Wordplay 30th Anniversary Celebrations, 2018
How did we at Wordplay celebrate our 30th anniversary?
Thanks for asking!
We organized a road trip/staff retreat to the Donkey Sanctuary of Canada near Puslinch, Ontario! (www.thedonkeysanctuary.ca)
How are editors like donkeys?
We’re gentle but stubborn . . . and we like to wear loose, casual trousers (editors, because we would wear pyjamas to work if it didn’t make us sleepy, and donkeys, because they keep the flies off their legs . . . so maybe that’s a little different).
Wordplay’s founder and president, Catherine Marjoribanks, with unidentified donkey.
We also celebrated by renewing our subscriptions to Microsoft Office 365, DropboxPlus, iCloud storage, and Quill and Quire. Because that’s how we roll . . . livin’ large!
Not a lot has changed at Wordplay since our 20th anniversary—we have the same office, many of the same clients (thanks a million, guys!), and we still operate amidst the exciting cut and thrust of Canada’s high-stakes book publishing world!
I regret to say, though, that one of our office cats, Sharif Ali Khat, has gone to his Eternal Reward, peacefully, at the age of 18. His elegant paw prints no longer adorn our authors’ manuscripts.
RIP Sharif Ali Khat
But our venerable (and cranky) friend Stardust is still with us, and she has been joined by the irrepressibly playful Kiki Celeste Armfeldt. They both tiptoe ever so helpfully over the keyboard and are remarkably accomplished paperweights.
THE WORDPLAY OFFICE CATS
Stardust
Kiki Celeste Armfeldt
And now . . .
The (Mostly) True History of Wordplay Creative Services (2008 to 2018): The Legend Lives On!
Another anniversary: Wordplay Creative Services is now celebrating 30 years of fine work in the thrilling, cutthroat world of Canadian book publishing!
When last we* reported to you, our fans and followers, it was 2008, and Wordplay had been in operation for twenty years, providing a wide range of editorial services including substantive and copy-editing, proofreading, indexing, and manuscript evaluation. Since then, the world has changed in dramatic ways. We’ve seen the subprime mortgage crisis and stock market collapse, the rise of WikiLeaks, the presidency of Barack Obama and the presidency of a reality TV show star, the government of Stephen Harper and then a prime minister who introduced a gender-balanced cabinet “because it’s 2015,” the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, the advent of the pussy-hat, and the birth of the #metoo movement. Change has come at a dizzying pace . . . and Wordplay Creative Services has been at the heart of it all! (Well, not really, but we did watch a lot of this on TV in between projects.)
In truth, from a company point of view, the last ten years have been very educational. Wordplay has delved into a broad range of subject matter. We’ve explored the business of restaurants, the science of consciousness, the lives of ptarmigans and golden eagles, the rise of Genghis Khan and the legacy of Northrop Frye, the social significance of the weekend, and how to properly pack a suitcase . . . and novels have taken us to Roman Britain, to France under the reign of Napoleon, to India at the creation of Pakistan, and back home to Toronto during World War I. With each project we learned a little something (and then promptly forgot 90 percent of it, unfortunately, that’s just how it goes!).
There have been many delightful moments in the last 10 years: meeting with authors (a rather more rare occurrence in these electronic-conversation days), jumping onto the Facebook bandwagon, sponsoring No Strings Theatre’s excellent production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, seeing our authors win awards and honours (and basking in the reflected glory!), and enjoying the kind appreciation from our authors and the honour of being included in their acknowledgments.
People continue to ask: What is the secret to your success? And I believe the answer is this: Repeat business! To work on numerous projects with an author is to build a relationship of trust and respect, and we are very grateful to the following authors for their continuing faith and goodwill.
Eric Walters: 38 titles in Young Adult fiction.
Jack Whyte: 15 titles in the Dream of Eagles series, the Templar trilogy, and the Guardian trilogy.
Sharon McKay: 12 titles in Young Adult fiction plus Good to Go (with Kim Zarzour).
Guy Gavriel Kay: 8 novels, including the books of the Sarantine Mosaic and the Under Heaven series.
Laura Scandiffio: 4 titles in Young Adult non-fiction.
Barbara Coloroso: 3 titles in non-fiction on the themes of parenting and ethics.
Pat Capponi: 3 titles in non-fiction exploring poverty and mental health advocacy.
And so, Wordplay Creative Services is looking forward to the next ten years. We hope to continue to learn, to refine our skills, and to appreciate the sweet, restful time in between projects.
*Yes, we all know it’s really just me, but in my fantasies the office is full of eager employees, and maybe even underpaid interns!
Wordplay Statistics
Founded: September 1988.
Number of Invoices Issued to Date: 900 (exactly, how about that?).
Age: A venerable 30 years old.
Founder and President: Catherine Marjoribanks (considerably more venerable).
Office Cats: Stardust, and Kiki Celeste Armfeldt.
Favourite lunchtime activity: Soup and a sandwich and watching an episode of Coronation Street.
Office hours: Variable, depending on the workload, the weather, and whether there was a cliffhanger on Coronation Street.
Favourite things about editing: Reading, and learning from an astonishing array of subjects and themes . . . and the virtual travel!
Favourite things about freelancing:
Working like a donkey, by which we mean in loose, casual trousers.
Distance from desk to nap is never greater than 5 metres.
The potential for long lunch hours when exciting things are happening on Coronation Street.
