I am Vivek Kumar and I am blessed to be a copyeditor. I work from my home office in Delhi NCR, India, and edit medical journal articles, something I have been doing in my freelance role since December 2010. Before that I was part of Aptara (Senior Manager, Copyediting) from August 16, 1999, to December 10, 2010. For a brief period in between I also worked with SPi (now Straive) at its Delhi office as Senior Manager, Copyediting.

Copyediting is something that not everybody can do and also not something that everybody can be taught. I was fortunate to have Dr Anantharaman Venkataraman as my boss whose on-the-job training modules in copyediting (particularly language editing) made me what I am—a pretty good copyeditor but still not the ideal one (not that it exists, it does not!).

I was doubly fortunate to have Karen Judd (author of Copyediting: A Practical Guide) as my friend, philosopher, and guide. I came in touch with her when I reviewed the second edition of her book and gave her a few suggestions, which she graciously accepted.

I started the Facebook group Indian Copyeditors Forum: The Forum for Editors (ICF) in June 2015, and its aim is to share knowledge, ideas, thoughts, and resources among its members (2800+ as of June 17, 2023).

The group encourages freelance and full-time editors to engage in active networking and hopes to create a culture of meaningful and sustained interaction. We invite editors to share successes and pitfalls of freelancing, give warnings (always discreetly), ask questions, and discuss oddly written sentences, other editorial bugbears, and any other professional concerns.

For the last 3 years, we have been engaged in bringing out a series of books for editors, and our first book will be out by the end of June 2023.

I am glad to be associated with the Indian chapter of EASE.