A Sixth Anniversary Article - What is it like to be an editor? Sree Gururaja

While I do not exactly remember the date when I joined the four (?) editors of XUNICEF News and Views, I ‘ve been with them at least five years. Living in a different time zone from the others had its advantages. You could always work at night and catch up fulfilling the deadlines . At the same time, be the first one to respond pronto to messages and drafts drinking my morning coffee. However, this  did become a problem when we held our Friday meetings , as 12 noon New York time which in winters is late, 10.30 pm in Bangalore but we managed.

The fun part for all of us was how we evolved moving from one format to another seamlessly. For instance, we moved out of the newsletter to the Quarterly which were more as Special Issues on a selected topic. We introduced ‘interactive’ features- Zoom sessions, Ten questions, Quiz, a Quick Chat, Ditty challenge - which enhanced exchange, 'personalized’ and added cheer to our weekly newsletters. 

For me,  2021 was the most challenging year, it was interesting, dynamic, busy, creative and productive year. We started the year, by offering our sincere support to UNICEF in their weekly broadcasts in the observance of the 75th anniversary during the year forging connections between DOC with the  veterans, the movers and shakers in our XUNICEF network. Then, we decided to do something special. There would be FOUR issues, one each for 25 year periods and the last issue for the future 25 years. We spent hours on Zoom and email, in planning, selection of themes, topics and the related search for writers, illustrators and narrators from the past 75 years. The challenge was seeking contacts and email addresses as well as  follow through correspondence and we managed. We were back “ at work”full speed, enjoying the thrill of being back in a team enterprise with ambitious commitment for colourful and comprehensive FOUR issues. I reproduce here the piece (click!) I wrote recording the team’s experience for the Blog in June 2021.

Click here to read The Editor's Notebook, by Sree.