MED Magazine – MED Profile

MED Magazine - Issue 57 - April 2010

MED Profile: Interview with Sue Bale

This month sees the departure of Sue Bale, Publishing Director for Macmillan Dictionaries, who retires after more than 30 years in educational publishing. Having already worked as a teacher herself, in the deserts of Qatar, Sue knew all about the challenges facing EFL teachers; when the opportunity arose to help produce a brand new learner’s dictionary for Macmillan, she jumped at it.

Have you always worked in publishing? And have you always worked on dictionaries, or did you start off in another area?
Sue Bale: I haven't always worked in publishing. I was a computer programmer and a teacher before entering the world of publishing. I taught at a junior school in Croydon (hated it!), then as an EFL teacher in Qatar in the Arabian Gulf for five years. I was teaching local Arab girls out in the desert for two years (no electricity or water), and then classes of 50 girls in a non-air-conditioned school in Doha for three years. I used the Longman series Living English for the Arab World which was prescribed by the Ministry of Education.

When did you join Macmillan and why?
Sue Bale: When I returned to the UK, I answered an ad in The Guardian for an Editor in the Arab World Division at Longman. The job sounded made for me: ‘Experience of teaching in the Middle East would be particularly useful; no editorial experience necessary, full training given’. Little did they know that their books were delivered to my desert school in a tipper truck that emerged over the dunes like a mirage a month after the start of the school year and dumped its load onto the sand! I got the job. Three years later, I moved to Heinemann in both London and Oxford and worked with them for 16 years until they were bought by Macmillan in 1998.

How and when did you get into dictionaries?
Sue Bale: Before 1998, I had worked on every part of the ELT list – primary, secondary, adult coursebooks, readers, ESP, grammars – except dictionaries. Heinemann had been too small to invest in a dictionary list, though we'd thought about it many times; instead, we provided sales and marketing support for the Cobuild Dictionary. When Heinemann and Macmillan came together, the one obvious gap in the list was dictionaries and that's when we embarked on the Macmillan dictionary range. Though it was only a small part of my responsibility as ELT Publishing Director, I rapidly became hooked and ultimately moved across to concentrate solely on the dictionaries.

What Macmillan dictionary projects have you worked on over the years? Is there one that you particularly enjoyed, and if so, why?
Sue Bale: It has to be the first – the first edition of the Macmillan English Dictionary. I relished the challenge of entering this new world of learner dictionaries against well established competition. Working with two of the best dictionary specialists in the business – Gwyneth Fox and Michael Rundell – gave us a head start and we set out to offer learners a dictionary that was special, that provided extra help, something that they couldn't find elsewhere. I think we succeeded.

What’s the hardest thing about publishing learner dictionaries?
Sue Bale: All the major learner dictionaries are good. The challenge is to find out what learners need and how they use dictionaries – and of course that's changing rapidly with the rise of online dictionaries – so that you can make yours their dictionary of choice.

And the most enjoyable?
Sue Bale: Good sales and positive feedback from users.

What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of your time at Macmillan?
Sue Bale: I think it has to be the success we have had with the Macmillan English Dictionary; winning two awards was the icing on the cake.

What are you going to do now you have lots of free time?
Sue Bale: I've just moved house so I want some time to properly settle in, grow a garden, re-acquaint myself with Suffolk, see more of my friends. After a break, I'll probably work for myself from home.