HeadLitFest 2025
This year's Headington Literature Festival brought together more than a dozen local authors who showcased their books, gave talks about new titles, and signed copies for buyers.
Some are self-published, others have a publisher but are still, understandably, keen to promote their work in a difficult market where few books get reviewed or even mentioned in periodicals.
Oxford is of course full of writers and Headington has far more than you might think. Thrillers, detective stories, espionage, psychological novels and fantasy are some of the genres represented. And one of these authors, Peter Tickler, specialises in novels set in Oxford.
One of his books is called Blood on the Cowley Road.
Some of the authors are quite well known, such as Silvia Vetta, who used to write for the Oxford Times:
Others were new to me, such as Liz van Santen,
And Kathryn Wild:
The organizer, Colin Wade, of the group Oxford Independent Authors, writes crime fiction. With a background in policing, he has just released his first novel, The Devil's Code. Amanda Roberts who writes historical fiction gave a talk about her new novel Lady of the Quay, set in Tudor times.
I could not resist buying a book by Steve Sheppard with the title Bored to Death in the Baltics, because it has a character called Gulliver and chapter headings in the manner of Tom Jones ("In which.. ")
There was a stall devoted to an organization called Oxford e-books, selling a variety of nicely produced paperbacks all priced (for this event) at £5 each.
I look forward to the next HeadLitFest and possibly seeing some of these authors at the next Oxford Indie Book Fair.
https://www.oxford-ebooks.com/