I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire (1694-1778)
Cathy was born and brought up in Africa, living in tiny communities in the heart of the African bush. She worked in Durban for two years after leaving school, then decamped to the UK and worked in the City for 20 years.
She’s the editor of fictionjunkies.com, a website which publishes short stories of all genres by authors around the world. Her first novel, The Wrong’un, was published by Unbound in 2018.
Cathy is a trustee of the Chipping Norton Literary Festival and organises the annual ChipLitFest Short Story competition, which usually receives around 300 entries every year. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and daughter. She also has three grown-up stepdaughters.
She set up Inkspot Publishing with Jurcell Virginia in 2022.
Jurcell grew up in Curaçao, and moved to the Netherlands to study Econometrics at Tilburg University. He started his career in hedge funds, then moved to private equity.
Jurcell is an avid martial arts fanatic and has written a book with his sensei, Hideo Muramatsu, The Neglected Samurai, which will be published by Inkspot in 2023.
He lives in Amsterdam with his wife and two children.
Charlotte was born and raised in Chipping Norton and graduated from Cardiff University with an English Literature degree in 2023.
During her time at university she was the Columnist of Quench Magazine, writing frequent articles on lifestyle and literature.Charlotte has also completed placements at Literature Wales and River and Bear Marketing, and currently works as a teaching assistant alongside her work at Inkspot.
She is, of course, a keen reader with a particular love of rural romance novels and memoirs.
Kate is responsible for Inkspot’s social media. Armed with nothing more than a phone and a wicked sense of humour, she has transformed our presence on all the major platforms.
After leaving school, she traveled extensively in the Far East and Australia, picking up all sorts of odd jobs along the way, including housekeeping and gardening. For a while she lived in her car, which taught her an important lesson in minimalism.
She’s a nature nut, passionate about animals and the environment. She’s studying Natural Sciences with the Open University, and is aiming to work with communities to balance tourism and commercial opportunities for locals with sensitivity for wildlife, open spaces and the natural environment. The skills she is learning from working in publishing is a key step towards making that transition.
Molly enjoys dark settings with fiendishly difficult plots full of deviant characters struggling with dysfunctional relationships. She likes autobiographies but especially loves a bit of murder, mayhem and mystery. She always knows exactly whodunnit. Her favorite book is Crime and Punishment, which she has read eight times.
Bear is a sucker for a happy ending, so his preferred genres are romance, adventure, and comedy. He loves children’s books and the annual Guinness Book of World Records. For him, the best stories are tales of sticks and balls, grassy fields, woods, open water and walks. His favorite book is Where’s Spot?