The October 12th meeting of EFA Los Angeles Area chapter was a panel discussion in collaboration with our host, Loyola Marymount University’s English Department, as part of their Mastering the Next Step speaker series for graduate students. The meeting was attended by EFA members and guests as well as students from LMU interested in entering the editorial field.

On the panel were editors active in the LA chapter—Naomi Eagleson and Guadalupe Montana—and two members of LMU’s English department faculty, K. J. Peters and Julia Lee. Naomi heads the Artful Editor, a team of editorial professionals working across multiple genres and audiences. Guadalupe is an academic editor working with graduate students. Professors Peters and Lee are both published authors, and they spoke of their experiences working with editors to bring their works to fruition.

Moderator Linda Ruggeri asked the panel a prepared list of questions and probed their minds and memories for a wide-ranging perspective on editor-author relationships and what makes for a successful collaboration. A Q&A followed, eliciting a number of questions from curious future editors, as well as from some veterans.

This was the first experiment in this kind of event for the LA chapter, and we were pleased with the depth of the discussion and the usefulness of the information. We also feel that we have established a new working relationship with LMU and hope to do the panel again with them next year. We also came away with a list of things we believe will make the next event even more successful.

Janet Long
Los Angeles Chapter Co-Coordinator