The Alternative Book Fair - Saturday 8th March - All Day

10am-5pm - The Indie Press Fair
Meet some of the UK’s most inspirational independent publishers, with a day of stalls and events from the publishers of the world’s most innovative fiction and non-fiction. Stall holders include Influx Press, Cipher Press, Weather Glass Books, Renard Press, Indie Novella, Heloise Press, Jacaranda Books, Scorpius Books, Istros Books, Jantar Books, époque press, Goat Star Books & Prototype Publishing.
We will additionally have a Children’s Press Fair featuring wonderful children’s publishers Lanatana Publishing, Little Tiger and Guppy Books putting on talks and interactive events for children of all ages.
Throughout the day there will be opportunities for readers and writers to meet leading independent publishers, experience their books, meet authors, and ask questions about publishing.
11am – 12pm: Lifting the Lid on Literary Prizes
Founder of the Republic of Consciousness Prize, Neil Griffiths (Weatherglass Books) publicists from The Booker Prize and organisers of the Orwell Prize tell us what goes on behind the scenes of the biggest literary prizes and what goes into picking a winner.
The Republic of Consciousness supports, promotes and celebrates small presses in the UK and Ireland. Over seven years, the prize has awarded over £100,000 to publishers and authors.
12.30 – 1.30pm: Debut Authors Panel
Some of the most exciting debut authors of 2025 talk to us about their journeys in publishing and their upcoming novels, and offer advice to aspiring authors. Featuring Eva Wyles whose debut collection of stories Deliverywoman is due to be published by Booker Shortlisted publisher, Influx Press, and Alice Chadwick whose debut novel Dark Like Under will be published by Booker Longlisted publisher Daunt in February 2025.
Eva Wyles is a graduate of Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington and the MA programme in fiction at the International Institute of Modern Letters, where she worked on a short-story collection that won the Jean Squire Project Scholarship. She was also taught by Fariha Róisín in a Catapult writing programme in New York. Her writing has appeared in The Dominion Post, Food Court Books, Mayhem Literary Journal, Turbine | Kapohau, The National Library of New Zealand, Journal des Rêves, Silo Theatre, and been finalists in the Puffin Short Story Competition and Eat Your Words Competition. She lives in London.
Alice Chadwick grew up in a small town in Britain in the 1980s, a place she returns to in her fiction. She studied English at Cambridge and was a student on City Lit’s fiction Masterclass.
Dark Like Under, published by Daunt in February 2025, is her first novel. Her non-fiction has been included in an anthology of London writing by Indie Novella. She lives in London.
2 - 3pm: Publishing Panel with leading Independent Publishers
In 2022 Influx Press’s The Trees was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2024 Jess Chandler at Prototype was named a Rising Star by The Bookseller. In 2020 Cipher Press became a game changer in championing LGBTQIA+ writers in the UK and beyond.
Get an insight into the world of independent publishing, how to submit your work to them, and what it is like to work with a publisher.
with
Gary Budden (Influx Press)
Jack Thompson (Cipher Press)
Jess Chandler (Prototype)
Facilitated by Will Dady (Renard Press)
4 - 5pm: Headline Panel

#### Two stellar headliners, Camilla Grudova**, recently named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2023, and** Santanu Bhattacharya**, selected as The Observer's Debut Novelist of the Year 2022, will discuss how our identity and experiences shape our writing, and their approaches to craft and publication. They’ll talk about what it has meant for their careers to be named on their respective lists and offer advice and inspiration for the writers in the audience.**

Facilitated by Kate Maxwell
Santanu Bhattacharya grew up in India, and studied at the University of Oxford and the National University of Singapore. He is the winner of the 2023 Desmond Elliott Prize Residency and the 2021 Mo Siewcharran Prize. His first novel, One Small Voice, was an Observer best debut novel of 2023, and was shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award and the Society of Authors’ Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. He now lives in London. His second novel, Deviants, is published by Fig Tree and will be out 13th February 2025.
Camilla Grudova was born in Toronto, Canada and lives in the UK . She is the author of the critically acclaimed The Doll’s Alphabet, Children of Paradise which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and The Coiled Serpent, longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. She was named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists in 2023 and a Frank O’Connor fellow in 2024. Her work has appeared in The White Review, Granta, The TLS, The Stinging Fly and the Daily Telegraph.
Kate Maxwell read English at Oxford University and has worked as a journalist and editor in London and New York. Hush is her first novel and was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award. She lives in London with her husband and children.