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.​

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.

I am proud to have published six books for 8-12 year old children, all set on the mysterious Island of Animaux. The island is located somewhere at the very edge of the world, although it has yet to be discovered. It is full of the strangest creatures having unending crazy, mad, funny adventures.

All the books have received wonderful reviews. The latest one is ‘Who’s There?” and as usual it contains five tales, the first following on from the last in the previous book, “The Other Side”.

In the new tales, Aubrey the Turkey is once again the centre of attention, with strong support from Clifford Platypus and Walli Hog. See how they go on an amazing journey, to help ten-year-old Daisy return to the real world. Watch Aubrey lose all his money to a sly fox and Douglas Duck almost become a shark’s snack. And delight as Aubrey, Clifford and Walli save their new friends’ business, much to Rick Rat’s annoyance.

I am delighted to once again be returning to the Oxford Indie Book Fair.

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.

EnvelopeBooks is built on a simple idea: that books are letters from a writer to a reader. With that in mind, we look for works of fiction and non-fiction that had to be written and have to be read. Our covers reinforce the metaphor. Designed as envelopes, they use subtle postal motifs as graphic clues to the content of each book. Now read one. Or write one.

As a primary school French teacher, I couldn’t find anything written in simple French that brought what I was teaching in class together, so I started writing stories during the holidays. The boys that I taught were a tough audience to please, but they really enjoyed the stories, so I published them. That was twenty years ago. There are now 14 books in the Berthe the Witch French series, each on a different theme and, following requests from Spanish teachers, two titles have been translated into Spanish.

Berthe is a kind, green Witch with a much-loved cat that likes ice cream. Each book contains a story, a word search, a game to play, a vocabulary list and, on the French books, there is a QR code which links to the stories being read – perfect if you’re not a confident French speaker. Junior Magazine included the series in an article on the ten best resources for learning a language. The latest book in the series is ‘Berthe A Perdu Son Chat. (Un Jeu de Cache-cache.)