Tim Kindberg (champignon.net) is a writer and computer scientist. His dark, twisted novel Vampires of Avonmouth explores intersections between AI, the supernatural and consciousness through the struggles of a detective plagued by an inner demon. He gives talks and blogs critically about genAI's (ChatGPT's) inadequacies and implications for society.
Rebecca Southgate Williams is a debut novelist who loves to challenge our perceptions of reality and peel away the masks we wear to reveal what lies behind them. With an Honours Degree in French and German, a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Studies, and a Certificate in Translation, she has a long-held appreciation of the scope and power of the written word. Whether used to obfuscate or reveal, tear down or build up, repress or transform, words can create so many different narratives and perspectives. Her love of both classical literature and modern psychological dramas led her to the idea of creating a modern-day odyssey to explore the landscapes we travel, both in body and mind. A mother of three adult children, she currently works in the charity sector and lives in Cornwall with her husband and her younger son.
https://shop.eastgatebookshop.co.uk/products/the-passenger-manifest
https://www.ivybridgebookshop.com/products/9798340526243?_pos=1&_sid=ff09ce8d4&_ss=r
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-passenger-manifest/rebecca-southgate-williams//9798340526243
https://www.instagram.com/rebeccaswwriter/profilecard/?igsh=bW15NGxzZGlsNnU=
https://www.facebook.com/share/16ep41KEBR/?mibextid=wwXIfr
‘Hi everyone! I'm Jack Hale, I'm a first time author looking to promote my first series called Centa Isla! In this Urban Fantasy adventure, demonic forces work in the shadows of a floating empire, can you stop what is to come? Step into the smoky streets of Centa Isla and find out!’
A former construction project manager, Hazel Hatman swapped hard hats and rainswept scaffolding for central heating, cosy toes, and copious cake. Now she spends her days writing her romance heroines into trouble and then trying to dig them out.
Hazel lives in Devon, England.
Website: www.hazelhatman.com
The Darcy Dilemma https://mybook.to/3I52E
Hindsight https://mybook.to/lncD
North Hangar Avenue https://mybook.to/I3mJi
Love, Squirrels and Other Diversions https://mybook.to/YLav
Carey Jane Rowland is a poet and author from Ilminster, Somerset. Her work captures raw, vulnerable emotions through deeply human micro poems. With a voice both tender and bold, she explores the depths of feeling and connection with her poetry focusing on love, longing, heartbreak, loss, mental health, motherhood and healing via striking emotional honesty and quiet intensity.
I have 2 books currently on Amazon (with a third in the works)
Letters of Love: A heartfelt collection of poems that explore love, longing, vulnerability and the beauty of emotional connection. https://amzn.eu/d/brN02Tm
It hasn't stopped raining since you left: a moving collection of poetry delving into heartbreak, loss and grief. https://amzn.eu/d/6oflQZt
My TikTok is https://www.tiktok.com/@careyjanepoetry?_t=ZN-8yP1r5V3vHS&_r=1
https://www.instagram.com/carey_jane_poetry?igsh=NGV5bjlvangwdjFs&utm_source=qr
https://www.facebook.com/share/1Z6ZcGrYnq/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Jonathan Posner writes 16th century action-adventures. His Witchfinder’s Well trilogy tells how a modern-day girl falls through a worm-hole in time and lands in 1565. The Mary Fox Adventures features a swashbuckling heroine in the 1530s. Jonathan runs Winter & Drew Publishing, and teaches creative writing through Writing at the Edge.
The Witchfinder’s Well trilogy
More info on my website
Publisher at Winter & Drew Publishing
Speaker on writing and author marketing at Writing at the Edge
Emma Bloor is an accounts administrator living in Wiltshire with her husband and grumpy teenager. Besides writing her own novels, she ghost-writes and has a piece of flash fiction published in the 2021 compilation book Triumph from Tragedy. She is also a regular contributor to writing prompts on Twitter/X and Bluesky @emmabloorbooks.
In addition to her thriller Turned, and the sequel due later this year, Emma has published a book of poetry.
Writing gives me such joy and I am grateful to have rekindled my passion for storytelling in 2020. What began as a mental health exercise developed into a seven-book dystopian thriller series, fictionalising Biblical end-times prophecies akin to Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. After many requests from my friends for printed copies, I self-published.
Who knew how far the writing would take me?
Since then, the wonderful VSS community and writing groups on social media have enhanced and improved my craft. One day, I will find the time to refresh the prose of a truly thrilling series.
Caroline Cusanelli is the bestselling indie author of A Liar’s Twisted Tongue, known for building beautiful worlds that grow darker with every layer. She’s been writing since childhood. What began as stories of fairies and frogs evolved into tangled narratives about power, obsession, and deeply flawed characters. Raised in Southern California, she’s a sun-seeker at heart, but now calls Barcelona home, where she hopes to remain immersed in literature for the rest of her life.
