HWS Summer Book Fair

Tuesday 11th June 2024

6.30pm – 7.30pm followed by talks 7.30pm – 9pm Main Speaker, author and tutor, Tom Bromley and special guest, travel writer, Martin Kyrle.

The Tower, King’s School, Romsey Road, Winchester, SO22 5PN

Authors from the HWS will be displaying their books at the Summer Book Fair along with an indie publisher. It’s an excellent opportunity to meet, network and chat to authors and members of HWS…and maybe buy a book…or two!

It’s always an interesting, inspiring and fascinating occasion. You never know who you’ll meet or where that chat might lead.  Not to be missed!

Appearing at the Summer Book Fair:

Jean G-Owen from Naked Figleaf Press

NAKED FIGLEAF PRESS, founded by Jean G-Owen in Summer 2023, is an indie publisher
based on the Isle of Wight. They specialise in poetry, novellas, short stories and non-fiction
collections.
They publish The Figlet, a bi-annual literary magazine showcasing Isle of Wight writers & illustrators. Naked Figleaf Press host Yarnival West Wight WordFest, which will take place from 27 to 28 September 2024 in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight.
https://nakedfigleafcollective.co.uk/publications

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Anne Wan

Anne is a children’s writer and independent publisher. With three books in her Secrets of the Snow Globe series and a picture book, Manners Fit for a Queen.

Anne started writing picture books as a hobby and went on to study creative writing with Barbara Large. She is passionate about inspiring children as readers and writers. She enjoys giving talks, craft and storytelling sessions in schools, libraries, and Brownie groups.

Having completed the Snow Globe trilogy, Anne has published her debut picture book Manners Fit for the Queen. In this humorous story, Hector causes chaos with his terrible table manners. His sister, Isobel, has found her own way to cope with the mess. But how will she cope when they are both invited to a tea party with the Queen?

Secrets of the Snow Globe – Vanishing Voices Can they succeed in their quest to help their new friends, and find a way back to Grandma’s house? A captivating adventure story of courage and friendship for 7-9 yrs. In a land of magic, snow, and secrets Louisa and her brother, Jack, are flung into a dangerous mountain adventure when they shrink into their Grandma’s snow globe.

Secrets of the Snow Globe  – Shooting Star How much does Grandma know about the snow globe’s magic? Louisa and her brother, Jack, are determined to discover the truth. In this sequel to, Secrets of the Snow Globe – Vanishing Voices, Grandma’s story is revealed. But how much should she tell? After all, some secrets are best left untold…

Secrets of the Snow Globe – Menacing Magic is the finale to the ‘Secrets in the Snow Globe’ series. Chaos rages in the world inside the snow globe following the theft of seven, magical, diamond snowflakes. In a race against time, Louisa and her brother, Jack, shrink into the globe and embark on a perilous journey to catch the thief. Can they retrieve the snowflakes before the snow globe world is destroyed?

Are you ready for the magic? You can purchase the books from http://anne-wan.com/

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Martin Kyrle

Martin Kyrle, travel writer.

Martin Kyrle was at Agincourt – not the battle, but at the official opening of the museum.  His personal travel anecdotes – all of them true – span seven decades and will take you off the beaten track even if you’re familiar with the countries where they take place.

Islands off the coasts of France, Holland or in Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake, castles in Estonia and Latvia, lakes in Lapland, Lithuania and Siberia, Roman amphitheatres in Libya, Neolithic dolmens in Brittany or monastic ruins 8 miles out in the Atlantic off far SW Ireland. Then being hospitalised in intensive care in the Canary Islands or facing a Force 8 gale on the ferry from Hong Kong to Macau and a total blackout in Mongolia when the lights fused..

Finding soldiers bivouacking in his back garden prior to embarking for the Normandy Landings (but who hadn’t been told!), then trying to get to school during the ‘great freeze’ of 1947 contrast with exploring Mycenaean tombs in Cyprus or volunteering in a refugee camp in Austria and a workcamp in Poland.  Hitchhiking round North Cape at the top of Norway was quite tricky, too.  [Why go?  Well, it’s the northern limit of Europe and if you go any further you fall off…].

He had to mind his manners when, as a Sub-Lieutenant in the Special Branch stationed in Malta to decode top secret communications, the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Lord Mountbatten, invited him to dinner.  At university in Southampton a contrasting challenge was singing a duet from La Bohème in front of a couple of hundred disbelieving fellow students who’d sneered that although he and his fellow artistes could sing Gilbert & Sullivan they couldn’t sing ‘real’ opera.  After that, getting lost on a train in Western Bosnia, being locked in a church in rural Devon or standing with your school party watching your train from Germany into Denmark depart without you were minor misadventures you took in your stride.

He ascribes his good fortune and possibly survival to having been blessed by the Pope in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican in Rome, by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Kremlin in Moscow and by an indigenous Buryat shaman in Siberia who gave him a lucky charm, which you might think is hedging your bets for someone who’s a life-long atheist.  But perhaps they saved him when he had to overcome vertigo when standing on the top of the leaning tower of Pisa and when, 10,000 feet above the South China Sea on a flight to Beijing with his late wife, the pilot announced that one of his engines was showing signs of failure.

Martin Kyrle’s Little Green Nightbook, Little Blue Nightbook and Little Orange Nightbook each has 25 personal stories to intrigue you, with flags, maps, colour photos and cartoons.  His other books, Jottings from the Trans-Siberian Railway and Jottings from Russia and the Baltic States.  Part 1: Russia and Estonia.

