Sir, – The Association of Freelance Editors, Proofreaders and Indexers was disappointed by the Arts Council’s decision to reduce its funding (by 84 per cent) to the long-established publisher the O’Brien Press. The O’Brien Press has an excellent reputation not only for publishing high-quality Irish writing and illustration but also for launching many new authors’ and illustrators’ careers, including Oisín McGann, Marita Conlon-McKenna and Alan Nolan, to name but a few.
In fact, the O’Brien Press first published our current Laureate na nÓg, Eoin Colfer, and the first Laureate na nÓg, Siobhán Parkinson. The company has published award-winning titles that have been used in schools and studied in universities throughout the country and that continue to be favourites in many households at home and abroad. Every year, it promotes Irish titles at the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and sells foreign rights, including French, German, Spanish and Japanese.
As well as fostering the work of writers, illustrators, photographers, journalists, historians and researchers, the company has also employed people in the publishing industry as editors, proofreaders and indexers, both in-house and freelance, for 40 years.
It would not have been possible for the O’Brien Press to take so many risks on new, predominantly unknown, Irish authors and illustrators, nor to support the infrastructure that has made publication of their works possible, without funding from the Arts Council. For this reason, the 84 per cent cut to the O’Brien Press’s annual funding should be reversed. – Yours, etc,
AOIFE BARRETT,
DERMOTT BARRETT,
AMANDA BELL,
NEIL BURKEY,
PATRICIA CARROLL,
ISABELLE CARTWRIGHT,
SIMON COURY,
CAROLE DEVANEY,
EMMA DUNNE,
EIMEAR GALLAGHER,
KRISTIN JENSEN,
BRIDGET McAULIFFE,
MICHAEL McCANN,
MARY McCAULEY,
BRENDAN O’BRIEN,
BRENDA O’HANLON,
EILEEN O’NEILL,
CON O’ROURKE,
GILL PAVEY,
JANE ROGERS,
SÍNE QUINN,
ANTOINETTE WALKER,
LIZ HUDSON,
Association of Freelance
Editors, Proofreaders
and Indexers,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.