Visit her online at www.carolinecusanelli.com and on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube @carolinacusanelli.
The unexpected permeates Laurence Shelley's writings: from blisters that blessed a walk through Roman history; hitchhiking encounters across Britain that proved endlessly diverting; and a dream which sparked off a Dartmoor odyssey for one shattered outcast. Laurence's work shows how chance can open up intriguing journeys into the unknown.
Robin Hooppell - Local Author of a new set of short stories called ‘Shaken not Stirred’.
Barnaby Wilde is the pen name of Tim Fisher. He grew up and was educated in the West Country. He graduated with a Physics degree and worked in manufacturing and quality control for a multinational photographic company for thirty years. He writes in many genres, including cozy mystery, absurdist humour and sci-fi.
John Ludlam is a Devon-based writer and filmmaker. The first words he wrote for public consumption were punk rock lyrics. Three decades as a journalist, including spells in Iraq, Jerusalem and Hong Kong, taught him that geopolitics will never leave us alone.
https://www.johnludlam.com
https://www.instagram.com/sqludlum
https://www.facebook.com/john.ludlam.10
Stephen Cook was born and bred in Bristol, so it's not surprising his detective novels are set in the city.
The first Inspector Page novel 'Angels In The Architecture' was published in 2024. The follow up, 'Saints & Sinners' was published in May 2025.
Both novels offer a strange brew of crime, classic rock music and social commentary.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Stephen-J-Cook/author/B0CWHF9T2H
Rosemary Griggs is an author, historian, researcher, seamstress and popular speaker.
Her successful ‘Daughters of Devon’ novels tell the stories of the forgotten women of Tudor Devon.
She researches, recreates and wears historical clothes in a unique blend of theatre, history and re-enactment at events all over the West Country.
website: https://rosemarygriggs.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ladykatherinesfarthingale
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/griggs6176/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@griggs6176
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/ragriggsauthor.bsky.social
Nigel Messenger writes historical fiction and to date has written 5 books, mainly about WW1 in the Middle East with Old Testament links.
His latest book is set in the Middle Ages in England and Palestine and is a fictional story about the Second and Third Crusades.
Gordon James Cook is author & founder of Rosella House Publishing. He has written three books [The Distance Trilogy]. His writings mix reality with fantasy, fact with non-fact, psychology with philosophy, mythology & a creator of worlds who has windchimes for fingers. Expect to find the present, the future & the past, all-in-one place.
Nicole Fitton is an award-nominated author of historical and contemporary fiction. Her novels All Tomorrow’s Parties and Forbidden Colours earned critical acclaim, and her short story collection Soaring was published in 2023. A Society of Authors member, she balances writing with a career in healthcare and a love of wild swimming and spaniel walking!
https://www.nicolefittonauthor.com/
Twitter: @MisoMiss
J. Patrick Armstrong grew up in Hampshire and Dorset. He studied for his MA, MPhil and PhD in English literature at the University of Glasgow. Having worked for over a decade as a lecturer in Taiwan, he is now settled with his family in Dorset. Lyttleton Siren is his first novel.
Malcolm Alexander: I never really knew my father. He died when I was eight. The news was devastating. Unbelievable. True to the spirit of the time, life carried on and I was back in school on Monday morning …
The Father I Barely Knew
Steve Beed is a retired teacher, now working for a local charity. He has self-published seven novels, which do not fit into specific genres but explore the complexities and nuances of human nature and relationships, but in a fun way. He is married with three children and a cat.
Blog
Angela Joyce was born in Plymouth in 1959 and spent her childhood there.
She started writing seriously at age 60. Her debut novel The Rydle Year was published this year and is a coming-of-age novel set in 1970s Plymouth. Angela lives in Cumbria but visits Devon regularly.
After a children’s adventure story in her early 20s, which sank immediately, Mary Georgina wrote no fiction until about ten years ago. She was creating languages courses for schools and one editor asked her to produce a pack of French short stories and poems – and she was off on her writer’s journey: she enjoyed this dip into fiction so much, she had to write a novel. But life was busy, and it wasn’t until lockdown that she began to write seriously.
As a linguist, she finds it logical to use the setting of countries she’s lived and worked in, and this forces her to try to understand the culture and how it affects anyone with a different background. Stuck at home, she wanted to travel, and Italy glowed in her mind as a desirable place to visit, and so her first published novel began. Then The Earth Moved was published in 2023.
The main character is always a strong young woman determined to make her way in the world and each novel has a love story at its centre.
She lives on the beautiful English Riviera with her artist husband where she indulges in her passion of writing, reading and creating things, especially in fabric.
Mary Elizabeth Earle Too old to write a book. Never! At 74 I felt inspired to write this moving account of a vulnerable young girl, whose life was changed by the unsavory actions of her knight in shining armour. Can Mary survive or will her life fall apart. It’s a poignant testament to the human spirit.
