Discover how tennis has influenced our world in all sorts of weird and unexpected ways; From the fall of Kings to the birth of Democracy to inventing Banking; From inventing the Stock Market to Causing The 2008 World Financial Crisis; Find out how Tennis created The Secret Service, MI5 and James Bond; How it invented the Smart Phone; Even how it helped win the Second World War.

Also in the book – the never revealed before, 500 year old secret, as to why tennis is scored at 15 points at a time.

But this is no history lesson. This is raw entertainment.

Christian Howgill has written for many TV shows like: BBC’s Jasper Carrott for the Carrott Confidential show, which was twice nominated for a Palm d’Or in Cannes; He also wrote for Rory Bremner’s And Now Something Else; and Clive Anderson Talks Back on Channel 4.
For radio he has written for various shows like Weekending, The News Huddlines, and Two Cheers for BBC Radio 4.

He was a regular satirists on the Sideswipes column on Punch Magazine, and was a named columnist on Excel Magazine, Edge Magazine, FORE! Magazine, and Today’s Golfer. He has worked in the tennis world for almost 25 years including as the Editor of The Queen’s Club Magazine where he sourced many of the stories you will hear tonight.

I’m an author, editor and journalist and will be at the book fair with my fiction and non-fiction books including my latest novel, Is There Anybody Out There?

My novels are uplit stories that are positive, moving and feature at least one dog.

My non fiction is all about dogs.

Sylvia Vetta is a British author, freelance writer, and community activist whose work explores the intersections of gender, class, and race. Raised working-class in Luton, she married her Indian-born husband Atam Vetta at a time of widespread hostility toward mixed marriages, an experience chronicled in her acclaimed memoir Food of Love. As a freelance writer for The Oxford Times, she profiled 120 inspirational people from five continents in her popular Oxford Castaways series, later collected into three books. Her novels include Brushstrokes in Time, the only novel celebrating the courageous artists of China’s Stars Art Movement (including Ai Weiwei), Sculpting the Elephant set in Oxford and India, and Not so Black and White, co-authored with Nancy Mudenyo Hunt. A passionate library campaigner, she organised the Pied Piper Procession that helped save 20 libraries from closure, and has been involved in development projects for over 40 years, including help twin her village of Kennington with Musanda in west Kenya. She is a founder organiser of the Oxford Indie Book Fair and believes that art, music, and storytelling can connect people.

Writers in Oxford is the society for published writers and authors in Oxford and Oxfordshire. Founded in 1992, it now has around 200 members spread across the city, the county and beyond. Members represent every genre of writing and all media: non-fiction (academic and popular); fiction (contemporary and historical, mysteries); biography, memoir, poetry, children’s, script-writing, journalism.

Our aim is to bring writers together to enjoy each other’s company, network, develop professionally, and enjoy a wide range of literary and other events.

WiO is run on a voluntary basis by a small committee.

The Oxford Independent Authors are a mutually supportive group of writers who meet to share expertise, preserving independence and joining together at collaborative events. The focus of this group is on marketing, promoting, selling and raising the profile of our writers.

If you are an independent author or working towards becoming one and would like more information please send an email to oxfordindieauthors@gmail.com.

As a disabled teenager, Sarah R. New identified strongly with monstrous female characters, but couldn’t quite find herself reflected in her favourite genre. Twenty years on, she’s crafting her own narratives, using personal experiences to thrill and scare readers. She is the host of film analysis podcast Anatomy of a Horror Film, and regularly writes about film analysis on her Substack, naturalis mutant. Her first novella, Gothic horror Amissis Liberis, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2024, followed by body-and-mind horror novella, Hypochondria in 2026. Her most recent novella, animalistic thriller CATFOOD, was released in June 2026.