Tracks and Sessions Overview

Editors often need to create several versions of a document, and plain language versions are becoming more prevalent. Whether one has been utilizing plain language for years or is new to the concept, attendees will become more familiar and confident in utilizing plan language in all types of content. Topics will include: why plain language improves comprehension; accessibility benefits of plain language; busting the myth that plain language “dumbs things down;” before-and-after editing examples; and how to make complex topics easier to understand without sacrificing accuracy.

In the latest of my longtime math presentation, I focus on the importance of the precision of numbers and the words surrounding numbers. We'll cover percentages (because they're everywhere) but also discuss paying attention to the precise use of numbers in such things as the interpretation of news, laws or even tax code, to say nothing of metric conversion. We won't be doing complex formulas, but we might nerd out just a little. That includes drawing on a few neat lessons from the old math books collected by the late ACES leader, editing mentor, and math enthusiast Henry Fuhrmann.

Many editors are experimenting with AI tools, and many have probably wondered about building an AI editorial assistant based on a real-world style guide and then evaluating its performance over time.
In this session, I will share a case study of creating an AI-powered editorial assistant trained on an organization’s house style and editing standards. Attendees will see where the tool successfully improved consistency and efficiency, where it could have introduced errors, and where human editorial judgment remained essential. (It always will remain essential!)
Using examples drawn from editorial workflows, we’ll examine the strengths and limitations of AI-assisted editing, discuss common implementation mistakes, and explore practical strategies editors can use to maintain quality while incorporating new technologies into their processes.
Attendees will leave with a realistic understanding of how AI can support editorial work, where editors provide irreplaceable value, and how to evaluate AI tools critically rather than accepting or rejecting them as a whole.

Style sheets, style guides, house styles, and lexicons all exist to solve similar problems: recording decisions, communicating expectations, and supporting consistency. Yet editors use these resources in remarkably different ways. The boundaries between them are often blurred, and the challenge is not simply documenting decisions but ensuring those decisions are applied consistently.
Over the past two decades, Daniel Heuman and Tom Waddell have worked with thousands of editors and editorial teams, observing a wide range of approaches to managing editorial standards. In this session, they will share patterns, challenges, and lessons learned from those experiences while inviting attendees to reflect on and compare their own approaches.
The session will also examine the gap between documenting decisions and implementing them. The focus will be on different forms of automation. In particular, PerfectIt users will learn ways to ensure editorial decisions are systematically applied in their own projects and organizations.
Attendees will leave with practical ideas they can apply to their own editorial workflows.
Declaration: Daniel Heuman is the creator of PerfectIt (a tool used by more than a thousand professional editors around the world). Tom Waddell is the creator of Styleworks (a tool used for building style sheets and house styles into PerfectIt). There will be hundreds of PerfectIt users at VCON. This session is intended for those existing users who will get a chance to learn from the creators of the tools. There is no commercial motive since they are already customers.

Do you have a business website? Write a blog? Send emails? Post on social media? If you produce digital content for your business, accessibility should be part of your process. According to the CDC, 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. live with a disability. Digital accessibility is not only the right thing to do, but also it benefits all users of your content. If you have ever read a transcript of a podcast rather than listen to it, or used captions in a noisy environment, you've benefited from digital accessibility!
In this session, you will get a brief introduction to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 and learn about common accessibility barriers for all digital content. I’ll cover tools for testing your current content, techniques for creating accessible content, and steps you can implement immediately.

Clients remember far more than your edits. Every email, proposal, invoice, and follow-up shapes their experience of your business. This session explores how freelancers can design an editorial practice in which every touchpoint — from inquiry emails to project tracking to marketing calendars--supports both the client experience and the business behind it. Together, we'll examine practical systems that replace repeated decisions with repeatable workflows.

We'll explore three areas of practice:

• Create Consistency: Develop templates for inquiries, pricing, agreements, editorial communication, and client onboarding.
• Create Visibility: Use simple tracking tools to monitor projects, opportunities, revenue, and business goals.
• Create Momentum: Build calendars that support marketing, professional development, newsletters, and other long-term efforts without relying on inspiration alone.

Participants will leave with a framework for identifying recurring tasks and turning them into repeatable workflows. Whether you're launching a freelance practice or refining an existing one, thoughtful systems can free up more time and mental energy for the work that matters most: editing.

The session will discuss the different ways that freelance editors can find work, including through networking (with examples of where to go online and in person), online platforms (Upwork/Fiverr, Reedsy, etc.), organizations (and that most have member profiles potential clients can search, as well as job lists), social media (which platforms are best for which kind of freelance editing niches and how to attract clients through the platforms), in-person methods, and letters of interest (LOIs), detailing each. I'll also provide anecdotal information about the various ways that have worked for me and other freelance editors I've discussed this with. This would be under the business of editing umbrella, and beginners would probably get the most out of the session, though some not-so-new editors may find useful tidbits too.

As a next step in their careers, seasoned editors may transition into organizing training sessions. This shift can be overwhelming at first — especially for editors who lack formal education in event planning. With more than 50 educational sessions under her belt, Milly Vega will walk editors through the process of organizing a training session. Attendees will receive a toolkit with a three-step framework and templates they can adapt to complete tasks, so nothing gets lost during the organization process. Suitable for both in-house and freelance editors.

