More Support!

Another exciting week for the project!

Story submissions have been coming in from around the globe, including several that are wonderfully thought-provoking, with great potential for publication.

Special thanks to our friends in Canada at Interpreters Niagara/Hamilton, a program of a larger organization funded by the provincial government called Information Niagara, which provides information services and is devoted to volunteer opportunities. As a program of Information Niagara, they provide interpretation services free of charge for victims of domestic violence to non-profit human service agencies.

They were kind enough to feature our program in their Interpreter Information newsletter for interpreters, pictured above.

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in other countries (Australia, Japan, Argentina, Turkey, China, U.K., Spain, Ireland, Israel and more), and I've discussed the worldwide interest here, but I also wanted to share that the national reach within the United States is helping tremendously too to spread the word.

I am especially happy that interpreting associations have been so supportive. In addition to getting in touch with me to share their kind words, many have taken the initiative to spread the word through their newsletters, listservs, websites and more!

Special thanks to the California Healthcare Interpreters Association for letting members know about the project. I've already begun hearing from interpreters as a result of these efforts! Check out their newly revamped website by clicking on the link above.

Also, the Northwest Translators and Interpreters Society (NOTIS) shared the Call for Submissions as well! I've started hearing from interpreters in the Northwest as well. NOTIS has a great quarterly newsletter worth checking out called the Northwest Linguist. You may download copies of it from their website.

Nearly all major providers of telephone interpreting services have been in contact to voice their support for the project, and in an effort to help out, they have been sharing the call for submissions with thousands of interpreters through their newsletters and interpreter relations staff. As a result, I've been hearing from interpreters for languages that I don't get to deal with every day (Thai and Bulgarian, for example). I really appreciate this wonderful support that enables me to reach literally thousands upon thousands of interpreters!

Special thanks also to Lola Bendena, who kindly shared information about our project through the multi-languages email newsletter.

Thanks also to utranslate4me.com for spreading the word about the project!

It's also amazing how many interpreters have connections in the publishing world. If the response so far is any indication, I expect you may see some translations of the book into other languages shortly after publication, as well as publishers overseas who are already starting to express an interest in the project.

And, who knew that so many interpreters are also writers? I've begun to hear from many interpreters that are either published authors or shopping around manuscripts. This gives me a great chance to share information about the writing and publishing processes with them while learning about their projects.

I already had some lists in Amazon to help interpreters find books about interpreting all in a single place, but I've since updated them with additional finds. By the way, these lists are purely to help interpreters - they do not generate profits of any sort for this project. You can access them through the links in the right sidebar.

The main project website continues to receive hundreds of new hits as a result of all of this help in getting the word out, and that's exactly the goal - for interpreters in all settings to have a chance to contribute!

In fact, while it is quite a surprise, this blog itself is also beginning to see more and more traffic - not nearly as much as the main website of course, but more than what I originally could have anticipated.

I already knew our main project was receiving visitors from around the world, but I didn't expect the blog to receive so much international attention as a result of it. The site stats indicate that this blog has had visitors from several continents already. In fact, I even added a little visitor map at the bottom to show who is visiting from what locations. It doesn't track every single person, but it's fun to see the different locations of visitors who've stopped by.

The blog has now been submitted to lots of RSS and Atom feed directories such as Blogaholix, and we're starting to see more and more traffic on the main project site as a result. Searching for the project name in Google now yields nearly 1,000 results. Not bad for only a couple of weeks!

Also, I feel blessed that so many university professors and other interpreting colleagues are helping to share contacts and resources, as well as potential writers with great stories to share about interpreting.

Feel free to email me to let me know how you are helping to spread the word, and I am happy to reciprocate with a mention here if you like.

And for the single most exciting accomplishment for the week with relation to the project goal of striving toward greater appreciation of interpreters in society, I am happy to report that the Associated Press did a story on the national need for interpreters in the U.S. courts. The story was picked up by newspapers in nearly every state, not to mention many countries around the world. Both the American Translators Association and the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators were quoted in this important story.

Little by little, interpreters are getting more recognition. And it's about time! I am thrilled that our project is helping to fuel this effort.