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Seamus Cashman was born in Conna, Co Cork in 1943. His latest poetry collection, That Morning Will Come is due from Salmon Publishing in June 2007. Previous collections are Carnival (Monarchline, Dublin, 1987); and Clowns & Acrobats (Wolfhound Press, Dublin, 2000).

He has edited, with Bridie Quinn, The Wolfhound Book of Irish Poems for Young People, (Wolfhound Press, 1975; still in print today). In 2004 the O’Brien Press published his award winning Something Beginning with P: New Poems from Irish Poets, for young readers. He also edited and translated, with Sean Gaffney, Proverbs & Sayings of Ireland (Wolfhound Press, 1974; still in print today).

He established Wolfhound Press in 1974 and it became a leading literary and cultural publishing house, and he was publisher there until 2001. He now writes, gives poetry and creative writing workshops, and advises writers and publishers. He lives in Portmarnock, Co Dublin.

I’ve always told writers and would-be-writers that persistence is vital – if you believe in what you are writing or creating, persist – nobody else will persist for you! So, your gentle persistence has focused my attention …

Shalla: First of all, will you tell us about your latest projects? For one thing, what is Book Consult?

Seamus: It’s BookConsulT – except email addresses are easier dropping the caps – When I left Wolfhound, I wanted to continue with some publishing activities.

The editorial (actual text editing, as well as dealing with authors), general publishing strategies, commissioning books, and coming up with publishing ideas were the areas I always preferred for myself. So I devised that name for my activities – script and text advising, publishing consultancy, etc.

I also have a publishing imprint called The Otherworld Press for some special projects. I have just published a small edition hardcover book by one of my former Wolfhound authors, Felicity Heathcote. Called the Resting Place of the Moon, it’s a beautifully written – though disturbing – allegory of contemporary conflict in Israel and Palestine.

It was a great pleasure to actually publish a book again after a few years break! So, my time is more than filled with stuff to do. Which is what time is for – being and doing …

Shalla: What kind of workshops do you offer? Will you offer workshops that writers can take online?

Seamus: I focus on poetry as it is my own writing field; but I have done drama, even a filmscript workshop series with school children – with great success, and fiction. I also give ‘one-to-one’ workshops with writers on novels and memoir writing, for instance.

I have not undertaken any on-line workshops; maybe sometime. I do like the face to face relationship with an author; it is easier to say ‘harsh things’ and necessary things in an effective (as well as positive and supportive) way about someone’s writing in person than it is online perhaps? Also, the amount of conversation – ie commentary on and about the writing and all that surrounds the process – that you can get through person to person would take hours to key into the computer (for me anyhow since I keep correcting myself and revising as I talk; it is easier to ‘edit’ the conversation than key it!)

Shalla: Would you say it is better for a writer to find a literary agent or to go straight to a publisher?

Seamus: There is no straight forward answer to that. If dealing with small publishers, direct dealing is likely to be very satisfactory whereas with very large companies, the good agent will make life much easier and the business side of the relationship won’t interfere with the editorial and promotional work.

But in thirty years of publishing here in Ireland, which has a very small publishing industry, three quarters of the authors we published dealt directly with us, the rest via agents. I don’t think (bar one or two exceptions, and the usual suspects), that we ever really saw any difference for the authors in our publishing process. Inevitably one gives extra attention to the author with whom you have a really strong and good purposeful relationship: that is probably easier in the small business.

I do understand the fear writers may have of the contractual and business side of the relationship, so for them an agent will also bring peace of mind. Many large publishers in the UK for instance now only consider proposals that come via agents, a sad development for many newcomers to writing, but commercially essential to avoid the deluge of scripts. It also passes some editorial determination to the agent.

Shalla: When choosing a literary agent, do we look at how successful they personally have been with the writers they represent or do we look at how successful their literary agency is?

