About Us

Careers

Illuminations newsletter

Our bios

Here's the lowdown on some key employees of Scriptorium Publishing Services, Inc.

Sarah O'Keefe, President. In 1996, Sarah O'Keefe founded Scriptorium Publishing to provide editing and production services to technical writing departments. From the beginning, Sarah focused on efficiency—-selecting the right publishing tools, creating templates, and training writers on how to use their tools.

Today, the company is known for expertise in cutting-edge tools and technologies. With a dozen employees, Scriptorium specializes in streamlining publishing processes for numerous high-profile clients in telecommunications, defense, technology, and other content-rich industries. Sarah is an early adopter of technology who enjoys experimenting with the latest tools. In consulting engagements, however, she contains her enthusiasm and focuses on establishing a solid business case for new workflows.

Sharing knowledge is a priority for Sarah, who strives to be both entertaining and informative during training sessions and conference presentations. In 2002, she received her Certified Technical Trainer (CTT+) accreditation from CompTIA. Her presentations at international, national, and regional conferences (including STC, tekom, and WritersUA) have consistently earned high ratings.

Last year, Sarah began a regular column for Intercom. “The XML Strategist” provides candid analysis and opinion about developments in structured authoring. She is also the primary contributor to Scriptorium's blog, Palimpsest.

Her publishing credits include Publishing Fundamentals: FrameMaker 7 (originally published as FrameMaker 7: The Complete Reference), The WebWorks Publisher Cookbook, Technical Writing 101, FrameMaker 5.5.6 for Dummies, and numerous white papers.

Sarah moved to Durham, North Carolina, to attend Duke University. She traces her interest in technical publishing to one fateful summer when she was forced to choose between a chemistry major and the position of editor-in-chief of Vertices, Duke's Undergraduate Journal of Science and Technology. Two years later she graduated with a double major in Comparative Area Studies (Western Europe and East Asia) and German. She still lives in Durham with her husband, Mark, and daughter, Charlotte.

Sarah looks forward to leading Scriptorium as the technical publishing field continues to change—-provided that she doesn't run out of chocolate.

Matthew C. Arnold, Vice President, Business Development. Matt has more than 20 years of experience in the publishing arena. For most of his career, he has overseen the development and support of software for the publishing industry. During his tenure with Adobe, and Frame Technology before that, Matt oversaw large-scale integration projects uniting FrameMaker and various document management tools. At Datalogics, where he was responsible for product development, he oversaw the creation of several new lines, including middleware products for FrameMaker, FrameMaker+SGML, and Documentum's 4i content management products.

Alan S. Pringle, Director, Scriptorium Press/Lead Technical Editor. During his many years in technical communication, Alan has edited and written hardware and software manuals, established corporate style guidelines, and implemented XML-based structured applications for FrameMaker workflows. Coauthor of Technical Writing 101 and the FrameMaker 7 Workbook Series, Alan also manages Scriptorium Press, Scriptorium Publishing's imprint. When he's not working on technical manuals, he's chasing his trouble-loving Boston terrier/beagle mix or buying antiques (read: junk) at auctions and thrift stores.

Sheila Loring, Senior Technical Consultant. Sheila has donned a variety of hats over her many years at Scriptorium, from designing FrameMaker templates and writing technical documentation to designing systems that enable clients to produce and repurpose XML. Sheila creates conversion processes and converts large libraries of unstructured files from Word or FrameMaker to structured FrameMaker documents. She also coauthored FrameMaker 7: The Complete Reference and The WebWorks Publisher Cookbook. A senior member of the Society for Technical Communication, Sheila has been very active in the Carolina Chapter.

Karen Taylor Brown, Senior Technical Writer. Karen's background includes technical writing and editing, desktop publishing, teaching, and a summer job explaining to furniture distributors in Spanish why their tables were shipped without chairs. Her projects have included writing manuals and online help for a variety of software products as well as hardware documentation for PLC and CNC systems. Karen has four children, so she sleeps in her spare time.

Simon Bate, Senior Technical Consultant. Simon thrives on technical challenges. With over 30 years experience in technical publications, Simon has acquired extensive knowledge in writing, managing, production, book-design, template design, and document conversions of all sorts. Simon takes great delight in programming and scripting; his motto is: "let the computer do the work." He also enjoys teaching and sharing his knowledge with others. In addition to a degree in Geology, Simon holds certificates in publications management and church choir direction. When not looking for another knotty problem to solve, Simon sings tenor in local choirs. An accomplished chef, all of Simon's recipes are stored in Structured FrameMaker, but might be converted to DITA in the near future.

David Kelly, Senior Technical Consultant. David Kelly has toiled in the verdant fields of technical communications since 1978. He has worked variously as a technical writer, publications coordinator, documentation manager, project manager, program manager, and technical consultant. Now at the pinnacle of his career, he hacks at the DITA Open Toolkit for pleasure and profit. He obtained a BS in Physics and attended graduate schools in English Literature and Fine Arts for short periods of time. In addition to his professional career, he has published poetry and two novels, has won awards for his photography, once designed and built a sailboat, and currently creates large, colorful oil paintings in his basement studio. When he isn't pursuing various odd projects, he spends quality time with his wife Anne and son Thad.