Books Are My Business: Lauren O’Donovan, editor, Howl literary anthology
Lauren O’Donovan edits the literary anthology Howl New Irish Writing
Lauren O’Donovan, from Carrigaline, Co Cork, edits the literary anthology Howl New Irish Writing along with Róisín Leggett Bohan and Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh. She recently won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry award.
I was in UCC doing the MA in Creative Writing at the start of covid.
The MA usually has work experience which we were not able to do because of lockdown so I suggested that the class set up a small publishing house and publish a book.
We called it the and all of the proceeds went to the Sexual Violence Centre in Cork.
That year, Danny Denton who was then editor of was teaching on the course and writer in residence was Eimear Ryan, who is editor of .
They were so kind and supported us through the whole process. Róisín and I had been bitten badly by the publishing bug and we decided we would go on and publish . We are in our second year now.
The mission is to publish Irish writing, but Irish writing is also global, with the diaspora and so many people claiming an Irish identity.
Both Róisín and myself have lived abroad, and we felt there was an opportunity there to celebrate global Irish writing.
I wear many hats, which suits me as in my previous life, I worked in a digital agency in Vancouver.
My background is in computer science. With , as well as working with the writers, editing and all of that, we do everything that you would do in a small business, in terms of promotion, social media, the accounts, online sales.
We do one open submission period during the year and we publish one anthology.
I have the greatest admiration for anyone who is publishing two or three times a year. I would love to be in a position in terms of funding down the road to do commissions.
Our biggest regret at the moment is that we are still unable to pay writers for their work. If we keep working hard and stay on track hopefully we will be in a position to do that sooner rather than later.
They are critical for established writers but they are the lifeblood of emerging writers.
Nobody is publishing a journal, magazine, or anthology in Ireland for the money, they are doing it for the love of the art and to support other writers.
It is such a strong community worldwide.
The challenge for publications is to get funding as many can’t make it past a few years. They are supporting writers but they need to be supported in order to be able to do that.
The most exciting part is when the window for submissions closes and you get out the laptop to read them, every piece is so full of potential.
We deal with the writers online mainly and I love then when we meet them at the launch.
Often that is the first opportunity to put faces to the pieces.
Definitely being able to choose so few submissions to print because the quality of the work is astounding.
We have 56 writers included this year, we did our best to squeeze in as many as we could.
I would need three ships for all the books, I wouldn’t even bring food. At the moment I am in the middle of reading by Sheila Armstrong, so I would need to finish that. It is such a great collection of short stories.
Also by Alice Jolly, which is an exceptional piece of writing.
For the third, I might squeeze in a couple of poetry books, which are bit a slimmer and might add up to a novel.
I am obsessed with Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Victoria Kennefick, Jessica Traynor, and Molly Twomey. They have all had work out in the past year or two, they are so inspirational.
- The second edition of will be launched at Waterstones, Cork, on Tuesday, October 24, at 6.30pm.
