News

from the Division Administrator

TRANSLATED BY ROMINA MARAZZATO SPARANO

It’s been a busy few months. We have been reinvigorated by the support and enthusiasm of colleagues and Division members, to whom I am eternally grateful. We are implementing some tried-and-true initiatives and developing some new ones.

Let’s start with our general administration. Every year, the gears of the ATA’s organizational machine start turning well in advance of the annual conference. Of course, an event involving over a hundred presentations and guest speakers for well over a thousand attendees from across the globe could hardly happen otherwise. I bet that the kids in Alexandria (in Italy, we still call people “kids”… practically until just before retirement!) collapse into bed for a week after each conference! Part of their job is to communicate with the Divisions through the Division Administrators and Leadership Council (a small group of colleagues who help and advise the Administrator and the Assistant Administrator) and to share information, ask and answer questions, and tell us about side events. These are also part of my responsibilities as ATA Division Administrator, and I’ll talk more about them below.

This year, the conference will be held in Palm Springs from October 23 to 26. On the official website—kept up-to-date —you can find information about all aspects of the conference, from the list of speakers and sessions to links for booking a room at the conference hotel and information about nearby restaurants and bars. Why spend money to go to Palm Springs in October, in the world of digital communications and hyper-connectivity? Read why you should attend the conference according to our colleague Romina Marazzato Sparano in the article.

What does the Italian Division do at the conference? Well, in keeping with all this new activity, we tried to encourage colleagues to share a presentation specific to Italian or about other areas of interest. And things have started to happen. So far, we have one presentation specific to Italian, and, I believe several of us will be presenting on different topics with examples related to Italian. We will keep you informed through social media (the Division’s Facebook page, Twitter account, and Gmail mailing list). It is important that those of us attending the conference give the Division’s support to our colleagues who have invested their time preparing a presentation: friendly faces and a clap from the audience are always a pleasure! And afterwards, of course, we can all get together for a drink and maybe a dinner!

And now for the icing on the cake. We invited a guest speaker of great interest this year, and we are thrilled that she has agreed to come and talk to us: Ann Goldstein, the translator of the My Brilliant Friend four-part series by Elena Ferrante. Instrumental to the great success of this work in the English-speaking world, Goldstein has also translated other Italian authors, including Leopardi (Zibaldone), Pasolini, and Baricco, and coordinated the translation of Primo Levi’s collected works. We will be hosting an interview with her in Palm Springs to talk about her translation techniques and discuss questions from the moderator. To get to know her better, read Tiziana’s and Andrea’s interview with Ann.

What can I say? With former guests like Severgnini, Annamaria Testa, Federica Scarpa, Giles Watson (in absolutely random order!), it seems to me that we have really had it all! A big thank you to Paula Arturo, administrator of the Literary Division, who enthusiastically agreed to share in this undertaking, and to Gloria Bianchi, who reached out to Goldstein, supported me, and suggested that we work with another Division to make this happen.

So,what do you think, is it worth coming to Palm Springs?

Moving on (or actually, go back to take back up an old project), as you can see, the Division’s newsletter, Tradurre, is regaining momentum. And in this case as well, the work involved (a lot of work!) was teamwork. We took some major steps forward after the Division meeting in Milan last November, about which you can find info and photos here.

Let’s start with the meeting in Milan, which became a new launchpad for us. We wanted to give those who live in Italy (and who cannot attend the ATA conferences in the U.S. for various reasons) a chance to meet face-to-face, get re-involved in the association, and maybe help push to rejuvenate our Division or do something for a community that has been so far only virtual. It was a good meeting, despite the bad weather. We chatted, sipped coffee, and talked about proposals and prospects.

Some of the ideas that are beginning to take shape after the Milan meeting are:

– new ideas for our Tradurre newsletter, which will be available on the Division’s website;

– a new image for our site, the Division’s logo, and more coming up. We already have a new logo! You can find it in various places here in the newsletter and on our social networks! We are grateful to our graphic designer Manuel Putzolu for his patient support.

– given the positive response for the meetup in Milan, we would like to repeat it more often. We are organizing a second meetup, this time in Florence! The date is November 23, 2019, about a month after the annual conference in the U.S. Of course, we will be posting more information on social media in the coming months. Briefly, the idea is to make it an opportunity for networking and collecting ideas (as we did in the Milan meetup), as well as a chance for continuing education. We would like to have a presentation that draws on the sessions at the Annual ATA Conference in the U.S. Speakers who have already shared a presentation, or those who would have liked to share one but were unable to do so, can propose a presentation. It will be like a scaled-down version of the conference.

Another proposal from the Milan meetup is to organize a certification exam sitting in Italy. This is a bit of a complex undertaking, but if you would like to support this initiative, please contact me.

That’s it for now. We would like to make the ATA less abstract for those who live on this side of the ocean. We want to do so with proposals that better meet our needs, are tailored for the European market and for the professional environment of those of us who work in Italy (perhaps even in terms of taxes!) The editorial board of Tradurre and the Division’s Leadership Council are open to contributions, comments, and suggestions.

Romina Marazzato Sparano is a translator, editor, and educator with 20 years of experience crafting technical, medical, educational, and creative materials for a variety of organizations, including Fortune 500 companies. She provides training and consulting on plain language, translation, editing, and localization. As an educator, she designed and launched the Master of Arts in Translation/Localization Management Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. She supports continuing education through leadership and training in professional associations.

www.languagecompass.com

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Membership in the Italian Language Division is open to all members of the American Translators Association.
You can become a member of the ILD by selecting the division on the membership forms when first applying for ATA membership or when renewing.