ACES: The Society for Editing is delighted to announce that Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett will be speaking at ACES 2024 San Diego: Unleashing Creativity, ACES' 28th annual national conference.
They will be the keynote speakers at the conference's annual Awards Banquet, held this year on Friday, April 5.
Barnette and Barrett are co-hosts of “A Way with Words," a call-in public radio show about language that's heard across the country and around the world via broadcast and podcast.
"We are so fortunate to be holding our ACES conference where Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett are living and working so they can easily come talk to us," said Neil Holdway, president of the ACES Board of Directors. "They bring such vast and deep expertise in language, and anybody who knows them and their radio show also knows that they bring so much fun to the field."
"We are thrilled that Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett will be our official keynote speakers," said Gigi Sutton, ACES executive director. "They are our people and we couldn't be more excited to have them join us for this special event. Get ready for an inspiring and enlightening experience as we welcome these language enthusiasts to our ACES family."
Barnette is a journalist and author of several books on language. Barrett is a dictionary editor and linguist specializing in slang and new words.
Together, they use "A Way with Words" to look at language through the lenses of culture, history, and family in order to reveal human connections across eras, generations, cultures, and languages. They believe that treating people with humanity is a part of really knowing how language works. That means that language and respect, fairness, and justice are tied together.
They bring these understandings to their public radio show and podcast by discussing language debates, and variations and evolution of language, as well as new words, old sayings, slang, family expressions, word histories, etymology, linguistics, regional dialects, word games, grammar, books, literature, writing, and more.
"I'm looking forward to being among kindred spirits who understand both the challenges of word-wrangling and the joy when every word snaps into exactly the right place," said Barnette.
She and Barrett will also be two-thirds of the Spelling Bee judges, along with Andy Hollandbeck, senior managing editor at The Saturday Evening Post and the 2023 Spelling Bee champ.
Learn more about the 2024 Spelling Bee
ACES: The Society for Editing
ACES: The Society for Editing is the nation’s leading organization of editing professionals, educators, and students. Founded in 1997 by copy editors, ACES is dedicated to improving the quality of the written word and the working lives of editors. It sets standards of excellence and gives a voice to editors in journalism, government, business, publishing, and beyond through top-notch training, networking, and career opportunities. ACES hosts an annual in-person conference and, since 2022, an annual virtual conference. ACES Academy hosts monthly webinars. ACES also offers certificates in editing, which it co-hosts with The Poynter Institute, a global leader in journalism.
