Erika Westman's Blog

How essential is Facebook, really?

3/21/2018

Social media is a key part of publishing and communications work. I would almost say essential. But I grew up in a time when no one had home computers. I got my first email address when I was in university, and I was on the vanguard when I set up a freenet account. Back then, people used telephones that had wires attached to a jack in the wall, and mail came through the post. It seems quaint now, but it worked, and I dare say that if you really want to get someone's attention a phone call is still probably the best way to reach them.

The big difference now is that we have more communication tools to choose from: email, websites, social media, phones, mobile data, good old fashioned letters, and let's not forget print media. I still prefer to have something in my hands to read, like a book or a Saturday morning paper.

But choices are often dictated by larger social patterns and movements, markets and cultures. In publishing, it would be hard to choose communication tools that did not involve social media sites like Facebook. And yet, that's exactly what I chose to do this week. I deleted my Facebook account.

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Pre-authorized writer Kirsten Bédard published by Cormorant Books

2/5/2018

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Send your congratulations Kirsten Bédard in the comments below! Her book Read This Before You Diet was published this past December (2017) by Cormorant Books, and launched a couple of weeks ago at Ben McNally.

I talked with Kirsten a couple of years ago about how her work was coming together. The book was a true labour of love, and it's great to see the final product out in the world. The video on the right is a flashback to our conversation from 2015.

Read This Before You Diet is the culmination of Kirsten's twenty years’ experience as a nutrition and exercise coach, plus more than two years in the library with pen and paper.

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Bias-free writing for uncertain times: Part 2

1/26/2018

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Self-identification is crucial to respectful and accurate cover of Indigenous people and communities. Ask what they prefer to be called.” -- Lenny Carpenter, Style Guide for Reporting on Indigenous Peoples

We are witnessing a cultural shakedown right now. The old rules on gender and race are undergoing major transitions, and how we use language is changing too. Updates to the toolkit for bias-free writing are more important than ever for writers and editors. Simply put, language that offends people is going to put your credibility on the line.

In my last blog post, I talked about the techniques writers and editors can use to avoid gender bias. In this post, I’m going to take a closer look at bias in relation to Indigenous Peoples.

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Bias-free writing for uncertain times: Part 1

1/17/2018

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When I launched my editing business in 2015, I wrote down my mission: To help create quality books that make life better for readers, by offering up informed stories - true or fictional - that build empathy, wonder, and hope. Those guiding words seem even more relevant today than they were back in 2015, before the world was subjected to such heavy doses of He Who Cannot Be Named, as I tend to call him (and I don’t mean Lord Voldemort).

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