The proximity of cats.
What we have learned from the office cats: When the sun pours in and puddles on the carpet in just the right spot, anyone who is not napping looks very foolish indeed!
Wordplay 20th Anniversary Celebrations, 2008
How did we at Wordplay celebrate our 20th anniversary?
Look! We bought our employee a nice new office chair! After twenty years, we felt she deserved one. (The workplace health and safety complaints had nothing to do with it.)
We went crazy and bought a new mechanical pencil, too. Isn’t this a beauty?
And, of course, we had a cake! (We got it cheap—obviously someone forgot to pick it up from the bakery for Allison. Hey, her loss is our gain!)
And we didn’t forget catnip treats for the Office Cats, Stardust (below) and Sharif Ali Khat (left).
You’re welcome, guys!
Wordplay Statistics
First Address: 146A Garden Avenue, Toronto.
Current Address: 229 Fern Avenue, Toronto.
Number of Office Cats: 2, Sharif Ali Khat and Stardust.
Number of Invoices Issued To Date: 649.
Number of Invoices We’ve Been Stiffed On: 2 <cough, Stoddart, cough>.
Publishers We’ve Worked For: 29.
Manuscript Evaluations Written: 103.
Most Books Edited From a Single Author: 19 and counting (Eric Walters).
Author We’ve Worked With Over the Longest Span: Jack Whyte, beginning with his Dream of Eagles series in 1982 and continuing into 2008 with his Templar Knights series.
Non-book-publishing Clients We Have Worked For: Ontario Ministry of Skills Development; Commodore Business Machines; Ontario Office for Senior Citizens’ Affairs; CANCOPY; my School Board Trustee . . .
The Job That Got Away: Stompin’ Tom: Before the Fame (wish we could have edited this, but we were otherwise engaged).
Best Professional Perk: Meeting with figure-skating legend Kurt Browning at his hotel room. (I must have interrupted his shower because he answered the door wearing nothing but a towel!)
Other Best Professional Perk: Being invited to the TIFF red-carpet screening of Hurricane after working on the book it was based on, Lazarus and the Hurricane. I was able to meet Norman Jewison and got within about 30 feet of Denzel Washington!
Author We Get the Most E-mail From: Sharon McKay, because she knows if we start talking on the phone we’ll never stop!
Unfulfilled Ambition: To hear a publisher tell me that they are sending me to Lake Como, Italy, to work with George Clooney on a tell-all autobiography. We find ourselves strangely drawn to one another in the warmth of the Italian sunshine . . .
The (Mostly) True History of Wordplay Creative Services
In September 1988, Hurricane Gilbert swept through Jamaica and Mexico, causing billions of dollars in damages; a fire on the Ocean Odyssey drilling rig blazed in the North Sea; hundreds of thousands of Estonians rioted for independence, and angry militants protested the IMF and World Bank meetings in West Germany . . . and still the world cried out for more freelance editorial companies!
And so Wordplay Creative Services was born to meet this vital need.
Wordplay Creative Services was founded to provide a wide range of editorial services, including substantive and copy-editing, proofreading, indexing, and manuscript evaluation. The company was given its somewhat ambiguous name in case we* felt the urge to branch out into writing, or book promotion, or any number of other creative activities, or activities in support of creativity. “Keep your options open!” said the little voice. And it was right . . . as always (don’t you hate that?).
The little company struggled through some lean years, cutting its teeth on copy-editing assignments from James Lorimer and Company, manuscript evaluations from Penguin Books, proofreading legal judgments for Carswell Publishing, and taking on subcontracted work editing pamphlets for the Ontario Ministry of Skills Development. It wasn’t pretty, but we were there to learn, dammit!
After years of begging and pleading for work, however, Wordplay soon found itself operating at the pulsing nerve centre of the vibrant Canadian book publishing industry. There was no stopping us now! It was all courier deliveries and phone calls (later e-mail messages!) and late-night typing of style sheets. We had heard that publishing was a glamorous industry, and here was the proof!
The business has provided many memorable moments. Some were light-hearted: the charming lunches with Guy Kay; the hilarious (endless!) phone conversations with Sharon McKay; the conference call at the cottage with publisher, author, and lawyer when no one knew I was secretly in a bathing suit getting ready to jump in the lake. Others were inspirational: working on Run with Eric Walters and hearing his plans to institute a nation-wide Terry Fox Run for schoolchildren; piecing together Canada’s past in Canada: A People’s History; helping Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton write a book through group authorial consensus while working on Lazarus and the Hurricane; helping Barbara Coloroso shape her book on Parenting Through Crisis just as the Columbine shootings took place, practically in her own backyard in Colorado; sitting with Barbara Turnbull as we tried to make sense of the legal transcripts of the trial of the men whose gunshots had left her paralyzed years earlier. The authors have challenged us, inspired us, energized us, and often made us laugh and cry in the span of a single paragraph.
We here at Wordplay Creative Services would like to thank our clients for their faith in our professional skills—and their talent for paying their invoices on time . . . yes, especially for that.
People often ask us: What’s the key to your success? So here’s the answer: Volume. It’s all about the volume! Keep sending us those manuscripts!
Catherine Marjoribanks
President, Archivist, Unofficial Historian of Wordplay Creative Services
* Okay, it’s really just me, but isn’t it much more exciting to imagine an office buzzing with staff?