USask English graduate wins international indexing contest

By Shannon Boklaschuk

A University of Saskatchewan (USask) graduate has won an international contest for indexers known as the Purple Pen Competition.

“It felt gratifying to have my work recognized by people who have been working in the field for many years, especially because the text I worked on took a lot of time and energy,” said Jess Klaassen-Wright (BA’17), who uses the personal pronouns they/them.

Klaassen-Wright earned a Bachelor of Arts (honours) degree in English from USask’s College of Arts and Science in 2017 before moving to Ontario to start a freelance career focused on creating detailed and accurate back-of-book indexes for academic and trade books. This fall, the Institute of Certified Indexers (ICI) recognized Klaassen-Wright as the best new indexer through the 2020 Purple Pen Award. Klaassen-Wright’s win marks the fifth time a Canadian has earned the prize in the seven years of the competition.

“The Purple Pen Award is for indexers who are in the first five years of their career, and it’s not just an award but also an evaluation of the index you submit,” Klaassen-Wright said. “The feedback I got from the ICI was incredibly helpful and I feel ready to tackle future projects. However, it does feel like a strange time to be celebrating personal successes, so I was slow to let my family and friends know about the award.”

An indexer creates an alphabetized summary or map, called an index, that helps readers locate terms and concepts in a document or text. To do this, an indexer must read through the text in its entirety, analyze it, and then select and organize terms to represent the content, said Klaassen-Wright.

“As an indexer, I get to read and learn about topics I may never have chosen to learn about on my own. Choosing and organizing terms is also a methodical and satisfying process,” they said. “However, one of the greatest draws for me right now is that I can work from anywhere and create my own schedule.”

Klaassen-Wright’s win came after they created an index for the 450-page book Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions by Oludamini Ogunnaike, which was published in October by Pennsylvania State University Press. According to the Indexing Society of Canada (ISC/SCI), “the judges noted Jess’s work for its attention to detail in a book with many non-English terms and diacritics, and for the web of connections (they) built through many helpful cross-references, especially linking the foreign phrases to their English synonyms.”

Klaassen-Wright, who was born in Toronto and moved to Saskatoon at the age of eight, has long had a passion for language and learning; for example, they served as news editor and editor-in-chief of The Sheaf, USask’s student newspaper, during their undergraduate studies. Working at The Sheaf “was an amazing way to meet people and get to know the campus community,” said Klaassen-Wright.

“I learned about my fellow students, but also about faculty, staff, programs, resources, student politics, events, and even buildings and history,” they said. “I got to work with an amazing team to create something new every week, and some of the connections I made at the paper are still important to me.”

As a College of Arts and Science student, Klaassen-Wright received numerous awards and honours, including the Award for Excellence in English Studies at USask’s 2017 Spring Convocation. They also received the Hannon Travel Scholarship, the McGeachy Prize in Journalism, and the Yuans Award in Canadian Literature for their distinguished seminar paper “[I]mmense strength of mind and firmness of soul”: Representations of Women in De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder.”

Klaassen-Wright’s current specialities include English and Canadian literature studies, history, postcolonial studies, feminist and queer theory, and Mexican and Latin American studies. As an active member of the ISC/SCI, Klaassen-Wright serves on the organization’s inclusion, diversity, and equity committee, which works to build awareness and knowledge among indexers and to help the indexing society produce material that reflects diversity in Canada.

Outside of their editing and indexing work, Klaassen-Wright is an avid contra dancer (a folk dance with origins in the U.K. and France). They are also an active pen pal with close friends and with an inmate in the prison system, which they noted is “thankfully something I’m still able to keep up despite the current health crisis.”

“Before moving east, I volunteered with the Saskatoon Open Door Society and also taught a creative writing class in the Saskatoon Correctional Centre, and I hope to take part in more activities like this once I’m more settled in one place and the world is a little safer,” they added.

When asked about their career advice for current students and other recent USask graduates who may be entering the workforce, Klaassen-Wright said it’s important to “recognize that our identities as working people are always shifting—and know that you don’t have to stay on the path you begin on just because you have already put time and energy into that path.”

“Time you spend learning is not wasted time, and learning is an ongoing process. When I started my degree, I had no idea that indexing was an option,” they said. “Even though I work full-time as a freelancer, I know I might not do it forever—and my community and mental well-being are far more crucial than my work life. It’s important as a new graduate to focus not only on work, but to imagine boldly and prioritize your health and happiness.”

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