BY SUZANNE ALYSSA ANDREW
TRADITIONAL EDITING STANDARDS and practices give editors authority over whose work is published. Editors inluence word choices, tone, sentence clarity, and matters of form and structure. How heavyhanded or collaborative they are with their writers is an individual choice. But as more survivors of sexual assault publish stories and other works about their experiences, a new, more inclusive editorial approach is emerging.
Halifax-based poet Sue Goyette agreed to edit Resistance (Coteau Books), an anthology of poetry by survivors, in response to highproile sexual assault trials that started hitting the media in 2016. Goyette points out that survivors’ stories are often told in certain ways – both in the judicial system and in the broader culture – that can leave the survivors themselves with little dignity.