Since going freelance, it has become harder to justify attending publishing industry conferences – networking and learning opportunities aside, the return on investment has to be pretty much guaranteed before I’ll even consider booking my place, and even then it is the usual gasp and string of expletives at the sheer cumulative expense for a tiny business such as mine.
Instead, I look out for interesting conference reports that give me a flavour and encourage me to dig deeper, and the Scholarly Kitchen’s post reporting on the recent 2025 European Association of Science Editors (EASE) annual conference is exactly that: personal perspectives mixed with hand-picked topics that capture the essence of what went on (https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/06/17/editing-in-the-age-of-misinformation-a-report-on-the-2025-ease-conference/).
Something else that prompts some choice old Germanic phrases (after I have handed work back to my client, of course) is discovering that I have made a significant error, or failed to notice an existing error. Sadly, I cannot blame Titivillus, the medieval demon responsible for typos, who was said to hover over the shoulders of monastery scribes and force typos to appear … thank you to The Scholarly Kitchen once again for introducing me to the little bastard (https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/06/13/the-devil-is-in-the-details-specifically-titivillus-the-medieval-demon-of-typos/).
If you’re feeling a bit sweary yourself, then I hope you will enjoy Sentence First’s book spine poem, which confirms what I’ve always believed: swearing is good for you (https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2025/06/16/book-spine-poem-52-swearing-is-good-for-you/). Now **** off and get some work done.