Freelance book editor all set to share her ‘upbeat passion’

Cheryl Cohen is offering an editing workshop on March 3.

Photo contributed

Freelance book editor Cheryl Cohen is asked about the publishing process so often that she is holding a one-day editing workshop at ArtSpring on Saturday, March 3.

“It’s for writers too, because knowing what’s going on — or what should be going on — can give writers an advantage when they have to deal with editors,” she says.

Cohen’s workshop will touch on many aspects of editing, which, she notes, can range from polishing news releases to restructuring book-length manuscripts. Workshop topics include what makes a good editor; substantive editing, copy editing and proofreading; the editor–writer relationship; tools and resources; how to become a professional editor or a good self-editor; why the future of editing looks bright; and some “hands-on” fun with editing.

Cohen has been a freelance editor since 1997. One of her most memorable assignments was copy-editing the tragi-comic manuscript of Miriam Toews’ multi-award-winning novel A Complicated Kindness for Knopf Canada within a couple of years of moving to Salt Spring in 2002.

As a freelance book editor she tackles nonfiction and textbook manuscripts as well as fiction. She did substantive and copy-editing work for Salt Spring’s Mother Tongue Publishing on Everything Was Good-bye, by Gurjinder Basran, which won British Columbia’s top fiction prize in 2011. She also worked for Penguin Canada on the nonfiction bestsellers Measuring the Earth with a Stick: Science as I’ve Seen It, by Bob McDonald, and Power: Journeys Across an Energy Nation, by Gordon Laird.

Registration for the editing workshop has started. The cost is $85 for early birds (with a $45 deposit by Feb. 3) or $100. Space is limited.

For more information or to register for the 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 3 event, email cherylcohen@shaw.ca or phone Cohen at 250-538-8172.

Her website is www.cherylcohen.ca