we do promote the organisation and encourage people to join.

Lunch begins at noon. For further details contact myself or Lesley MacCulloch of Birch Writing Solutions.

16 October 2009: Handbook wins indexing award
Indexer Frances Paterson, of Olive Grove Indexing Services, was awarded the ANZSI (Australian & New Zealand Society of Indexers) Medal for the index to Handbook of Aboriginal Languages of NSW and ACT. (Editing, design and production management of the Handbook was carried out by Bruderlin MacLean.) The medal was presented at ANZSI's biennial conference, which ran from 15–17 October at the Marriott Hotel in Sydney.

Publisher Muurrbay was represented by Deirdre Bear and Gary Williams; Gary made his acceptance speech in Gumbaynggirr, the language of the NSW north coast around Grafton and inland to Nymboida. In its report, the Society described the Handbook as "a thorough, carefully organised, well edited and beautifully produced reference work, assembling in over 800 pages a tremendous quantity of information".

Our congratulations to Frances for what was a well-deserved award.

9 October 2009: Murray River Country
Jessica Weir's Murray River Country (our role: edit and style for typesetting) has attracted a heap of attention since its launch at the Melbourne Writers Festival by actor, radio and TV presenter John Doyle. Published by Aboriginal Studies Press, Murray River Country has already been positively reviewed in Eureka Street, which commented on its 'intellectual rigour combined with good writing and a solid grounding in a real, urgent, and quite possibly insoluble problem'.

2 October 2009: Wanted: writers black, white and brindle
The University of Ballarat Aboriginal Education Centre and the Professional Writing & Editing Program will host the National Black, White & Brindle Writer's Conference from 11 to 13 November 2009. The conference, which opens with the launch of the anthology Those Moments, will include writing workshops, forums and networking opportunities for writers of all genres.

The press release states that 'Styles will include: Poetry, Fiction, Writing for Youth, Short Story, Play-writing, Screen-writing, Novel-writing, Non-Fiction, Journalism (Feature/News), Research / Historical, Travel writing & Auto-Biographical writing. There are various themes writers are welcome to consider, such as Self-Determination, Healing, Journeying Out and Returning to Country.

28 September 2009: 2010 Residential Editorial Program
Robyn Sheahan-Bright sends me news of the 2010 Residential Editorial Program. The program, supported by the Australian Publishers Association and the Literature Board of the Australia Council, is in its sixth season. The program offers an editor a intensive five-day program to develop literary editing skills. It takes place at Varuna – the Writers' House in Katoomba, NSW over the five days of 3 to 8 May 2010. For more information, download the press release or contact Robyn on 07 4972 9760.

29 September 2009: The future of the book
Today's Blue Pencil (the newsletter of the Society of Editors (NSW), carries an item on the Australian Institute for the Future of the Book, which was launched at the Melbourne Writers Festival.

Blue Pencil says, 'Known as "if:book Australia", the Brisbane institute will promote new forms of digital publishing and explore ways to boost connections between writers and audiences. If you're intrigued by 'The Googlization of Everything', or can wrap your head around the post-paper concept of a book as 'a place (where readers, sometimes with authors, congregate)', then this might be the site for you.

It's funded by the Literature Board of the Australia Council and is there to inform writers about new opportunities to create and publish digital content. Interested? Then go to futureofthebook for a sticky.

2 September 2009: Indigenous Literacy Day
Indigenous Literacy Day is the main fundraising event for the Indigenous Literacy Project. The ILP is a partnership between the Australian Booksellers Association, the Australian Publishers Association and The Fred Hollows Foundation, and it aims to improve the poor literacy rates of people in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Apart from a host of events and activities across the nation, participating booksellers and publishers will donate 5% of their takings on the day to the fund

August 2009: CATE Workshop, Canberra
Off to chilly Canberra for the Cultural Awareness Training for Editors workshop, sponsored by AIATSIS and hosted by Aboriginal Studies Press.

Over two days a bunch of editors and publishers discussed the particular concerns of working on Indigenous texts (or is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander texts?), intellectual property rights, attribution and community ownership of stories, among (many) other things. The esteemed guests included lawyer and IP advocate Terri Janke and author Jennifer Martiniello.

I presented a worskhop with Peter Johnson (co-author Cleared Out) titled "Vision, Compromise and Negotiation". We discussed the collaborative process of creating the book, from Sue Devenport's oral history project in a remote Punmu schoolroom in 1987 to the book's realisation almost 20 years later.

July 2009: Meeting the Cumbrian SfEP
On holiday in England, I took the opportunity to meet up with members of the Cumbria branch of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. It was really interesting to swap stories; seems the concerns of editors in New South Wales are exactly the same as those in Cumbria.

