Maria Dickenson has previously worked as a librarian, bookseller, and managing director of Dubray Books.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She is on the board of the Irish Writers Centre, the Irish Book Awards, and is chair of Bookselling Ireland, which supports Irish Book Week, celebrating the contribution that bookshops make to our culture and economy. It takes place from October 18 to 25.<\/p>\n
How did you get into your role?<\/p>\n
Books have always been very important to me. I did English at Leeds University, and then I worked in the library at Trinity College before doing a masters in library and information studies in UCD.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I moved into a sales role in Eason, working in the wholesale department there, and then on to a buying role.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then I moved to Dubray Books as MD about 10 years ago, which was my most recent role.<\/p>\n
Bookselling Ireland is the Irish branch of Booksellers Association in the UK, and I have worked with them both through the years in various capacities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n I was vice-president of the Booksellers Association in the UK, and this is my second time chairing the Bookselling Ireland committee.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
It is a voluntary post, and normally it\u2019s held by an experienced bookseller who is happy to step up to the plate and work to support and advocate for their fellow booksellers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is a very dedicated and supportive committee.<\/p>\n
What does your role involve?<\/p>\n
We are there to listen to the needs of booksellers and advocate for them. That\u2019s an increasingly important part of the role, lobbying and advocating for the book trade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We also arrange events and opportunities such as Irish Book Week, which is a great opportunity to showcase the the importance of bookshops and the fantastic array of Irish writers who are so supportive of bookshops.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a good deal of networking and we organise an annual conference, to share ideas and offer some training elements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It also gives booksellers who are perhaps working in a shop on their own the opportunity to meet other booksellers.<\/p>\n
What do you like most about it?<\/p>\n
I enjoy the campaigns side of it as I have always loved shouting about what the book trade does.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s such a lovely industry to work in, and there\u2019s so much to celebrate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I also love the networking and social events, for friendship and learning opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I have learned an awful lot along the way from my fellow booksellers and I think it\u2019s really important for us all to get that time together.<\/p>\n
What do you like least about it?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that I dislike it, but the advocacy side is more challenging.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are a huge number of sectors with a huge number of demands, and the book trade has faced a lot of challenges over the last few years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Obviously, Brexit had a significant impact, and covid was a very difficult time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the moment, there\u2019s various pieces of EU legislation that we\u2019re trying to wrap our heads around and what it means for individual booksellers on the ground.<\/p>\n
Three desert island books<\/p>\n
My go-to \u2018when you\u2019re sad\u2019 book is The Time Traveler\u2019s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I absolutely love it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a really creative, inventive, and also very romantic book. At whatever stage of life I read it, I get something different from it.<\/p>\n
My next pick is a non-fiction book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It by Oliver Burkeman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His premise is that you have these 4,000 weeks, and you need to live them as you want. It\u2019s no-nonsense and really made me think about what my priorities were and how I wanted to spend my time.<\/p>\n
A recent read that I loved was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, which is an unusual book in some ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s set in the gaming world, and is about a pair of friends who are trying to create the worlds they want to live in and it\u2019s lovely from that perspective.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is about friendship, and work, and friendships in work, which is not something that gets a lot of attention, but is actually a massively important part of your life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maria Dickenson has previously worked as a librarian, bookseller, and managing director of Dubray Books.\u00a0 She is on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2698,288,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-2161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books-features-and-news","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}