Sarah’s Newsletter – July 2025 — Sarah Webb

I run several creative writing clubs during the school year. One is an online club for young writers aged 11+ (booked out).

There’s a teen in-person club that meets in Dún Laoghaire Lexicon Library on a Thursday at 5pm to 6pm, there are two places available in that club. They are a fantastic, bunch, very chatty and supportive of each other’s writing. They need to be in secondary school for this one. If you have a teen at home who loves to write, get in touch. We’ll be doing lots of script writing in the autumn, as well as poetry and some horror and fantasy writing (they love their horror and fantasy!).

I’m starting up a new writing club for age 10+ in Greystones in mid-September. This will run monthly on a Wednesday afternoon at 4.30pm. We will cover all kinds of things, from creating characters, to plotting, and different genres and forms. If you have a keen writer at home, get in touch. We don’t do any grammar etc – it’s all pure creative fun. If you have a keen writer at home get in touch in August – [email protected]

 Discover Irish Children’s Books Symposium 2025

 On 21st June Discover Irish Children’s Books held their first Symposium in Dublin City University. It was run by a team of twelve people from the campaign, all volunteers. Over 150 people attended, and it was lovely to meet lots of writers, illustrators, teachers, librarians and others with a strong interest in children’s books.

The first panel was about children’s publishing and the expert panel talked about what they were looking for, what they paid writers and illustrators and lots of other things.

Irish publishers are happy to accept unsolicited manuscripts. This means you can send work directly to their editors, you do not need an agent. The submission guidelines are on their websites. To note, Little Island are currently not accepting manuscripts but will open them again soon, keep an eye on their social media and website for details.

Kunak McGann, Rights Director at the O’Brien Press – looking for great storytelling, especially with an Irish focus. They particularly like writers and illustrators who live in Ireland, as they can do and attend events.

Little Island publish about 15 books a year and Publisher, Matthew Parkinson-Bennetts says they are looking for books they can sell internationally.

Gráinne Clear, Editorial Director for Fiction at Walker Books mentioned horror and accessible shorter fiction.

Venetia Gosling, Publisher of the children’s list at Gill books said she’s looking for great non-fiction, especially a new take on Irish history.

Futa Fata publishes a wide range of books in the Irish language, from picture books to novels. Tadgh Mac Dhonnagáin is looking for great books from Irish language authors. He’s also looking for illustrators who can do events in the Irish language.

 Little Island pays its authors around e1.5k advance per book. Futa Fata pays around e1.5k to e1.75k to writers and around e4k to illustrators.

 Children’s writers do not always earn a lot of money as you can see. You can get lucky, sometimes a book does very well internationally which can help a lot. But most of us rely on other income as well as writing to help pay the bills. I teach and I work in a bookshop too (Halfway up the Stairs in Greystones, Co Wicklow, where I’m Events Manager), which allows me to take time with my writing and to write the books I love to write. I’ll write more about the bookshop and my work there next month.

 During the day at the symposium, there was lots of information given about creating brilliant book weeks in your school or library, dealing with rejection, writing great opening scenes, and there was a lot of talk about making books and reading accessible to all children.

We hope to have another symposium next year and thanks to all who attended. We hope you enjoyed the day!

You can find out more about the Discover Irish Children’s Books campaign on their website here

https://discoveririshkidsbooks.ie/

I’m off to West Cork to edit, read and take a holiday during July, so all the best for now. I hope your summer is full of great stories!

 Yours in books,

Sarah XXX