Each year, the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), the professional association that I belong to, runs a three-day conference that has become an unmissable event for me. I’ve only been attending SfEP’s annual conferences since 2016, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that even in that short span of time, the impact they’ve had on me is profound.
 
I attended my first SfEP conference a few months after leaving my previous job with a higher education news publisher to strike out on my own, and while I had 10 years of experience with that publisher, I wasn’t sure how well that experience would translate into the fiction and academic proofreading and copy-editing I wanted to pursue. So when the SfEP Forum and my local group in London started buzzing about the upcoming 2016 conference, I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to brush up on some of my self-taught-in-a-hurry-on-the-job editorial skills.
 
The conference was indeed that, and so much more. The speakers were first-rate, and each session felt like an editorial masterclass. I was also amazed at the collegiality and encouragement I saw all around me. Far from guarding their secrets, delegates were eagerly sharing the best practices they’d developed for everything from creating the perfect style sheet to securing repeat business from clients. At the sessions and while chatting with people during meals and coffee breaks, I learned new tips and techniques, but I also gained a sense of belonging among this group of talented and generous people from all over the UK and the world. Upon hearing that I didn’t have a hotel room of my own, the wonderful Helen Stevens invited me to be her roommate for an hour so that I wouldn’t have to change for the gala dinner in the public loos!
 
I had been able to afford only a one-day ticket for the 2016 conference, but I was determined to attend for all three days the following year. I excitedly booked my place and registered for sessions at the 2017 conference. And when Lucy Ridout put out a call for 5-minute Lightning Talk speakers, I decided to volunteer, buoyed by how much I’d enjoyed my first conference. Like many SfEP members, I get nervous about public speaking, but I could not have asked for a friendlier audience. The experience taught me that each of us has something to contribute to this community, and I remember that lesson whenever imposter syndrome rears its ugly head.
 
I now live in Toronto, and I still make attending SfEP conferences a priority. I was one of four Toronto SfEP members who flew in for the recent 2018 SfEP annual conference, and I led an hour-long session on editing erotic fiction — something that pre-SfEP me would have never believed I could do. The 2018 conference featured sessions on everything from medical editing, inclusive language and editing in the EU to growing your business, not to mention late-night tea and wine parties with colleagues-turned-friends.
 
Small wonder, then, that I’ve had my place booked for the 7 November 2018 SfEP mini-conference in Toronto for weeks now. The one-day mini-conference, organised by Janelle Bowman, Janet MacMillan and Kelly Lamb from the Toronto SfEP group, boasts an impressive roster of speakers from the Canada, the UK and the US, and I can’t wait to learn from, be inspired by and have fun with them!

Imagine that you're editing a novel, merrily making your way through a story that you quite like. It has memorable characters, an engaging and well-paced story, beautifully described settings, and is altogether an enjoyable read. But something about the story feels tiresome, and at first you can't quite pinpoint what it is. You look over your character notes, and somehow you feel a certain narrowness of perspective from the characters, as fleshed out and distinct as they are. Then it hits you: this is a story about white guys.

I'm hardly the first person to bang the drum for more diversity in literature, and in recent years there has been wider recognition of the value of hearing different stories from different types of people with different perspectives. Some people may still miss the point and kvetch about 'heavy-handed message fic' taking over genres like science fiction and fantasy, but with thankfully little credibility.

Perhaps this is why I feel disappointed when an otherwise good story is populated with a cast of cisgendered, heterosexual, able-bodied, white, male-identified characters. Sure, it may have a couple of characters who don't fit that profile as love interests or to help or hinder the white guys in their adventures, but ultimately the stories are not theirs. We've all heard this complaint before, and as readers the only way we can encourage diversity in literature is with our wallets.

As an editor, however—and especially as an editor who works with independent authors—it's my job to help shape the story (and not just in a postmodern 'Death of the Author' kind of way) before it reaches the general public. The question then becomes one of remit: I am the editor of this story, not the author. Ultimately the author has the final say over the content of their text, and a story about a white guy may be the story that they want to tell. Of course, anyone wishing to write that kind of story—and anyone wishing to read it—is perfectly welcome to do so. To mangle a phrase: some of my favourite literary characters are white guys. My job is not to tell authors that they can't, or shouldn't, write about white men.

My job is to make each text as clear and appealing to its intended audience as possible. And if I'm doing developmental or structural editing on a work of fiction then that job can include tactfully querying whether it's vital to the story that all the cis, het, able-bodied white dudes possess all of those characteristics. I might mention the fact that their story could attract a wider readership if more readers saw themselves represented in it, and I might point out that their work is more likely to stand out if it's not confined to an over-saturated market of white-guy stories.

But the best reason to write greater diversity into a story, in my opinion, is that it reflects the diversity of the real world. Even if your story is set on another planet or in a fantastical universe, your readers are right here and they have to live in the world as it is, with all its diversity. Fiction can let each of them tell their stories.