Órla Carr and Sinéad O’Callaghan to join Little Island Books amid editorial expansion

Órla Carr and Sinéad O’Callaghan will join Little Island Books this summer as editors, as the press expands its in-house team.

Carr joins Little Island from Irish publisher UCD Press, where she has been part of a two-person in-house team since 2022. She holds a publishing master’s from NUI Galway, and her experience includes reviewing children’s books for Inis and Paper Lanterns magazines, as well as bookselling with Charlie Byrne’s bookshop in Galway, and at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. She has also completed internships with The O’Brien Press and Children’s Books Ireland, and founded her own e-book small press, Castles in the Air.

Meanwhile, O’Callaghan is currently editor with The Folio Society in London, where she has helped develop the children’s and fiction lists. She has also worked as assistant editor with Granta, and as scouting assistant with Eccles Fisher Associates, as well as interning at Bloomsbury, and volunteering at Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway. She holds a publishing master’s from University College London and will relocate to Ireland to take up her new role.

Little Island Books chief executive and publisher Matthew Parkinson-Bennett said: “By prioritising the expansion of our editorial capacity we are sending a message about our commitment to developing books of the highest quality for young readers, and to working closely with our community of creators to give them the best possible publishing experience.

“With Órla and Sinéad taking up their roles over the summer, I look forward to devoting more of my time and energy to our continued growth as a business both in Ireland and internationally”