Ed O’Loughlin: ‘Literary prizes can be random but they’re a leg-up for writers’

“Prize lists can be pretty random,” says author Ed O’Loughlin, but they are still an important “leg-up” for writers trying to eke out a living.

“Publishers don’t spend a lot on publicity and perhaps not that much on marketing either, except for the big names where they know that if they spend money on advertising it will come back to them,” he told Róisín Ingle presenter of the Róisín Meets podcast.

The Irish-Canadian author previously worked as a journalist and as foreign affairs correspondent for the Irish Times. His first novel, Not Untrue & Not Unkind, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009 and his third novel, Minds of Winter, was published last August.

It is based in Inuvik, Canada - about 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle - as well as the South Pole at times, and its narratives are linked by a chronometer which did, in fact, exist but was thought lost in the Arctic until recent years.

The book shifts between the past and the present, weaving fact with fiction, to tell the stories of polar explorers who “didn’t know what was over the next hill” when they set off on perilous journeys into the unknown.

O’Loughlin, who grew up in Ireland but was born in Canada, said the bravery and curiosity of these explorers formed a large part of the inspiration for Minds of Winter.

“People still go on adventures but they know what’s there. Up until the 1930s there were still hopes of discovering a new continent, or vast new islands in the polar basin,” he said.

The book was ten years in the making and O’Loughlin is glad of the positive feedback he has received, though he feels hard done by that he has not managed to inspire any trolling on Twitter yet.

“Anybody’s who is on Twitter with any kind of profile is getting all this hate-mail and trolling but nobody is bothering to troll me. I’m not worth it,” he joked.

O’Loughlin told the podcast that while he swore he would not “plunge into another novel” after spending a decade on Minds of Winter, he can feel the idea for one “already beginning to stir” in his mind.

Ideas come and go, he said, but this one looks, “ominously like it will be a novel written by me.”

To listen to Ed O’Loughlin in conversation with Róisín Ingle, go to Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher or irishtimes.com.

Minds of Winter, published by Riverrun, is out now.