With all the money nowadays being thrown at young writers (well, some young writers), it's salutary to be reminded that such largesse wasn't always the case, even for a man destined to become a Nobel laureate.
In a Festschrift for Ian Hamilton, to be published this autumn by Cargo Press, Ian McEwan recalls his method of extracting payment for his contributions to the New Review, that exemplary literary magazine edited by Hamilton from 1974 to 1979.
He was paid, he says, for "almost every story Ian published," but "you had to show persistence, and you stood a better chance with him if you didn't have a regular job" - which was the case with himself and Seamus Heaney.
Indeed, he recalls going into the Pillars of Hercules, the pub beneath Hamilton's Soho office, with the Irish poet, "whom I had just met. We found Ian at the bar, bought him a drink and got him into a dark corner - we didn't want the sight of his cheque-book starting a general stampede. I came away with £30 and Seamus with £10. Over lunch at the Chinese fish and chip shop, elated by my success, I offered the poet expansive advice on raising his earnings."
Karl Miller, a magazine editor of equal renown to Hamilton, also recalls the younger Heaney. In his second volume of memoirs, Dark Horses, just published by Picador, Miller counts as his "most vivid memory" of editing the New Statesman in the 1960s "the sight of Seamus Heaney's typescripts, meekly attended by a stamped and addressed envelope for their return. . .here was a new writer whom we knew we should publish at the earliest possible moment."
And his admiration has grown over the years. When the poet won the Nobel prize in 1995, A.Alvarez told the Guardian: "He's very, very good but relatively small-scale." Miller comments: "What kind of scale is it that would register as small something that was very, very good? It is the one that critics use, with its low ratings and its shades of disparagement. Alvarez has long held this view of Heaney's work; it must have seemed an appropriate time to come out with it again."
Incidentally, the writers Miller mentions most frequently and fondly in his book are Seamus Heaney and Conor Cruise O'Brien, two people you wouldn't necessarily think of as having a lot in common, apart from the friendship and esteem of Miller - and, of course, their way with words.
IT'S competition season, but somehow I don't imagine there were too many Irish entries for the Saga Prize 1998, judging of which is now underway, the result to be announced later in the summer.
To qualify for this award, instigated four years ago by Marsha Hunt, you had to be male or female (no problems there), born and resident in either Britain or Ireland (ditto), and you had to submit a previously unpublished novel of no more than 80,000 words - a doddle, really, seeing that everyone in Ireland has at least three unpublished novels lying around the house.
But you also had to have a black African ancestor, and given Irish attitudes, both official and unofficial, to immigrants, especially those of a non-white hue, there can't have been huge numbers of people who passed that test.
NO such problems attend the Clogh Annual Poetry Competition. Why, you don't even have to be from Clogh, which is situated near Castlecomer in Co.Kilkenny, to qualify.
Closing date is July 17th, and all you have to do is submit poems of no more than forty lines each, and with £1 attached for every poem, to Michael Massey, Clogh Writers Poetry Competition, Clogh, Castlecomer. There are prizes of £100, £70 and £30, and the presentation to winners will occur on Arts Day in Clogh, which takes place on August 22nd next.
IF you're interested in writing short stories for radio, the Fallen Leaves competition, now in its third year, is the thing for you. Organised by Cork Campus Radio, in association with Cork University Press and The Examiner, it offers £400 in prize money and promises that all shortlisted stories will be broadcast.
Such stories must be between 1,800 and 2,000 words, and this year's adjudicators are Evelyn Conlon and Fergal Keane. Send your story (with a 4 cheque or postal order) by September 4th next to Fallen Leaves Short Story Competition, Cork Campus Radio 97.4 FM, Level 3, Aras na Mac Leinn, University College Cork.