Statue of Winston Churchill near the conference hotel in Kansas City / Image courtesy of ChrisM70
Each fall, a group of translators gathers somewhere in North
America for the annual conference of the American Literary Translators Association.
I’ve gone twice now to the ALTA conference, and I can’t imagine a more
welcoming community for a beginning translator. In particular, those who
translate from Russian and suchlike languages have gone out of their way to
make me feel at home. And I truly appreciate their company. For someone like me
who often has no real connection with other translators for months at a time,
ALTA can be downright exhilarating.
My second ALTA conference took place in November of last
year in Kansas City, and ever since then I’ve been meaning to write up a quick
post giving a few highlights from the gathering. Well, somehow the busyness of
everyday life has prevented me from even writing something “quick,” but a nasty cold
that kept me home from work today has given me a little free time to organize my
thoughts.
