Author Patricia's got the write stuff

She got so many rejection slips from publishers that she “could have papered at least one wall of a room with them”, but Patricia Forde never wavered in her desire to write stories for children.

Her determination has paid off and the former Director of Galway Arts Festival has just had her new book Frogs Do Not Like Dragons, published by London company Egmont, which also publishes renowned children’s writers such as Julia Donaldson (The Gruffalo), Ann Fine (former UK Children’s Laureate and author of The Killer Cats series among others) and Michael Morpugo (also a former UK Children’s Laureate whose books include War Horse, now a hit theatre show in London).

Not that Trish is putting herself in their league! Egmont Banana books are designed to get children reading independently and because of that, it attracts top names, she explains

“It has all the best-known writers . . . and then the plebs. . .” But Trish isn’t exactly a novice when it comes to writing books for kids, although this is the first time she has had a UK publisher and the first time she has had an agent – a major step for any author.

She spent 10 years as a teacher in the 1980s, during which time she was involved with the Arts Festival and the then recently established Macnas Theatre Company. She worked with Macnas devising stories for their parades and stage shows, and occasionally taking part in them.

In 1990 she took a year off from teaching in Scoil Róis, Taylor’s Hill to write a children’s book, during which time Ollie Jennings called to the house and asked if she’d take over as Arts Festival Artistic Director. She did, while working on the book that became Tír Faoi Thoinn.But, she explains, that had evolved from a memorable early Macnas Parade and was written as a companion piece to it, so it wasn’t a book in the traditional sense.

She followed that with The King’s Secret which was published by O’Brien Press in 1992, but the Dublin publishing house rejected her next offering, and she felt that maybe her literary luck had run out. However, she wasn’t exactly idle and didn’t have time to focus on the rejection.

“I left the Festival in 1995 and got a job in Ros na Rún and after that I worked on [the TG4 drama series] Aifric.”

She had also worked as a researcher on the station’s popular entertainment programme Sibín. But, ever before she began working with TG4, Trish had been working part-time on kids’ plays for RTÉ as the Arts Festival was not a year-long job in the early 1990s when she was its Artistic Director.

After leaving the Festival, she was kept busy with her TV work, but recently, she decided if she was ever to focus on her own projects, it was time to reassess.

“About three years ago I shut up shop and decided to write a children’s book, which was all I ever wanted to do. I wrote a full novel and sent it to about 20 publishers and they all rejected it, some nicely.”

Second time around, however, she wasn’t prepared to take rejection, no matter how nice. She read up on how the publishing process works and decided the best thing to do was to get a literary agent, who would represent her with publishers.

“Which shows how much I knew, because it’s harder to get an agent than a publisher,” she laughs. But she persevered.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.