For instance, do we sign with an agent because she is working for ICM or William Morris? Or do we sign with an agent because she handles Dan Brown and Martha Stewart?

Seamus: The key thing you need to achieve or find is trust – be it with a publisher or an agent.

What looks like external success (– and the world of publishing and literary agenting thrives on visible success and hidden failures, indeed it will hide the modest achievements!) does not always tell the whole story. The highly successful publisher or agent will also have more than a few highly unsuccessful client authors. At the end of the day, it is your book that will make the running.

A fortune spent on promotion can help, there is no doubt about that, but it won’t make a best seller! It is not that easy… the publisher is frequently surprised by the bestseller and the successful book even though he/she placed their bet on it in the first place. The publishing instinct can make the judgment, only the market place will make the book triumph. And the sad thing about the marketplace is that it frequently – very frequently indeed - fails to reward really fine books with very good sales.

Both the publisher and the agent know what they want to take on, but can only decide on reading the script. So the first principle must be: to provide the best material and present it in the best (not the most ostentatious) way. Make it easy for them to make a decision. Write a good book – begin from there. And when you have written it, put the research and effort on finding the right home for it with either agent or publisher.

Research – means finding similar books, identifying who published them, get their brochures, know something about their publishing policies, maybe one of their authors is reading near you in a bookshop or library – go listen; is there a local writers group – join it and find out who else knows any publishers, agents, etc. The thing is, nobody else will do this for you. So schedule this as a job to be done over a set period of time … it is even harder work than writing; it’s administration. But as you do it, lady luck will join you; she always does; and who knows … serendipity …

Shalla: Do you have any advice to writers on working with editors? For instance, should we treat editors like a friend? A business partner? Both?

Seamus: Again, that word Trust! Why have you chosen this editor or why has this editor chosen your work? Do you think the editor can do the job? Do you think the editor thinks you can do your job?

You don’t have to like the editor but it most definitely helps if you do. But you must respect the editing process, and therefore the editor’s ability and professionalism. The editor is ideally, and in this sequence: a professional (editor), a business professional, and a friendly (professional); all three merge in the good editor who knows the writing craft, the writing market, and who has got to know the writer behind the words on the page.

When I studied Latin and Greek at secondary school long ago we learned a phrase, Nosce Te Ipsum - Know yourself (it is not that easy). A writer must learn to know his / her own writing. By that I mean, learn to observe and read what you have written as you would the writing of a stranger. If the slightest query half grows in your mind about some element – a phrase, word, paragraph, line, image, whatever – delete it! The potential reader never knows it once existed in some earlier draft of your work, so nobody loses. And anyway, you still have the earlier draft (don’t you!).

Revise, re-edit, revise, re-edit. If you have written a story of 10,000 or 100,000 words, or a poem of 20 or 50 lines, give yourself a target of 10%, 15% or even 20% to cull. Then do it. And look at the improvement – every time … Throw out the bathwater, keep the baby for it is the living kernel …

Know why you write, know what you want to write: then write for the joy of it, and maybe for the possibility of publication …

Shalla: Thanks Seamus! For more on Seamus Cashman and BookConsulT, please go to http://www.bookconsult.com/

Seamus: Thanks for asking me. I hope it may help someone in some little way – In summary, three vital concepts for the process: Persist; Trust; Revise!

Like that wonderful Irish proverb I often use as an opening meditation moment to begin a workshop with:

Shalla DeGuzman's short stories have appeared in Poetic Diversity, the Mosaic Literary Journal, the Mad Hatters Review, etc.; her articles in The Scriptorium and L.A. Freepress; her skits at the Stella Adler Theatre.

Her flash fiction The Fish In My Bed recently won the FISH AND PLANE Competition and is featured in Issue 6 of Mad Hatters Review.
Shalla, a former writer and producer of a health and fitness cable show, is currently writing a novel. She is President of The ShallaDeGuzman Writers Group where she interviews literary agents, publishers, editors, etc.

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