Who Creates the Space for Professional Conversation?

Reflecting on The Interpreter’s Nook with Magnhild Røed Michalsen and Hilde Henrud

Where do interpreters and translators go when they want to talk honestly about their work?

Not necessarily to report a serious concern, complete a formal course or ask someone for a definite answer. Sometimes we simply need somewhere to discuss a decision, compare experiences, share a resource or ask whether other people are dealing with the same issue.

Some professionals have strong local networks, supportive colleagues and regular opportunities for supervision or CPD. Others work largely alone. They may rarely meet people doing similar work, particularly if they live outside a major city or work across specialist areas.

Even when professional learning is available, it may not always make space for the questions that arise during everyday practice.

At The Together Conference 2026, Magnhild Røed Michalsen and Hilde Henrud shared what happened when they recognised this gap in Norway and decided to do something about it.

Their session, The Interpreter’s Nook: A Site for Reflection, Discussion and Development, showed how one fairly small idea can gradually grow into a national resource.

It also raised a wider question for all of us:

Are we waiting for professional spaces to be created for us, or could we begin creating some of them ourselves?

A profession spread across a country

Magnhild and Hilde began by explaining some of the Norwegian context.

Norway has a national register covering spoken language and sign language interpreters. At the time of the presentation, it contained 2,579 registered interpreters. Most sign language interpreters work through the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration, known as NAV, although others work in education and workplaces with Deaf employees.

Norway’s geography also affects professional connection. Interpreters are spread across counties, towns and cities, with mountains and large distances separating many groups. The country has 12 interpreter services, and the availability of interpreters varies depending on location.

There are no ongoing national CPD requirements for sign language interpreters. Once someone has completed the required bachelor’s degree, they remain qualified without having to complete further formal professional development.

Magnhild and Hilde also explained that Norway no longer has a national advocacy organisation bringing interpreters together. Practitioners are divided across different trade unions, with limited opportunities for discussion across workplaces and regions.

This created a difficult situation.

Interpreters in different parts of the country were meeting challenges, developing ideas and finding solutions, but much of that knowledge stayed within the local area or workplace.

Someone elsewhere might be dealing with exactly the same problem without knowing that another colleague had already spent time thinking it through.

“Where are the interpreters?”

One of the questions behind The Interpreter’s Nook came from Magnhild and Hilde’s experience of professional conferences in Norway.

Researchers were invited to present their work. Deaf, hard of hearing and Deafblind people shared their experiences of interpreting services. These were, and remain, essential parts of professional discussion.

However, Magnhild and Hilde also began asking where the interpreters were within those conversations.

Where were the spaces for practitioners to share what they were seeing in their work?

Where could they discuss ethical questions, interactional challenges or developing practice?

How could the experiences of working interpreters contribute to wider understanding of the profession?

Their aim was not to place interpreter voices above the experiences of Deaf people or research evidence. It was to add another needed perspective and give practitioners more opportunity to take part in discussions about their own field.

They wanted interpreters to be able to share concerns, ideas and lessons so that other people could benefit from them.

That question has relevance well beyond Norway.

Interpreters and translators hold a considerable amount of professional knowledge. Much of it comes from formal education and research, but a large amount also develops through repeated practice.

We learn how a particular environment works. We notice patterns. We try something, reflect on it and make an adjustment. We discover a useful way to prepare, explain our role, work with a colleague or manage an unfamiliar challenge.

The difficulty is that this knowledge is easily lost when there is nowhere to share it.

Starting with one idea

The Interpreter’s Nook did not begin as a large national project.

It began with a podcast.

The first episode of Tolkepodden, The Interpreter’s Podcast, was released in March 2023. Magnhild and Hilde now produce seven episodes each year, covering subjects connected to interpreting practice and the development of the profession.

Topics have included ethical dilemmas, interactional issues and discussions of research articles.

Guests are invited according to the subject and may include interpreters, researchers, people who use interpreting services or others with relevant knowledge.

