In a touching bequest from former publishing identities Margaret and Ted Forde, an annual scholarship from 2016-2019 will enable New Zealand publishers to further their careers by attending the annual Yale Publishing course.
Woodhurst E Forde (Ted) and his wife, Margaret came to New Zealand from Glasgow where they had both worked at William Collins & Sons. Ted was in charge of publishing in the Bible Department and Margaret was secretary to Ian Collins, the Vice-Chairman of the company. They decided they wanted a change and contacted the New Zealand branch of the company. On their arrival in the late 1950s Ted was employed by the company to produce non-fiction books and Margaret was secretary to the Managing Director.
When Ted retired, Margaret did too, but they continued to publish for William Collins on a freelance basis. After Ted’s death, Margaret continued editing and proof-reading for David Bateman Ltd, the publishers in Auckland. On her death in 2014, she left a legacy to fund the scholarship. With a value of NZ $13,000 per annum the W.E and M.L Forde Publishing Scholarship is available to one publisher per year for the next 3 years to attend the Yale Book Publishing course held in mid-July on the Yale University Campus.
Sam Elworthy attended the course when he was based in the US. “I’d been in publishing more than a decade when I did the Yale Publishing Course and I learned a whole lot—from outstanding Yale Business School lecturers; from major figures, young and old, from US publishing who were the presenters; and from other participants in the course. You live in, you talk publishing 24/7, you gain a bigger vision,” he says.
David Bateman’s Associate Publisher Tracey Borgfeldt attended the Yale course earlier this year and says she would highly recommend the programme for anyone in middle or senior levels in publishing, across all areas including finance, editorial, marketing or sales.
“The valuable aspect of the YPC is the calibre of the participants. There were around 68 on this course, the majority overseas, with maybe 25 to 30 from the US. There was a lot of sharing of information and contact details and I would feel comfortable contacting them, or the speakers, in the future. If the person attending was wanting to extend their international network, this is the place to do it,” Tracey believes. Read Tracey’s full report from Yale here.
Applications are open now to PANZ members and they close on 30th October. To download a copy of the application form go to the training page of the PANZ website.
Any queries contact katherine@publishers.org.nz
