I am a director, steering group member and volunteer of One Planet Abingdon Climate Emergency Centre located under the County Hall Museum in Abingdon Market Place.

We are implementing the climate and ecological emergency declaration made by Abingdon Town Council in 2019. We have adopted the ten principles of One Planet Living devised by Bioregional and serve Source Climate Change Coffee, the highest rated coffee by Ethical Consumer and home made cakes, soups and curries made from the best meat free ingredients.

After 5 years experimenting with volunteerism we have probably placed Abingdon on the top of the league of climate emergency centres coming out from behind the cakes to discuss the latest climate events and nature loss and recovery.

Last year we we received the prize from the Ridgeway Education Trust (the two senior schools and sixth form in Didcot) for ‘best employer’ for work in the schools on climate literacy and providing work at the CEC. We are not expecting to prevent bad climate events happening but the people in Abingdon might be more aware and prepared for the worst.

Cleland Smith is the author of Pictish historical fantasy ‘Black Doe’ and the science fiction novel ‘Sequela’. ‘Black Doe’, is a bloody tale of motherhood, identity and fate, steeped in folklore and tragedy, and set against the backdrop of the 2nd century Scottish Highlands:

“A killer who dreams another’s dreams. A mother whose secret will sire a nightmare.

The Black Doe assassins are legends, shadows who never leave a target alive, but when Bridei is sent to end the threat of a rising warlord, she is stabbed with her own knife, crucified, and left to die. If she is to fulfil her mission, retrieve her stolen memories, and earn her fee, she must live, and she must kill.

Tisiphone’s sons are raised on tales of the Black Does and tales of Rome. They carry great potential: the blood of Cruithne, which grants them the chance to become chieftain, married with that of the mighty Roman general, Agricola. Yet as the invaders encroach ever further north, Tisi finds herself keeping a deadly secret, and what was once a blessing may soon become a curse.

Each woman will do anything to protect what’s hers. Come Bealltainn, there’ll be blood on the bracken.”

“A harsh, evocative vision of Celtic lands where memory, violence, and myth shape every destiny.” – Kirkus Reviews (recommended review)

“Hauntingly beautiful, an exceptional book.” – Anna Smith Spark, author of the Empires of Dust trilogy

Big issues, intimate lens. Tidewater Press publishes adult fiction that explores topi­cal themes and non-fiction titles that illuminate contemporary issues on the international stage.

Established in 2017 and based at Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre, ignitionpress is an award-winning poetry pamphlet press with an international outlook which publishes original, arresting poetry from emerging poets.

The press won the Michael Marks Publishers’ Award in 2021, and six of our pamphlets have been shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award, with one winning the Michael Marks Environmental Poetry Pamphlet Award in 2026. Six of our pamphlets have also been Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice selections.

E. Beckett is a Hungarian-born fantasy author, artist, and independent publisher based in Hertfordshire, UK.

Her epic fantasy series, ‘The Moonlight Saga’, begins with ‘Moonlight’ and continues in ‘Moonsickle’, taking readers into a world of elves, humans, ancient magic, divided loyalties, and secrets that threaten to change everything. At its heart is a half-elf caught between two worlds, searching for belonging in a place where neither side truly accepts him.

Alongside writing, Beckett works as a developmental editor, mentors emerging writers, and creates original fantasy artwork, character portraits, and illustrations. She is also the founder of Eywind Books and the creator of Eywind Pages, a literary and arts magazine celebrating creative voices.

Visit her stand to discover ‘The Moonlight Saga’, meet the author, and explore her original artwork and fantasy-inspired creations.

A Yorkshire Gospel: Search for a Spare Messiah

In the quiet East Yorkshire village of Roos, so flat you could watch a terrier run away for three days, are two men of middling ambition that stumble upon a mystery of biblical proportions.

When Coldog and Trev discover a cryptic message on a beer mat suggesting someone called ‘Helen’ may have found the Grail, they do what any reasonable men would do. They go looking for it.

What follows is a quest involving: a jar with suspicious contents, a dog who is always muddy, at least three Helens, and the worrying possibility that God might have had a second child.

A Yorkshire Gospel is a surreal, irreverent, and thoroughly northern adventure about faith, friendship, and the dangers of thinking too hard after six pints. Somewhere between divine revelation and administrative error lies the truth. And it might just be in Yorkshire.

About the Author
C. R. de Gernon writes comedic fiction from a fortified potting shed, drawing inspiration from the people, buildings, landscapes, and peculiar logic of Yorkshire life. He writes in various persons as he identifies as plural. He explains that “I am one” and “the other is me”; therefore, the two of us are “we”.

It is understood that he currently lives somewhere in East Yorkshire, where rumours continue to circulate with alarming efficiency.

C. R. de Gernon is the 14th heir to a title that no longer exists and a fortune of sprouting vintage grass seeds.