WarmPorch Publishing is a very small, independent, labour of love.

In one form or another, I have been involved in publishing for almost twenty-five years, from setting up an independent music magazine (Sandman Magazine) in Sheffield to my current work at Oxford University Press.

WarmPorch was initially created to publish some extracts from my grandmother’s journals, The Search for Freeland Gardens [2009]. This small book (also now our first ebook) covered the arrival of my family, 50 years previously, to open a nursery garden in a small West Oxfordshire village.

In recent years I have been working with the sculptor Steve Hurst, using his diaries and sketchbooks to tell the story of the young artist. In 2022, Drawn From Life: The Ruskin Diaries 1949-53, was the first full length WarmPorch book and this year we published the follow-up, Bluff Road: The Malaya Diaries 1953-1955, covering Steve’s experiences as a national serviceman during the Malayan Emergency.

Looking further ahead, my grandmother wrote her journals between 1931 and 1974, and they track the author’s life from a shy teenager about to embark on her nursing training during the early years of the Depression, to the older, hardy, market gardener contemplating retirement. Ideally I’d like to publish three volumes of these journals. The entire text has been transcribed (about 1.3 million words); the next task is to edit them down.

Watch this space.

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?

‘Life is serious, but is not to be lived too seriously’. Serious or humorous, my poems are always good-natured.

I write when I have something to say, and I feel I have found the right way to say it. It’s about having fun with words and meaning, using words skilfully to say things differently, and saying the familiar in unfamiliar ways.

In 2017 I self-published a collection of poetry and wit as Particles of Light, with a 2nd edition in 2025. The book has been well received and has sold well in my local bookshops.

Intersecting Lines, my second collection, was traditionally published by indie publisher Beercott Books in 2021. In 2025 Beercott Books published my third collection, titled Reflections. These two collections continue to reflect my interest in people, love, the natural world, and the human condition.

In 2025 I also compiled together the sections of wit from my 3 collections and published it as Wit ‘n Word. There are poems to move you, to surprise you, and to make you laugh. The humorous poems and one-liners are there for entertainment, to be enjoyed, though they often contain a ‘sting in the tail’. I hope readers will enjoy reading my poems and will feel I am putting their own experiences and emotions into words.

I read regularly at poetry ‘open mics’ and at local literary events, and I give talks about my poetry to community groups.

J. N. Fox is of Caribbean descent. She was born in Wiltshire and grew up in a small town there. Maternally she is related to Jamaicans who fought for Britain in both the first and second world wars. She lives in Oxford with her husband and writes full-time.

She has featured in the Sunday Times. Been the subject of a BBC Documentary and has written content for The Times and Telegraph.
She is the author of The Battle of Ignorance trilogy. Three Voices, Nine Night and Two Ladies. A fictional series of contemporary literary novels that deal with integration and interracial relationships. Using fun relatable characters, she raises awareness of topical issues.

Timothy Adès is a prolific rhyming translator-poet with eleven books from French, German, Spanish, and awards for translating Victor Hugo, Robert Desnos, Jean Cassou, and Alfonso Reyes. His book of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets includes his translations into Inglish, with no letter E, on the facing page. His bookstall offers, also, many poetry books by other translators: many languages, mostly bilingual books, some beautifully illustrated. He is a trustee of Agenda, the great poetry magazine. He is on Facebook and YouTube. He will be speaking for ten minutes, presenting poems which he has translated from other tongues.

I hope to display 3 books this time, one a personal account of living in and visiting Japan entitled ‘An Affair with a Village — the work of social anthropological fieldwork and the long-term relationships built up’. The other two are novels: the first the tale of a 1960s escapee from the expectation that a girl, even with a degree, should quickly settle down, marry and have children.

The book, ‘Sharing Worlds’, recounts the exciting life she discovers between Mexico and Scotland, a fascinating job she finds, but still the conflict with wanting eventually to fulfil that expectation.

The second novel, to be launched at the Fair, is a sequel, and recounts the peripatetic life of a young woman whose travels and troubles are symbolised by the book’s title, ‘Born at Sea’. Set in the last three decades of the 20th century, it touches on cultural conflicts, the (recovering) plight of indigenous languages, and the early days of Climate Change, all presented through the eyes of a girl growing up. Spolier alert/ promise: both novels draw on some of my own experience as a social anthropologist, but the second is an entirely invented story.