I used to get into trouble for reading.
My mother would call my name 4, 5, 10 times, trying to yank my attention away from the pages my nose was buried in. Luckily, she never stayed mad for long, and I never stopped reading. I began writing, too, as readers often do; that pursuit led me to my first Creative Writing class at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, B.C. While I enjoyed developing my writing skills (which I still do every day), the best part of that class for me was editing my fellow students’ work.
After a semester at UBC I transferred to Mount Royal University in Calgary, where I eventually got my undergrad in English Lit. I took all the creative writing classes available to me, eventually co-editing the Advanced Poetry class project, a collection of poetry we’d written throughout the term. Knowing I wanted to be an editor, I then set my sights on the Publishing Program at the University of Stirling.
Before I could get my toes into the MLitt, though, I had to get a graduate diploma in Media & Humanities; here I was fortunate enough to be able to pursue a research topic of my choosing. Naturally, I chose to study what I love, and wrote ~15,000 words on Editing in the Creative Writing Workshop.
Currently, in the MLitt Publishing program, I’m learning everything necessary to be the editor extraordinaire I know I am fated to be. Getting comfortable with InDesign is especially enjoyable for me, and not an area I thought I’d be particularly good at … proof that one doesn’t need to be an artist to understand (and love) great design.
In other news, I’m super into Craft Beer, Tarantino movies, tweeting about books and cats and Canada, and Shakespeare (duh?).
twitter: @BeaJoubert
instagram: Bea Joubert