The conversations are recorded remotely, which means guests can join from across Norway. They receive questions in advance, but the discussion is not fully planned or scripted.

This is an important part of the format. Magnhild and Hilde are not trying to provide a final answer to every professional question. They want the conversation to remain open enough for participants to respond to one another and for the audience to continue thinking afterwards.

The episodes are made available in spoken Norwegian and Norwegian Sign Language, with captions also provided. People can watch through the website or YouTube, or listen through Spotify.

The podcast takes the greatest amount of their time, but it is also the part of the project that receives the most feedback and use. Although people have asked for more episodes, Magnhild and Hilde have had to balance that demand with what they can realistically produce.

That is an important part of the story.

A useful project does not have to produce something every week. It needs to be manageable enough to continue.

From a podcast to a shared home

What began as a podcast later developed into Tolkehjørnet, The Interpreter’s Nook.

The website has two main purposes.

The first is to gather useful information into one place. This includes news, events, CPD resources and educational opportunities. The information may already exist elsewhere, but bringing it together makes it easier for practitioners to find.

The second is to create spaces where interpreters can contribute their own knowledge, experiences, research and reflections.

Alongside the podcast, this now includes a digital newspaper.

The aim was not simply to publish more information. It was to help create a professional meeting place for interpreters who might otherwise remain separated by geography, employer or area of work.

This distinction matters.

A resource library gives people access to information.

A professional community also gives them a chance to respond, question, contribute and be heard.

Making room for different kinds of contribution

The digital newspaper, Tolkeposten, which roughly translates as The Interpreter’s Mail, published its first edition in January 2024.

It is produced twice a year and is digital only. This keeps the practical work more manageable, as there is no printing or physical distribution to arrange.

Interpreters from different parts of Norway contribute as informal journalists. They meet periodically to discuss possible topics, share ideas and suggest people who may have something interesting to write.

Magnhild and the newspaper team also contact workplaces, educational institutions and organisations to ask whether they have information or articles to contribute.

The requirements are intentionally simple.

There is no formal peer-review process, and contributors are not expected to write academic papers. The main condition is that the content must be relevant to interpreters in some way.

This has allowed the newspaper to include a varied range of material, including professional articles, lighter pieces and cartoons.

That openness is worth reflecting on.

Professional knowledge does not only arrive in the form of published research or formal training.

• A short account of a local project may help someone begin a similar piece of work elsewhere.

• A reflection on an unusual assignment might raise a question that other practitioners recognise.

• A discussion between colleagues may identify a professional issue that later develops into a research project.

• A practical resource, checklist or teaching activity may be immediately useful to someone in another workplace.

By keeping the threshold for contribution realistic, The Interpreter’s Nook allows more people to take part.

Not every discussion needs a final answer

One of the strongest ideas in Magnhild and Hilde’s presentation was that professional conversation does not always need to end with a solution.

There is often pressure within professional spaces to reach a conclusion, produce guidance or identify the correct response.

Some questions do require clear standards. However, many areas of interpreting and translation involve context, judgement and competing considerations.

A discussion can still be useful even when participants do not agree.

It can help us:

• recognise that a situation is more complex than we first assumed

• hear how colleagues in other settings approach similar work

• identify information we need to seek

• become more aware of our assumptions

• develop language for discussing a professional issue

• recognise a gap in training, policy or research

The podcast is designed with this in mind. Magnhild and Hilde introduce a subject and invite people into the discussion, but they do not claim to provide a complete solution.

The aim is to encourage thought and further conversation.

This approach may feel reassuring in professions where people sometimes believe they should already know the answer.

From individual learning to shared knowledge

The 2026 conference theme was Pick It Up, Pass It On, and The Interpreter’s Nook gave us a very practical example of what this can look like.

• An interpreter reads an article and discusses it on the podcast.

• A colleague describes a dilemma, and others recognise a similar pattern in their own work.

• Someone contributes a piece to the newspaper about a project taking place in one region.

