About

Editor's Sidebar was started in 1999 as a resource site aimed at Ontario journalists. It contained pages of information about words, facts, government contacts, and a host of other things editors and writers often need to find quickly. It even had information about each of the major and minor holidays for last-minute features.

The jewel in the crown, however, was the Book page. Each year I would attend the CBA trade show (Canadian Booksellers' Association) and collect the names of all books which were either by Ontario writers, or about Ontario places and events. This list was then organized into a database according to region so that book editors merely needed to click on their own city or town and find authors and subjects of local interest.

Alas, while Editor's Sidebar gained recognition and was listed as a resource on the Press Club of Canada's website, it was time-consuming and, as the years went by, Google became so efficient that the lists of resources were no longer as useful as they'd once been.

But I was loathe to give it up entirely, so instead I simply changed the focus.

The CBA trade show changed its name to Book Expo (ugh) and then stopped entirely, so there are no longer book lists. Some of the resources are still featured, but I no longer keep up the holiday information pages. 

And I've added a semi-regularly updated article blog. Items of general interest to news editors and writers are found on the home page. A separate series of articles dealing with grammar, writing guides, fact-checking tips and the like appear on the Tips & Tricks page. 

I've carried over the most popular of the general articles, but of course the comments stayed behind. Sorry about that. But as I said (and as those from the old site can no doubt tell), this is a better site and so sacrifices must be made.

I miss the old Editor's Sidebar, and I want to thank all those who helped shape it. 

It was fun. But the new Editor's Sidebar is proving to be fun too. 

Enjoy.