This thing of beauty was sent to me by a friend today and it is so delicious I simply had to share it. She described it as Corsican polyphonic male choirs meet 21st century via human beat-boxing. Enjoy!

So much going on right now and little time to blog.

Good stuff: on the 12th of March, 2-3 pm Roz Swartz, Daniel Hahn and Frank Wynn can be seen in a Translation Slam through webstreaming in the comfort of your own home.

This is a great chance to see the creative translation process in action at the Writers' Centre Norwich. If you miss the actual event the readings will be available on YouTube a few days later.

The Mediterranean Editors and Translators have put up an initial programme for the November meeting Craft & Critical Vision: Diving Beneath the Surface of Discourse scheduled for Venice 8-10 November. Should be a great event for peer to peer skill sharing and expert input in the translation and editing spheres with some exciting speakers.

Finally, the second year of the Translation Nation Primary Translation project kicked off this week. This year this project on literary translation for children aims to extend the impact its creative workshops to whole school community including greater involvement of parents and neighbours. Take a look at the website and look out for updates.

I have just put out the call for mentors and mentees for this year's ITI Spanish Network Mentoring Scheme for new translators. The pilot last year was a roaring success with great feedback from both sides of the mentoring partnerships.

If you would be interested in being a mentor or a mentee on this scheme, if you would like help in setting up a similar initiative in your translation group, or if you would simply like more details of what is involved, contact me and I can send you further info.

I was glad to see so many students from A level, undergraduate and post-graduate level present at the Westminster Careers in Languages day on Saturday.

I was very impressed by the 'can do' attitude of so many of the young people I talked to and their enthusiasm for a future in the language services sector.

A downloadable version of the presentation I gave is available above for those who requested it (with pictures removed for copyright reasons).

Good luck with your future careers.

The Spanish Networkers were full of ideas on Friday night, so much so that when I got home at 1am I couldn't sleep for all the ideas whizzing around in my head.

Most importantly (for me anyway) the Committee approved plans for another round of mentoring, so we will be carrying that ahead within the next few weeks, sending out a call for both mentors and mentees.

Professionalising the image of translators was another hot topic and we'll be passing some of our ideas on to the central ITI team in case they find them useful.

Several of the members revealed areas of expertise they might be able to offer to other members as peer to peer training, Isabelle del Rio offered to run a session on use of terminology tools to build glossaries and it was suggested our members might like a workshop on the use of corpora from one of the MET specialists.

Sounds like there is some good stuff on the way so watch the Spanish Network and ITI Bulletin for news.

I'll be setting off for the Spanish Network AGM shortly, looking forward to catching up with all the folks and persuading them to part with funds for the next round of the Spanish Network Mentoring scheme for new translators. Our last batch of mentors and mentees found the whole experience very rewarding and I hope we can repeat it this year.

Watch this space!

Sarah's Attic is officially open

Hello one and all,

This is my new blog as an independent freelance translator, editor and translator in my new role as Joint Chair of the ITI Education and Training Committee. I plan to use it to air all the news, views and ideas trundling about my attic as I come to grips with the job in a way that may help inform other people working in our field.

I do hope you will also add your comments back to help guide this enterprise!

Warmest regards, S