Captain Brian Sloan served in the RFA service 1976 -91; Mercy Ships medical vessels 1992 – 2000; Marine Reach 2001 – 2017 and was Principal of a Maritime Academy 2018 – 2024. He is an Associate Fellow of the Nautical Institute and was given the Freedom of the City of London in 2023.
The Dagger and the Rosary (wordsri.com review site)
The Dagger and the Rosary: Amazon.co.uk: Brian Sloan: 9781035806447: Books
After spending her youth working abroad and travelling, Ebberley Finch settled in London.
She has now swapped a busy corporate life to live in Devon. After starting anew several times herself, Ebberley loves to explore new beginnings and the friendships, rewards and challenges that come with them. A theme which runs through all her novels so far.
Lock, Stock and Harold - https://mybook.to/oI50Vw
The Seaside Sisterhood - https://mybook.to/Gjnwfu
Highly praised Stargazing for All was released in April this year, Karen Hedges is a telescope presenter, Moon lover, gives astronomy talks, has a regular online global radio station slot, and enjoys adventures with Maldwyn the Mouse… and aims to inspire people of all ages to look up and around.
Find Karen Hedges on Facebook and www.karenhedges.co.uk
Debbie Young writes warm, witty, feel-good contemporary fiction full of English humour, inspired by life in the Cotswold village which has been her home for over 30 years. Published by Boldwood Books, she has three bestselling cosy mystery series, and her latest novel is Death at the Village Christmas Fair.
Website: www.authordebbieyoung.com
Facebook: @AuthorDebbieYoung
Instagram: @debbieyoungauthor
Founder & Director of the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival
Represented by the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency
Terri Nixon was born in Plymouth, grew up in Cornwall, and is a true ‘hybrid author,’ being traditionally, independently, and self-published. She writes family sagas as Terri, and contemporary crime as T.H. Nixon. Terri has also written a popular mythic folklore series set on Bodmin Moor: The Lynher Mill Chronicles.
Website: www.terrinixon.com
kid-ethic is a design studio by the sea, run by Mark Swan. The studio has been established for a decade and Mark has worked in the creative industry for nearly 20 years. We work predominately in the publishing, film and music industry but always welcome a challenge in new areas.
http://kid-ethic.com
Ali Simpson is a former speech writer and magazine editor and resident of Torquay, and was a published author of romances before switching genre to write sparkling murder mysteries set on the English Riviera in the 1930s. ‘Murder under the Rock’ is the first in a series featuring amateur detectives, Kitty and Nora Markham.
When not writing, Ali loves travelling and walking for fitness.
Richard Frost is the author of the Eastwood Story series of novellas. These are contemporary fiction stories of hope over adversity, love and loss, tears and laughter. Also a writer of non-fiction, Richard is a former mental health professional and lay minister living in Marldon.
Maria McCarthy is an author, journalist, creative writing tutor, editor and publishing coach. She offers editing services and tailored advice on both traditional and indie publishing and teaches creative writing in Exeter and East Devon. Maria has lectured on publishing at Bath and Bristol universities and literature festivals. www.mariamccarthypublishing.co.uk
Christine Tipper writes murder mysteries set in a bookshop in Exeter where the owner, Paige Harper and her terrier, Sprite figure out clues and solve murders. Filled with a natural curiosity, Christine speaks French, Spanish and Nepali and, when not writing, reading, painting, exercising or eating cake, loves to chat.
You can find Christine on Facebook at Christine Tipper Cosy Mystery Author Facebook and on Instagram @christine_tipper_author
You can join her mailing list at https://christinetipper.com/join
Madeline Dyer writes SFF and horror. Her debut novel Untamed (Prizm Books, 2015; Ineja Press, 2017) won the 2015 SIBA award for Best Dystopian Novel. Her first anthology Being Ace (Page Street YA, 2023) received a starred review from School Library Journal and was named a 2024 Lammy Award Finalist. Madeline also writes romance and light-hearted contemporary fiction as Elin Annalise.
Rolande Burrows says that It’s never too late to re-think... don’t be afraid of what you might find!
I’ve written stage plays, screenplays, exam syllabuses, reports, a weekly newspaper column, TV commercials and even a book!
All needed research, but be wary. Because the old adage still applies:- “Never let truth get in the way of a good story!”
rolande@live.co.uk
Amy Sparkes is a New York Times bestselling author who writes energetic, funny and heartfelt stories for adults and children of all ages, including 'The House At The Edge of Magic' series. Amy also writes scripts for film/TV, works as a writing coach and runs Sword and Fiddle Productions.
Links: www.amysparkes.co.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmySparkesAuthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sparkes_amy
Blue Sky: @amysparkes.bsky.social on Bluesky
