The idea of being an author was something Sarah Davis-Goff had always “tinkered around with.
The co-publisher at Tramp Press’ debut novel, Last Ones Left Alive, was published earlier this year.
And she told Her about why she thinks it is difficult to be a full-time writer.
“I think it’s so difficult to be a full-time writer and to think of yourself just as a writer,” she said. “Even though I work in the business, or even adjacent to the business, there aren’t that many people I know who are full-time writers.
“I never imagined myself becoming a full-time writer. It’s sort of more of a habit than profession for me. I think it’s such an interesting way to try and make sense of the world around you, to create something fresh and new.
“Or, for me, to create something I hadn’t been seeing a lot of. It’s a confluence of things, really.”
She added that she was “a little bit stunned” when she heard her novel had been nominated in the An Post Irish Book Awards.
“Obviously, as a publisher, we’ve been lucky enough. to have books shortlisted – and to have even won at the Irish Book Awards before,” she added. “But having that shortlisting as a writer is a very different experience. So, I was stunned and delighted.”
And while she doesn’t think that her job as a publisher affected her writing process, there is one thing that did: her love of reading.
“I think my proclivities as a reader affect my writing, but not my profession as a publisher.I think so much of what you’re doing when your writing is being very careful about the inner critic that comes along with that,” she said. “I think that if you’re writing with an idea of the kind of publisher you want, or even to the kind of reading audience you want, I think that’s probably a mistake – at least for the first few drafts.
“It’s been my experience that it’ll get out better if I don’t particularly imagine a reader, and imagine that nobody is ever going to read it, and write a story that I want to tell myself and hear myself.”
Last Ones Left Alive is a post-apocalyptic novel which follows a young girl named Orpen.
Raised by her mother and Maeve on Slanbeg, an island off the west coast of Ireland, she has a childhood of love and stories by the fireside. But the stories grow darker, and the training begins.
Ireland has been devoured by a ravening menace known as the skrake, and though Slanbeg is safe for now, the women must always be ready to run, or to fight.
Once day, Maeve gets bitten – leaving Orpen faced with an impossible dilemma: kill Maeve before the transformation is complete, or leave and try and get help. So Orpen sets off, with Maeve in a wheelbarrow and her dog at her side, in the hope of finding other survivors, and a cure.
The journey pushes her to her limits, and causes her to learn who she really is, who she really loves, and how to imagine a future in a world that ended before she was born.
The author told us about how, when writing Last Ones Left Alive, she wanted to “write a world that is very similar to our own in a lot of ways”.
“I wanted to write a world in which a woman walking down the street is kind of dangerous; where danger can come at you from any angle and monsters are an every day occurrence that people have to deal. with,” she explained.
Another source of inspiration was ‘road’ works of fiction, which – as Sarah explained – basically see the character’s trying to get from place a to place b and running into difficulties along the way.
“I love that high-concept, super-simple narrative where things are very much propelled by the world in which a character lives,” she continued. “So it’s very influenced by Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now; it was really fun to write.”
“I don’t know why I’m drawn to dystopia, but it’s something that I enjoy reading and seek out,” she added. “I think probably like a lot of people, I read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale at a really important time in my life.
“Having around The Handmaid’s Tale, and some early Stephen King like The Stand and Firestarter – another kind of novel where people have to get from point a to point b – I think my tastes were really informed by what I read as a teenager, which is the case I think for a lot of writers out there.”
Earlier this summer, Treasure Entertainment, one of Ireland’s leading independent production companies, acquired the rights to Last Ones Left Alive.
And while she is “incidentally involved” with the process, Sarah told us about her excitement over what is to come.
“It’s really exciting, they do some really interesting work,” she said “I was so flattered that they were interested, and I’m excited to see what will come after they are done working on it.”
Sarah Davis-Goff is nominated for Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year in the An Post Irish Book Awards for her book ‘Last Ones Left Alive’. You can vote for your favourite at anpostirishbookawards.ie.
