Books are my business: Write by the Sea festival chair Sasha Wilson

Looking for a volunteer opportunity during the pandemic led to the discovery of a local literary festival in Co Wexford

Sasha Wilson: 'Write by the Sea were lovely and they were so friendly and welcoming.' Picture: Viktoriia Ziborova

Sasha Wilson is chair of Write by the Sea, a literary festival that takes place in the village of Kilmore Quay in Wexford and celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Originally from Canada, she now lives in Co Wexford.

How did you get involved with the Write by the Sea festival?

My professional background is mostly in project management. During the pandemic, my husband and I moved from Dublin to Wexford.

I was working from home, and I was looking for a volunteer opportunity as it was tricky to meet people during the pandemic.

I found this lovely little literary festival, which takes place five minutes down the road from me, and I sent them an email.

I had previously worked on an arts and technology conference with a couple of friends, which we put on in Kerry, Kilkenny, and Dublin.

So I had some experience with festival-organising. Write by the Sea were lovely and they were so friendly and welcoming. 

It was 2021 at that point, so we were doing a fully online festival, which was an ambitious thing to pull off. 

I worked as a volunteer for a couple of years, and then at the end of 2022, Lucy Moore, who had been the chair since the inception of the festival, was ready for a well-earned rest.

I put my hand up, and the team were generous enough to say, sure, let’s give it a go. So this will be my third year as festival chair.

What does your role involve?

It is a volunteer-based, community-driven event, so we start with workshopping our goals and our ambitions for the festival — what do we want it to be?

From there, it’s about making sure that everyone on the team has the resources and support that they need to do their bit. 

There is a lot of communication, stepping in where problems come up, making sure we’re all rowing in the same direction, getting to the same place in the end. 

I work with the programming team to establish a nice mix of writers and events.

The other responsibility that I have is overseeing the finances of the organisation, making sure that we have the resources and the budgets to do what we need to do this year, and planning for the future health of the festival, so that it will be around five, 10, 20 years from now.

What do you like most about it?

I like the administrative work but there is nothing like seeing the festival come alive — seeing the village full of people, the enthusiasm, and the pride the volunteers and the community take in welcoming people to Kilmore Quay. 

The people here pull out all of the stops, and seeing that happen is amazing.

Also, sometimes on the right day with the right interviewer, the right writer, and the right question, something happens, and you can feel the ground shift.

There’s a kind of connection, vulnerability and an openness that forms in the room. 

You can’t plan it, all you can do is put the pieces in place and then hope. Being able to make that bit of magic happen for people is unbeatable.

What do you like least about it?

The to-do list gets longer — there’s more to do than there are hours in the day. That’s self-inflicted because we’re ambitious and there’s too much we want to do. 

The other thing is that I hate saying no to people — we get so many pitches from incredibly talented artists, writers, poets and performers and even if we tripled the size of the festival, we couldn’t find a spot in the programme or budget to host all of them.

Three desert island books

I would go for comfort, things that I could reread again and again. So, The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies, a Canadian writer, which is all about myth and Jungian archetypes, and is twisty, surprising, and complex. You get something new from it each time.

The next pick is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which crosses historical fiction, coming of age, and American politics,

It’s also rooted in an urban landscape, which I think might be a nice change of pace if you’re stuck on a desert island. 

My third choice would be The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré, who is a genius. George Smiley is a perfect character and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a perfect spy novel.

• Write by the Sea takes place September 26-28 and features writers including Claire Keegan, Colum McCann, Marian Keyes, Kit de Waal, Wendy Erskine, and Donal Ryan. 
• www.writebythesea.ie