First Encounters: Sarah Davis-Goff and Lisa Coen

Sarah Davis-Goff was a publisher's intern when she found and championed Donal Ryan's best sell er , 'The Spinning Heart'. She grew up in Swords, Co Dublin, went to college in New Mexico and has an MA in publishing . She and Lisa Coen set up Tramp Press last year and will publish their first book – 'Flight' by Oona Frawley – in April. She lives in Dublin 8

Lisa and I were both interns at Lilliput Press but I was there before her. I was absolutely sure I’d be the best intern Lilliput had ever had. I tried to get in before the boss, leave after the boss left. After that I worked with Dalkey Archive Press and came back to Lilliput as office manager. Then this Lisa Coen character came along and I knew immediately that I was no longer in the running to be Lilliput’s best intern. She was immediately, terrifyingly brilliant.

I should have been disgruntled but she made my job as office manager a lot easier; once I got over my jealousy we became friends. We bonded over books – we both love literary fiction but we're also big sci fi readers, quite nerdy. We both love Game of Thrones and I grew up devouring Stephen King novels.

We got along really well, started talking about having our own publishing company. It started off as a bit of a joke: we’d say, well , when we’re running our own office this is what it will be like . . . and then one day we weren’t really joking any more. We left with the blessing of Anthony Farrell [Lilliput’s founder], he’s our mentor.

Lisa and I were planning Tramp before Donal Ryan’s success. Things were moving at least a year before his book took off – but I couldn’t have planned it better, we got really lucky. No one deserves his success more – he’s a brilliant writer and a gorgeous person; he’s working on something with us at the moment. But I’ve been given far too much credit for his success, my part in it was very small.

Tramp Press is interested in brilliant fiction, literary or genre, we’re not snobby at all. We don’t have an office, although we have a desk in Fumbally Exchange. We both quite often work from home, chat via Facebook and email, talk every day. We get many hundreds of manuscripts. I really love the slush pile.

I grew up in Swords, was in boarding school from about the age of seven, at Headfort School in Kells, then in St Columba’s.

I was talking to my aunt Annabel [Davis-Goff, an Irish writer who lives in the US]; her daughter had been thinking about going to this liberal arts college, St John’s in Santa Fe. She didn’t go, but I loved it. Eventually I did an MA in publishing.

Lisa’s great fun to talk to: we’ll be sitting down having brunch some Sunday morning, she’ll be talking 19 to the dozen about some book she’s reading, she’s incredibly articulate.

There’s no one better at giving a compliment, she’ll pick out something beautiful to say at a moment when you need it. She’s a lovely friend.

Lisa Coen worked for 'Hot Press' magazine for three years before doing an MA and a PhD thesis in TCD on the Abbey Theatre's tours from 1975 to 2005. Originally from Cross, Co Mayo, she lives in Dublin's docklands with partner Edward Mulchrone

I had heard about Sarah through other people before I met her so was really looking forward to meeting her when I did an internship in Lilliput. She was doing a lot more than just managing the office. She’s quite fierce. I loved how confident she was and that she wouldn’t take any nonsense from people. When we started Tramp, she’d say . . . “we should meet” and she’d mention the names of these really impressive, intimidating people and would just go and meet them. It was a revelation to me that it didn’t occur to her to be intimidated.

What really made me want to be friends with her was when we were talking about Stephen King and the Dark Tower series. She’s a voracious reader but she’s not snooty and will read good old-fashioned fantasy and you can talk to her about that. We’ll talk about literary fiction but it’s nice to indulge in pop culture. That’s where we hit it off.

Then she was leaving Lilliput. My internship
was coming to an end and we were talking about what next. We set up Tramp because there weren't any jobs. She's not afraid of anything and being around her made me more brave. I certainly couldn't have done it on my own. If either of us has a wobble, the other one's always there, we do email and text each other late into the night. It's incredibly reassuring.

Tramp is looking for brilliant really well-written books in whatever genre; our agreement is that we both have to be excited about a book to publish it. We do get about two books a day and Sarah’s amazing, she flies through them.

I trust her judgment completely. She’s so modest when she talks about finding Donal Ryan. She has this line when people ask her: I just didn’t mess it up. She did so much more than that. Of course it’s brilliant for Tramp because people want to know what she’s doing next.

We do argue sometimes – about Star Trek, over Kirk v Picard. Sarah prefers Picard, I prefer Kirk. She did drag me to a kickboxing class, she goes several times a week. I went along and it frightened the daylights out of me. I’m more of a runner and have introduced her to an app called Zombies, Run – you set it so that it tells you “zombies at 100m” and so you have to run faster for a whole minute.

I have told Sarah many deep dark secrets and she’s amazingly discreet and not at all judgmental. We have a great working relationship too: sometimes you want to work at home in your pyjamas and you’re still productive, but you can’t say that to anyone. But I can text Sarah and say, I’m going to work from bed today. She doesn’t care as long as we’re meeting deadlines, getting our stuff done.