The 2026 SSP Annual Meeting took place in San Diego, California (well, actually Chula Vista) from 27–29 May, and it was a whirlwind!
We kicked things off early Wednesday afternoon with an Industry Breakout presentation from Typefi CEO, Chandi Perera. Chandi discussed some of the cutting-edge technologies you can use to drastically speed up editorial and publishing—including Typefi automated publishing software for InDesign and Typefi Orion XML editorial software for Word. Cheers to everyone who came to the session!
Then, it was a scramble to set up our booth before the evening reception. With so much happening earlier in the day (and the incessant Southern California traffic slowing things down), we barely got our booth supplies to the exhibit hall with 30 minutes to spare. It was slightly hectic, but we got it all done. Shout out to Tracy from SSP—sorry we blocked the aisle for a few minutes!
It was a lovely reception with endless food, a few cocktails, and plenty of good conversations. We wrapped up around 7:30 pm, had a light dinner, and went to bed early.
Day two was much calmer in many ways, but the event itself lost no momentum! We attended a few sessions, had a slew of meetings, and spent much of the day at our booth chatting with lovely scholarly publishing folks from around the world. The awards lunch was definitely a highlight, as were the dessert and the puppies that followed. The day wrapped with another reception in the exhibit hall, and then it was off to dinner!
Totally unpaid opinion: if you enjoy Thai food and you’re in San Diego, you must visit Sovereign Modern Thai Cuisine. They’ve got all the Thai classics, plus a small but incredibly well-crafted menu of specialties that blew us all away. Seriously, this was probably the best Thai food any of us ever ate!
Then, it was time for day three. This is typically a slower day as people start to leave, but it wasn’t slow at the Typefi booth—we had conversations with publishers and editors throughout the morning, and we gave away nearly all the swag we brought! Thanks to everyone who lightened our load by grabbing a notebook (or four).
It was truly a great event! The weather was like a dream, the food was delicious, and the people were incredibly friendly. We love the scholarly publishing community precisely because of the people; it was a joy to meet so many of you and catch up with friends old and new. We’ll be back next year!