Beginner’s Pluck: Lilliput Press submissions editor Seán Farrell

'Frogs for Watchdogs' is a gorgeous depiction of a troubled childhood

Seán Farrell: 'I investigated the anxiety of childhood, which is magic, but disconcerting and sinister.' Picture: Darek Novak

Seán read and wrote throughout his childhood.

“We didn’t have a television. I mostly wrote poems,” he says

After university, he moved to France where he worked as a labourer on farms and building sites.

“I was writing all the time, but I never thought of publication as an aim. It was a natural progression from the process of reading,” he says.

“It’s good to write for a long time with no audience in mind, but I’ve since become more methodical.

“I gained an agent in 2015, and that’s when I started copy editing.”

As the years went on, my balance of work shifted more and more towards copy editing.

Three years ago, Seán gained an Arts Council Agility Award, for Frogs for Watchdogs.

The following year, he was awarded a bursary to write his second novel.

He moved to Sligo when his wife, the writer Elske Rahill, started teaching on the writing and literature programme at Atlantic Technology University in Sligo.

“ Frogs for Watchdogs started as an exercise in writing without using narrative perspective,” he says. “It made me think of an animal or a child’s perspective.

“I investigated the anxiety of childhood, which is magic, but disconcerting and sinister.”

Who is Seán Farrell?

Date/place of birth: 1982/ Dublin. “But I was bought up in Meath and West Meath.”

Education: St Columba’s College, Dublin, then Bryanston School in England; Cambridge University, English Literature.

Home: Sligo.

Family: Wife Elske and children Phoenix, aged 19; Fintan, aged 17; Brocc, aged 12, and Bridget, aged 6.

The day job: Submissions editor for Lilliput Press, and freelance editing for publishers and writers.

In another life: “I’m completely tone deaf and am jealous of people who can sing and dance.”

Favourite writers: PG Wodehouse; Wade Davis; Ivan Cankar; Dervla Murphy; Louis MacNeice; William Maxwell.

Second book: “It’s completely different.”

Top tip: “Work, work and more work.”

Instagram?: “I don’t use social media. I didn’t own a smartphone until lockdown.”

The debut

Frogs for Watchdogs

New Island, €16.95/ Kindle, €9.56

Settled in the country after years on the move, a young boys sees threats everywhere — especially from the local farmer, Jerry Drain. He will do anything he can to protect his healer mum, and big sister B.

The verdict: A gorgeous depiction of a troubled childhood.