Pictured here at the Angler's Arms, Haverthwaite, are (l to r) Teresa Brady, Mark MacLean, Rosemary Anderson, Ali Turnbull (of Fit to Print) and Gerard Hill (Much Better Text).

June 2009: Hunter editors meet
The last day of the financial year was not spent in stocktaking or bookkeeping for everyone; a small group of Hunter Valley editors met for the first of what will become regular quarterly meetings. Organised by Lesley MacCulloch, of Birch Writing Solutions, six editors met for lunch at Customs House, Newcastle. Seen here are (l to r) Maria Roberts, Robyn Wilkie, Mark MacLean, Margaret Steinberger, Lesley MacCulloch and Linda Sablatura.

May 2009: Contact!
Award-winning book Cleared out has been translated for the big screen. Contact was produced and directed by Martin Butler and Bentley Dean, with the full cooperation of Yuwali, Sue Davenport and Peter Johnson, and premiered at the Sydney Film Festival on 4 June. Read the review in the Sydney Morning Herald's The Vine.

April 2009: Balgo School Attendance Award
Looking for a novel way to make a difference to the lives of some remote Australians?
By sponsoring the Balgo School Attendance Award, you can support the great progress that Balgo (Wirrimanu) Community, in Western Australia, is making in developing the social capital of its young people. For a modest $100 you can sponsor the school's "Best Attendance" award.
For more information contact Maggie Kavanagh.

March 2009: Gayarragi, Winangali launch
Gayarragi, Winangali, an interactive multimedia resource for Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay, was launched at the Koori Centre, University of New South Wales, on 23 March 2009.
The resource was developed by a GY language team led by John Giacon, with David Nathan providing his technical expertise and Christine Bruderlin overseeing the design and project management.
Individuals can downlaod Gayarragi, Winangali for free, though institutions are requested to make a payment of $100.

December 2008: Stanner book launch
The Aboriginal Studies Press title An appreciation of difference: WEH Stanner and Aboriginal Australia, by Melinda Hinkson & Jeremy Beckett, was launched by Professor Marilyn Strathern (right) at the Ownership and Appropriation conference, Auckland New Zealand on Tuesday 11 December 2008. Read Marcia Langton's review of the book in The Australian.

November 2008: Muurrbay book launch
On 18 November 2008, Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Cooperative launched a series of books and resources for those learning and reviving the Aboriginal languages of the New South Wales north coast.
Bruderlin MacLean was closely involved in the development of production of two of the books: the Gumbaynggirr Dictionary and Learner's Grammar (Steve Morelli) and the Handbook of Aboriginal Languages of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory (Jim Wafer and Amanda Lissarrague).
The launch was a great celebration of the region's languages and cultures, and a wonderful opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new friends.

October 2008: Accreditation of Editors
The Institute of Professional Editors Ltd (IPEd) held its first accreditation exam in October 2008. The aim of accreditation is to create a scheme comparable with registration / accreditation schemes already established in professions, such as accounting, engineering, law, psychology and public relations. Results were announced in January 2009, and Mark MacLean was successful in becoming one of the first accredited editors in Australia.

July 2008: Galley Club
The Galley Club holds its annual awards to recognise excellence in the design, production and project management of publications. At the 32nd Annual Galley Club Awards, held in Sydney on 27 July 2008, the Natural Resources Commission Annual Report 2006/07 was Highly Commended in the category "Innovation in Publishing and Print". The report, designed and project managed by Christine Bruderlin and printed by Griffin Press, used recycled materials in a short-run digital environment.

February 2007: Cleared Out awards
One of the most enjoyable books we've worked on in recent times is Cleared Out: First contact in the Western Desert by Sue Davenport, Peter Johnson and Yuwali.
Cleared Out tells the story of Yuwali and her family who, in 1964, made their first contact with European Australians — patrol officers from the Woomera Rocket Range who were under instruction to clear the Western Desert area prior to the firing of the Blue Streak rockets by the British Government. Yuwali's story is interlaced with the official reports of the patrol, government correspondence, and photos taken at the time.
Cleared Out won the 2006 Western Australian Premier's Book Award and the History Award, and wasshort-listed for the Stanner Award.

October 2006: Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay & Yuwaalayaay launch
On 20 October 2006 three exciting new GYY language resources were launched at Coledale Community Centre in Tamworth: Dhiirrala Gamilaray!, a teacher-resource kit; Gaay Garay Dhadhin, the GY picture dictionary; and Guwaabal, the GY story CD-ROM.
Bruderlin MacLean was closely involved in the production of these, and several other GYY resources.