Roxy Eloise always dreamed of becoming an author, but writing a full book felt impossible, until a birthday gift, You Are a Badass, gave her the confidence to try. At twenty-eight, she finished her first manuscript and secured a traditional publishing deal through PitMad.

Her debut, The Guidal: Discovering Puracordis, is a dystopian romantasy set in a near-future UK where time determines worth. It follows a sixteen-year-old girl raised in a strict institute, grappling with oppression, mystery, and a secret that threatens everything. Inspired by a dream, the series blends rebellion, identity, and forbidden magic.

Originally a trilogy, The Guidal series has expanded to four books, concluding in 2026. Roxy writes for readers who love flawed yet determined heroines, dystopian lies, and worlds where humanity is deliberately disconnected from its true power.

Steve has spent his life trying to discover the secret of how to become a fully-functioning adult. He has so far failed. One thing he has learnt is that he ought to have tried writing a book forty years earlier than he did, although he also now realises that he should have become a celebrity first, as this would have made selling it much easier.

He currently has three comedy spy thrillers to his name, all published by Claret Press: A Very Important Teapot, set in Australia; Bored to Death in the Baltics, not set in Australia; and Poor Table Manners, which takes place in Cape Town. These feature an initially fairly hapless hero, Dawson, and a considerably less hapless heroine, Lucy, together with varied supporting casts, most of whom are not who they claim to be.

In 2025, Steve also released into the world a comedy-murder-mystery, Lazytown, set in an eccentric Oxfordshire village. And, in a departure from comedy, a UK based thriller, False Connections, featuring ex-MI5 agent, Mel Milano, may well be out before the summer book fair. This could be the first of a new series, although Dawson and Lucy are also planning another outing at some point.

Deborah Taylor, The Blue Pencil, is a freelance copy editor and proofreader based in Newbury, Berkshire. A member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, she specialises in working with indie authors and small publishers across crime, memoir, and romance genres.

With a background rooted in the print industry, Deborah brings warmth, expertise, and a genuine love of language to everything she does. She supports self-publishing authors, combining meticulous attention to detail with a warm, encouraging approach—because great editing should feel like a collaboration.

Oxford eBooks (est 2010) specialises in Digital Publishing services for authors and publishers alike. Their typesetting, publishing and eBook production services are fast, accurate and well priced. They also now produce beautifully recorded and edited Audio Books. Come talk with Andy about your project and how he can make your book a reality.

Alexander Halford is a surrealist fiction writer based in Wapping, London, where the tides, cobbled streets and slow river light have become quiet companions to his creative life. A physicist by training and a tech professional by trade, he arrived at fiction by a wonderfully unlikely route—what began as a sudden spark of curiosity grew into a full creative pursuit.

His debut novel, Venus in Chains, blends his fascination with philosophy, the human mind, and the hidden codes behind human behaviour. First drafted at his favourite window table in a small café overlooking the docks, the book carries the imprint of that landscape: still water, changing skies, and the sense that meaning can be uncovered in the ordinary if you look long enough.

Influenced strongly by the psychological richness of Russian writers such as Nabokov, Dostoevsky and Turgenev, Alexander approaches fiction as an excavation of inner worlds. He is currently working on his second novel, which continues this journey through themes of identity and self.

Born and raised in Spain, Cris moved to the UK a few years ago to pursue her career in Space Engineering. She now lives in Oxford, which she discovered is the city with the highest rate of published authors per square mile. It made her think… why not contribute to that?