I didn’t know what I was doing in the beginning

“I originally started with Brandon Books in Dingle. When I wrote my first book, To School Through The Fields, that's 25 years ago now, I knew absolutely nothing about publishers. So I looked at a couple of books that I had in the house and one of them was The Bodhran Maker by John B Keane and this was published by Brandon. So I sent it to Brandon but I didn't know anything about them, but I thought if John B is working with them. I also like the idea of the publishing house being named after a mountain. I heard back within a few weeks, well actually I didn’t, I missed the message. I was on holidays with my sister in Kent, and I was unaware the letter from them had arrived and a couple of days after that I got a phone call from the owner Steve McDonagh asking why I hadn't acknowledged their letter. So keep an eye on the post box!”

Be prepared to promote yourself

“My main reason for writing To School Through The Fields was that I wanted a record of that way of life for the generations coming after. I didn't want the memories to die with us. But when Steve asked me how I wanted to promote it I just thought it would be the local papers in Cork. When he said how would I feel about The Late Late, I nearly fainted with the fright! What actually happened is because the book wasn't on shelf yet, I went on Gay's morning radio show. I had a great relief not having people looking at me on the television! But it was overwhelming, I didn't even know where RTE was. When I got home after doing the radio show, my son said the phone at home had been ringing off the hook all day.”

Life imitates art

“After the sudden death of my husband, Steve suggested I write a book on bereavement, though I thought that would be tough. We were just fine-combing the book and all that was left was to decide the name, and Steve was gone to Morocco, and he had emailed me and said by Monday we need a name by Monday. But then a bombshell came, when after he got off the plane in Dublin airport on his way to Dingle, he got a brain hemorrhage. He ended up in CUH on a life support but they turned it off that night off. When O'Brien Press took over Brandon, and that's how I ended up with them, the first thing we published was the book on bereavement and the last chapter was on Steve's death. We called the book 'And Time Stood Still'. It was a tough book to write, I used to say to Steve while I was writing, 'this book is going to kill me!' But from the reaction I got afterward, I think the book did help a lot of people.”

See Alice's books here.

Read our premium interview with three Irish authors here.