Josie Jaffrey is an Oxford-based indie author who writes about lost worlds, dystopian societies and morally-ambiguous monsters (vampires are her favourite). She has published multiple novels and short stories. Most of those are set in the Silverse, an apocalyptic world filled with vampires and zombies.

Josie is the founding editor of indie fantasy magazine Indie Bites and the writer of the urban fantasy podcast Jack Valentine, Vampire Detective.​

Oxfordfolio is a high-quality self-publishing provider, taking you and your unique story from manuscript to physical book. We are experts in full-colour integrated books with over 40 years of editorial, typesetting and graphic design experience. We work primarily in illustrated non-fiction (memoirs, histories, travel, biographies) but have also launched Anglepoise Books for quality fiction. We aim is to provide a flexible service tailored to your specific requirements as we take you through the whole publishing process We work with personally selected artists and illustrators, copy-editors, proof-readers and indexers, graphic designers, typesetters, and UK printers to produce the best bespoke book for your budget.

Your Life • Your Story • Your Book

Enthralling. Inspiring. Impossible to forget. Epic Tales creates books, resources, and live storytelling experiences that have inspired many children to fall in love with reading, helped others overcome anxiety and related issues, and put smiles on the faces of entire families. Our work draws on decades of professional storytelling, school visits, teacher training, and Reading for Pleasure expertise.

I’ve written more than a few books, but writing about myself might be the hardest thing of all. Let’s start simply. I was born in Jamaica. No, I can’t run or sing, and if I tried, it wouldn’t be pretty.

My love of books began as soon as I could read on my own and discovered the power of stories. Surprisingly, it was my father who taught me to read, despite being dyslexic himself. He taught himself using newspapers and abandoned catalogues from the resorts where he worked as a carpenter. That’s where my love of words began.

As a teenager, I turned to reading to escape the emotional upheaval of my parents’ breakup. Writing soon followed, becoming a way to say the things I couldn’t speak aloud. I’m naturally shy, and writing became my voice.

For years, writing stayed a hobby. That changed when I returned to university to study English Literature and finally began taking my work seriously. Over the last two years, I’ve written and self-published around fourteen novels and novellas.

I write romance because happy endings gave me hope during difficult times, and I want to pass that feeling on. I write science fiction because, as a lifelong Trekkie and a Black woman, I rarely saw myself in the worlds I loved, so I created my own. I write around real life with a husband, two boys, work, and the PTA, usually at night when it’s quiet. And if I ever met an alien, I’d run. Jamaican style.

If you love heart, humour, romance, and a touch of sci‑fi chaos, I hope you’ll try one of my stories.

Tom is the author of fifteen books of fantasy, SF and historical fiction – including the Twilight Reign series, The God Fragments and his latest series, The Devil Diaries. After a degree in International Relations he went straight into publishing where he still works. He never received the memo about suitable jobs for writers and consequently has never been a kitchen-hand, hospital porter, pigeon hunter, or secret agent. He lives in Oxford, isn’t one of those authors who gives a damn about the history of the font used in his books and only believes in forms of exercise that allow him to hit something.

In Teachers, Schools and Views on Education, John Howson brings together a year of sharp, timely reflections on the English education system at a moment of rapid change. Written as events unfolded, these commentaries capture the pressures facing teachers, the shifting demands on schools, and the policy decisions that shaped the national conversation throughout 2013.

With his trademark clarity and deep understanding of the teacher labour market, Howson offers readers a grounded, insightful narrative that connects policy to practice and national debate to classroom reality. From recruitment challenges to governance reforms, from curriculum shifts to workforce morale, this book provides a rare contemporaneous record of a pivotal year.

Essential reading for educators, policymakers, researchers, and anyone seeking to understand how the forces of policy and practice interact, this volume stands as both a historical document and a lens through which to view today’s ongoing debates.