I must be mad. What the hell possessed me? I read the call for speakers from the Chartered Institute for Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) for their 2026 annual conference, and began thinking dangerous thoughts about ‘shaking things up a bit’ and ‘raising my profile’. Almost without realising, I had bashed out an outline and clicked ‘Send’.
Days later, I had pretty much dismissed the idea, convinced my proposal was a pile of – well, you know. To my stupefied amazement, it was accepted. So with quivering hands, I am officially stepping up to confirm that I will be speaking at the CIEP 2026 conference on Saturday 12 September, to deliver my session on ‘Insights from medical communications: Teamwork, negotiation and asserting editorial authority’.
It’ll be sideways glance at the med comms industry culture through the eyes of a career editor: what it takes, how it works, the essential lessons I’ve learned about giving feedback and upholding editorial authority, justifying editorial time, and becoming an asset to the team. We may even have some fun along the way with a little audience participation!
Check out what the CIEP conference has to offer at https://www.ciep.uk/events/ciep-conference-2026.html, and maybe I’ll see you there – it’ll be wonderful to meet up again with so many like-minded individuals. I’m trusting that my contribution will be a edifying learning experience for me, as well as for the delegates, who hopefully won’t think it’s a pile of – well, you know …