A Sting in the tale fails to derail Irish indie

Stinging Fly has been an integral part of the Irish literary scene for two decades, so much so that many believe it has helped to alter the landscape of Irish fiction.

Fledgling writer Declan Meade (below right) set up the literary magazine in 1998 after realising that there were very few places for new writers to submit work, particularly short stories. "[Setting up the magazine] was difficult in the sense that we didn’t know what we were doing. But that probably helped us too," Meade says. "We didn’t have big expectations, so it was a case of solving problems as we went along."

The magazine is now being edited by wunderkind Sally Rooney, who was herself first published by Stinging Fly in 2010. "It has been fantastic to watch her work continuously leap forward since then," Meade says. "She’s as committed to editing as she is to writing, and I know from talking to some of the writers she published in her first issue [summer 2018] that they all really appreciated her engagement with their work."

Stinging Fly launched a book publishing arm after a few years in business. The first title was Sean O’Reilly’s novella Watermark, followed by Kevin Barry’s début collection of short stories There are Little Kingdoms. The press generally publishes only one or two titles a year, along with two issues of the magazine.

The next two books will be début collections of fiction by Wendy Erskine (out September 2018) and Nicole Flattery (spring 2019). Earlier this year, it published a 20th anniversary collection, Stinging Fly Stories, with authors such as Sara Baume, Danny Denton and Lisa McInerney contributing.

Paper tiger
Stinging Fly really found its footing in the Noughties, bolstered by relatively easy access to funding in the heady days of the Celtic Tiger—Meade was once able to get a bank loan over the phone, and the Arts Council had "significantly" more money to dispense in those years. Yet following the recession in 2008, there were major cuts to funding. The past few years have seen small increases to the Arts Council’s overall budget, but it is still "not anywhere close" to where it was in 2007, says Meade. "There’s uncertainty from year to year. We don’t know what funding is going to be available. It means that we have to move forward in a more incremental way. We don’t have the resources to push ahead as quickly as I would like."

Despite the problems with funding and the difficulties of surviving in a relatively small market, Meade feels supported by a surging Irish appetite for new fiction and the continuous stream of fresh writers coming through. He also praises the strong network of booksellers in Ireland, and the access its distributor (Gill Distribution) and wholesaler (Argosy Books) gives it, as well as the help of retailer Eason. Similarly, he says the Irish books press and media are "very supportive".

The next challenge for Stinging Fly is to break into the UK. Yet Meade says the press is struggling to link with booksellers and the media across the Irish Sea. "All the connections and support we have here are the result of building relationships over time," Meade says. "For the  first few years here, I delivered the magazine into different shops myself. And I did that to an extent with the first book we published too—we only signed with a distributor after that came out."

He adds: "We have good relationships with a lot of UK agents at this stage and with many of the UK publishers, but not so much with booksellers and with the media, mainly because we’re not there on the ground. It’s a problem I do want to solve."

This article featured in our Ireland Country Focus. For more content from this focus, click here.