In April 2017, the annual Oxford Literary Festival hosted a panel discussion for first-time authors. One of the panelists was Paula Cocozza, a journalist at the Guardian, the other, a little-known 26-year-old author from Dublin by the name of Sally Rooney. The following month, Rooney’s first novel, Conversations with Friends, was set to be released, having been sold in a competitive seven-way auction the previous year. But despite the battle to gain the rights to her debut, this paper’s culture editor, who interviewed the pair at the event, recalls that only around ten people showed up. Half of whom were publishers.
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