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Stephen Hodgson

Stephen Hodgson, children’s writer with his book Tales of Helen and Lysander: A Spartan Girl and Boy. Stephen was born in Yorkshire but have lived most of his life in London and Hampshire. He worked in the Civil Service for 35 years but left in 2022 to try his hand at writing. He also works part-time in a local school. The Tales of Helen and Lysander is his first novel. It is the first in a series of novels which will follow the characters on their journey into adulthood. 

Welcome to the world of Helen and Lysander, a brother and sister in ancient Sparta. It is the eve of their 7th birthdays and the following morning they are set to enter one of the world’s harshest training programmes – the famous Spartan agoge. Helen and Lysander will have to overcome hunger, pain and injury in a series of extreme challenges to survive in their new world. But Helen and Lysander do not face these challenges alone. They have help from Pylos, a helot or slave boy, who considers Lysander to be his only friend and who quietly helps them at key moments. He does this at great risk to himself and to Lysander and Helen; for it is forbidden for Spartans and helots to be friends.

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Page Dalliance

Page Dalliance is a writer, editor and designer who became an author by chance.  Having lived in and around the New Forest and the Test Valley in Hampshire for most of her life, where she married and raised her 3 children. 

During this time she developed a design career and a thirst for knowledge, not present in her early school days, and consequently put it to good use in her future projects and exploits to improve her lifestyle.  Always up for a challenge where an opportunity presented itself, these were probably stepping stones for later adventures as a single woman where choices had to be made and calculated risks undertaken.

This debut novel is based on the experiential events witnessed on her later travels when dipping her toe in to the tepid Greek waters for the first time at the age of 50 plus and then consequently ‘pushing the boat out’.

Further publications are planned featuring design and building challenges both at home and abroad.

Her new book, A Perfectly Respectable Pirate, a novel set in Greece is based on a true story.

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Clare Fryer

Clare Fryer, YA author, her book, The Invitation

Clare grew up in Guildford surrounded by books. She was inspired to write by her father, who was a poet and author himself in his spare time. Clare doodled poetry throughout her life, yet yearned to write novels but never had the time.
When Clare took early retirement in 2022, she finally had time to write. The Invitation began as a short story inspired by a writing prompt and won a monthly writing competition. Her mother and several friends asked what happened next, and so she began to write. That short story became the first three chapters of The Invitation.

One invitation changes everything.
The arrival of a mysterious invitation on the eve of Millie’s sixteenth birthday sets off a chain of events that will change her life forever.
A family linked by secrets discover a darker, more sinister undercurrent of corruption in Anacadair.  How far will the ruling High Council go to preserve the old ways?
When the family flee, who can they trust?
Will they escape from the watchers?

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Mark Eyles

Mark Eyles, a science fiction and fantasy author with his ‘Vast Alien Crisis’ duology, ‘Icefall Cities’ and ‘Firedrift Moon’.

After working in the games industry, writing for comics (2000AD & Sonic the Comic) and spending time as an academic running videogame courses, Mark finally settled down to writing books at the start of 2019. His writing draws on his love of science fiction, creating a slightly quirky, but grim and gritty story set on a colony world where everything’s gone nightmarishly wrong.

Mark’s Science Fiction novels: Vast Alien Crisis – Icefall Cities; Vast Alien Crisis – Firedrift Moon

Graphic novel: Stellar Megastructure – Travels of Immortals

You can find out more about Mark on his website: www.eyles.co.uk

Mark’s LinkTree has handy links too: https://linktr.ee/markeyles

Icefall Cities is available as an ebook, self-published on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09X21QWXL

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Damon L. Wakes

Damon Wakes will have his vast collection of published books available, including Ten Little Astronauts – an Agatha Christie-inspired murder mystery novella set on board an interstellar spacecraft.

Damon writes everything from humour to horror and produces a brand new work of flash fiction every day during July each year. Damon also writes interactive fiction and games, and provided the story and dialogue for Game of the Year nominated virtual reality title Craft Keep VR.

Order and Chaos, an anthology from Breakthrough Books that opens with one of his flash fiction pieces. That story is “Songbird and Statue,” which also provided the anthology’s theme.

Ancient gods in conflict and a zombie on welfare, a disappearing boyfriend and AI with daddy issues, a balloon bound for icy danger and a mysterious theft at the museum, a sinister woodland cabin and a pleasure house that’ll cost much more than you can afford.

Raiding parties in dystopia, art classes in the city, opposites attracting and love catching fire. Separations and siblings, life and death decisions, flying into trouble and traveling to self-discovery…

Which comes first, chaos or order? The cycles between may seem inevitable, and change may be the only constant, but what does that mean for the human experience?

Sixteen authors from the Breakthrough Books collective explore our relationships with nature and technology, science and the sacred, each other and ourselves, offering an array of stories as individual as every reader.

Ten Little Astronauts— a novella published by Unbound

Di Castle

Di Castle will have her poetry books available, Should I Wear Floral and other poems on life, love and leaving; Grandma’s Poetry Book, ‘makes you laugh, makes you cry’. 

Both books can be bought at the Book Fair or via her website www.dicastle.co.uk and her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/dicastlewriter/
tweets @dinahcas

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Maggie Farran, Catherine Griffin and Sally Howard

Maggie, Catherine and Sally are three writing friends from Chandlers Ford who collaborated on a new project in lockdown, culminating with publication of Winchester Actually. Unravel the intrigue of the great train robbery. Witness the thrills and spills of rioting through the streets. Wonder at sacrifices made to save the cathedral and defend the city. Enjoy gentler tales of romance and motherhood set in and around Winchester.

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