• A useful course or event is added to the website so people elsewhere can find it.

• Knowledge moves from one person or workplace into a wider professional space.

This does not mean everything that is shared should be accepted without question. Passing something on responsibly includes being clear about whether it is research, guidance, personal experience or an emerging idea.

However, without a space for exchange, there is little opportunity to compare, question or build on what others have learned.

What might translators take from this?

The Interpreter’s Nook was created for spoken and sign language interpreters in Norway, and the presentation focused on interpreting practice.

However, many of its underlying ideas also apply to translators.

Translation work can be professionally isolating. Translators may spend long periods working independently and may receive little feedback beyond whether a client accepts the final product.

There may be limited space to discuss choices about register, audience, cultural knowledge, signed presentation, terminology, workflow or ethical concerns.

Deaf translators and sign language translators may also be working across relatively small professional networks, sometimes without regular access to colleagues doing similar work.

A shared online discussion, digital publication, reading group or informal case discussion could give translators more opportunity to compare approaches and learn from one another.

The exact format is less important than the principle: useful professional knowledge should not always remain with the individual who developed it.

Starting small without staying silent

It is easy to assume that a professional project needs funding, a full committee, specialist equipment and a detailed long-term plan before it begins.

The Interpreter’s Nook offers a different example.

The podcast came first. The website and newspaper followed later.

Magnhild and Hilde did not begin by building every part of the project at once. They responded to a need, tried one format and allowed the idea to develop.

They were also honest about capacity. The podcast requires a great deal of work, and seven episodes a year is currently what they can manage.

This balance matters.

Practitioner-led projects often depend on people giving time alongside their paid employment and other responsibilities. A project that asks too much of too few people may quickly become difficult to maintain.

Starting small can mean:

• arranging one local discussion

• creating a short shared resource

• starting a quarterly online reading group

• inviting colleagues to contribute to a simple newsletter

• recording one conversation about a professional topic

• creating a space to share training, events or research

• presenting an early idea as a conference poster

The first step does not need to be the final version.

New insights need somewhere to be shared

The theme for The Together Conference 2027 is New Insights, Shared Purpose.

The Interpreter’s Nook shows that new insight can come from many places.

It can come from research, but it can also begin with a conversation between colleagues.

It may arise when someone notices that the same difficulty keeps appearing across assignments.

It might develop through a community project, a training activity, a change within a service or a resource created to meet a local need.

The important next step is finding a way to share it.

The Call for Papers for The Together Conference 2027 opens on Monday 5 October 2026. We welcome proposals from interpreters, translators, Deaf professionals, trainees, educators, researchers, supervisors, organisations and others connected to sign language interpreting and translation.

You do not need to decide whether your proposal belongs in the live programme or the extended conference. Submit your idea and the review panel will consider where accepted contributions fit best.

We will also welcome poster submissions sharing developing research, professional projects, early findings, resources and practice-based reflections.

The Interpreter’s Nook began because two practitioners recognised that useful professional conversations needed somewhere to happen.

Perhaps you have also noticed a gap.

Perhaps you have created something in your workplace or community that others could learn from.

Perhaps a conversation with colleagues has raised a question that deserves a wider audience.

It does not need to be a finished national project before it is worth sharing.

Sometimes the shared purpose comes first. The project grows from there.

Using this article for unstructured CPD

You may wish to reflect on one or more of the following questions:

1. Where do you currently discuss interpreting or translation practice honestly with colleagues?

2. Which professional topics are easy to discuss, and which tend to remain unspoken?

3. What knowledge have you developed through practice that could be useful to others?

4. Are there useful projects or resources in your area that people elsewhere may not know about?

5. What prevents practitioners from contributing to professional discussions?

6. How could professional spaces include a wider range of voices and forms of knowledge?

7. What small, manageable project could you or your colleagues begin?

8. Is there an idea from your work that could become a 2027 conference proposal or poster?

A short written reflection on these questions could be recorded as part of your unstructured CPD.