CAROLINE WALSH's weekly column on print and writing...
Getting the write start
Try to spell the names of the people you're writing to properly. Basic as that may seem, it's one of the crucial tips imparted by literary agent Faith O'Grady, of the Lisa Richards Agency, to emerging writers. Another one is to avoid the off-putting over-sell. "This is something I get a lot, people saying how this is the most incredible thing I am ever going to read," says O'Grady, advocating an approach that's as simple as possible.
She and Deirdre O'Neill, editorial manager of Irish publisher New Island, give their advice in an interview with writer Dermot Bolger in Everything You Wanted to Know About Publishing But Were Afraid to Askin the current issue of free newsletter Talking Books. Interestingly, both women get the same amount of submissions each week, around 50 to 80. Both also recommend that writers check out the guidelines on agents' and publishers' websites before sending material.
"Don't say that this is just a very rough thing you have written and you don't think it's very good but you want to know what I think and can I come back to you tomorrow about this. Obviously we don't have time for that sort of thing. It has to be incredibly polished . I say this over and and over again - you really need to work on that," says O'Grady, who also warns writers against being influenced too much by trends. "The most important thing is that you write something that is coming from the heart."
Because of the backlog it is often three to four months before writers will get a response from an agent. Still, O'Grady has found some wonderful novels coming through the submission pile, so there's hope. Once she has taken on a writer she'll advise on when is the right time to send to publishers ("don't send too early, when the writing is too raw"); on the ins and outs of multiple submissions to publishers versus writing to just one; on one- versus two-book deals; and on rights questions.
O'Neill emphasises the importance of a writer's synopsis and adds that, going in to face the daily postbag of submissions, she always has to be optimistic because otherwise she couldn't do it. Although it's unusual to find something that strikes her straight away, it is "wonderful to find it".
The Talking Booksnewsletter, part of Bolger's project with the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Place and Identity Per Cent for Art programme, can be requested by post from cbrown@dlrcoco.ie. The full conversation is also online at dlrcoco.ie/ARTS/publicart.html
Spirit up and running
The online writers' resource, writing4all.ie, is in the market for entries for its second Writing Spirit Award for short fiction and poetry. The first prize for fiction is €1,000, with second- and third-place stories winning €200 and €100. The poetry awards are of the same value. All winners will then be published in Writing Spirit anthologies. Open until the end of November, the competition is for writers of all nationalities in all genres. The judges are Fred Johnston (fiction), and John W Sexton (poetry).
Poetry on the agenda
The Poet and the Publisher in 20th-Century Ireland, a symposium organised by the Humanities Institute of Ireland, will take place on March 5th and 6th at UCD. It's for poets and publishers as well as critics, bibliographers and anyone wishing to learn more about poetry publishing in Ireland, and will include an assessment of the Poetry Ireland collection. A lecture by Tom Dillon Redshaw on the legendary Liam Miller of the Dolmen Press, chaired by Declan Kiberd, is part of the agenda. See the Print Cultures Symposia section at ucd.ie/hii/events.