Books are my business: O'Brien Press senior editor Helen Carr

Irish Examiner

03-05-2025

Helen Carr is a senior editor with the O'Brien Press, Ireland's leading general publisher of adult and children's books, which is based in Rathgar, Dublin.
How did you get into publishing?
I did French and classics in Trinity and straight after that, I worked in Waterstones on Dawson Street, which was a great place to learn about the book trade.
I worked with a lot of people who are now writers, such as Sarah Webb, Anne Griffin, and Paul Murray.
That's really where I learned about publishing, because I'd meet the reps when they came in.
Then a reception job came up with the O'Brien Press and I got a good bit of editorial administration training there.
Then I went to Veritas Publications where I worked my way up from administrator to managing editor, and then a job came up in the O'Brien Press and I went back.
I've been there ever since. I've been in publishing for about 28 years.
What does your role involve?
I have a lot of children's authors on my list, but also I've done a lot of adult non-fiction as well, which is good and makes it more interesting.
In terms of editing, my day to day would vary depending on the type of book; if it's mainly text, like upper-level children's fiction, teen fiction, or fantasy, a lot of the early edits will be thinking about the story and characters, having a back and forth with the author.
When the book has gone into layout, I work on the copy edit which is a line by line edit with the author.
I also work on a lot of picture books for children, and the timeline is very different on those.
We would spend a long time working on the text, but also on what are called the spreads, where you are working across a double page.
The words can change after the illustration happens, but what happens on each spread can't change.
So for a picture book, you get the text 80% to 90% perfect, and the page turn right before you brief the artist.
I also work on memoirs and adult non-fiction a lot. I might be doing completely different things, like checking recipes, or clearing picture copyright.
We all work together across all departments, to get a book from submission to shelf — design, sales, and marketing are so important in that too.
A lot of my job is reassuring authors and letting them know we want to do the best for their book. I also chair a fortnightly meeting where we decide what books to publish, when to publish them, discuss titles, and that kind of thing.
What do you like most about it?
In terms of day to day tasks, my favourite is probably the first edit, I really like when I'm reading the book, thinking about the character and the story, and making notes.
I love sending that to the author and hearing what they think. I also love waiting for books to come in, especially picture books.
What do you like least about it?
We all work really hard to make sure that the books get the best showing they can in the shops because you want to get them to their audience.
But there can be an element of luck in that.
Sometimes there might be a book that is just not getting the shelf space or the publicity that I think it deserves. That's disappointing for the author and for us.
Desert island books
A book I have come back to a lot is The Secret History by Donna Tartt, about a group of murderous classics students.
Reading that when it came out gave a dark glamour to my own university experience, and I loved it. I really like her writing, the way she evokes New England and and how she just brings things to life.
A book which I read recently that I loved was The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai.
It's set partly in 1980 Chicago, at the beginning of the aids crisis, and partly in 2015 Paris, just around the time of the Bataclan massacre. The characters in this book are part of my mental geography now.
Finally, if a boat could come to my desert island in June, there's a book coming out by Anna Carey called Our Song.
It's about a couple who were in a band together in college in the early 2000s, then something happens, they fall out, he becomes a megastar, and eventually they reconnect 16 years later to try to finish a song.
It's funny and romantic in the best way. It really evokes those years when you're in college, just hanging around, making friends, talking about things you love, talking about music.