The rise of artificial intelligence has sparked reactive polarization across the publishing industry. Yet, for editors and publishers managing the contemporary landscape, a reactionary stance is rarely a viable business strategy. Moving past the knee-jerk discourse requires a grounded, systematic framework rooted in applied ethics. Led by an applied ethicist and independent publisher, this session bypasses industry panic to scope the actual ethical matrix of AI tool integration.
Participants will first establish a baseline technical vocabulary, demystifying how large language models (LLMs) operate and distinguishing between generative and non-generative utility. From this foundation, we will trace the core ethical concerns animating the industry — from the systemic copyright and labor anxieties surrounding initial LLM training sets to the immediate nuances of day-to-day manuscript editing.
Rather than prescribing a rigid moral mandate, this educational session charts the intersection of everyday editing applications and their corresponding ethical pressure points. Attendees will be equipped with a comprehensive "menu of ethical decision points," enabling them to evaluate their own workflows and empowering them to establish clear, defensible boundaries.
Finally, we will examine the structural necessity of transparent organizational guidelines, analyzing real-world policy implementations from Whisper House Press to demonstrate how one independent publisher balances technological evolution with creative integrity, always aiming to protect human creativity.

If you've ever turned down an editing job that seemed too large or had too tight a deadline for you, this presentation will help you to start quoting and accepting them. Olivia Wroth will present practical steps for editors to be able to take on larger editing projects with an editing team. These projects can be financially lucrative and rewarding in terms of working successfully with a good team. Olivia has several years' experience of successfully tendering for and running large publishing projects with a team, and looks forward to discussing the methods she has learnt on the job. Olivia will cover quoting and tendering, types of projects suitable for a team, how to gather and manage a team, and how to manage document control, client and team communication, style guides and style sheets.

From the humble spell-check to AI products like Grammarly, copyediting tools are becoming easier than ever to integrate into everyday workflows. But if you’re a copy editor or have ever done copyediting, you know how important it is to get real human eyes on something (not just ChatGPT with the persona of “copy editor with 20 years of experience”). So how do you convince your colleagues that a copy desk has value? And how do you build a team of copy editors that won’t be easily replaced by AI? In this presentation, SFGATE copy desk chief Victoria Sepulveda covers how she built a copy desk team for the digital newsroom from the ground up, and how she ensures the viability of that copy desk into the long term. You should leave this presentation with an understanding of how to build a new team or expand your existing copyediting operations, how to advocate with management and non-editors for copyediting, and how to integrate a 21st century copy desk in an increasingly digital media world.

The secret to getting more done isn't managing your time — it's managing your attention. From launch rituals to understanding your chronotype to ADHD-friendly strategies, you'll hear about practical, evidence-based techniques that can make your workday easier and more effective. We'll talk about how rest is an essential part of long-term productivity and how the right kinds of breaks can fuel efficiency. Help "Future You" build habits that support sustained focus.

Flagxiety (the fear of being falsely accused of using gen AI to write or edit) is running rampant. Otherwise confident authors and editors are second-guessing their choices, afraid that their hard work will be mistaken for AI. Repetitive sentence structure, rote phrasing — even a single em dash: All can generate apprehension. In this session, we’ll look at common causes of flagxiety, how to calm an anxious author, and how to judiciously employ AI-coded patterns in a way that is definitively human.

Editing for a nonprofit association requires skills in addition to the sharp eye and facility with language that all good editors possess. Each association is unique in its mission, its audience, and its approach, so it is essential for an editor to understand each of these elements and apply that understanding to their work. Editors working for associations need to know a little bit about a lot of things: brand identity, mission alignment, volunteer management, audience engagement, and more.
This session will provide an introduction to editing in an association context, breaking it down into three key questions: Who is your organization? Who are your writers? Who is your audience? For each topic, this session will share real examples and advice for editors working with associations, including insights into organizational values and style guides, working with subject matter experts, and advocating for a specific audience. Attendees freelancing for association clients or exploring a career in association editing will leave this session with a better understanding of associations and the technical and soft skills needed to edit for them.

For a growing number of editors, using AI is no longer optional; it’s an expectation set by their employer. There is pressure to not just adopt the tools but to overhaul workflows around them, accelerate turnaround times, and increase output, all while protecting the quality their organizations depend on. This panel moves past the familiar debates about ethics and prompting basics to a more urgent question: When AI is mandated, how do editors reshape their role to steer its use rather than be sidelined by it?
Three corporate professionals share how they are shaping AI usage in their organizations. Senior Editor Anna Doré edits for a large editorial department undergoing an AI-led transformation; Senior Communications Manager Sarahni Pecson builds internal frameworks and cross-team strategies that drive her company’s AI culture forward; and Senior Editor Nathan Miller helps authors use AI when off-the-shelf tools are off-limits. Together, they show how editors can maintain ownership of editorial standards throughout each new wave of AI adoption.
All three are actively shaping the culture of AI use in their companies, offering real-time feedback as their roles shift month to month. Panelists give an honest look at where they’ve made progress and where work remains, and attendees will leave with actionable tips for carving out a place in their company’s AI future. AI will not eliminate the corporate editor’s job, but editors must claim a seat at the table by proactively redefining their role to support corporate AI initiatives using their unique skills.