BeaconLit 2025

JOANNA MILLER studied English at Exeter College, Oxford and later returned to complete a PGCE in Secondary English at The Department of Educational Studies.

After ten years as a teacher and literacy adviser, she set up an award-winning poetry gift business with celebrity clients. Joanna's rhyming verse has been filmed twice by the BBC and in 2015 she won The Poetry Prize, run by Bloomsbury Publishing and the National Literacy Trust. 

In 2021, Joanna graduated from the Faber Academy, after which she was accepted on the Escalator Talent Development Scheme at The National Centre for Writing. She has recently returned to Oxford to study part-time for a diploma in creative writing. 

Her debut novel, The Eights, is published by fig tree in March 2025. Joanna lives in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire with her husband and their three teenage children.

Instagram: @joannamillerauthor / @joannamillerreader

Twitter/X: @JoannaMauthor

JANE CASEY is the author of seventeen crime novels including The Killing Kind, which was adapted for television and is currently available to stream on ITVX. An award-winning, bestselling novelist, Jane is best known for the Maeve Kerrigan series of London-set police procedurals, the most recent of which is The Secret Room. 

Twitter/X: @JaneCaseyAuthor

HOLLY GRAMAZIO is a writer, game designer and curator from Adelaide, currently based in London. 

Gramazio founded the experimental games festival Now Play This, and wrote the script for the award-winning indie videogame Dicey Dungeons. Her interests lie in rules, play, cities, and gardens. 

Her debut novel The Husbands was an NYT bestseller and was named one of the best novels of 2024 by the Washington Post, NPR and The Times.

Website: hollygramazio.net

DENISE BEDDOWS is a Buckinghamshire-based, award-winning author. She writes crime and espionage fiction, cozy crime and true crime. 

A member of the Crime Writers Association and the Society of Authors, and with a background in research, investigation and intelligence analysis, she has lived, worked and played in various countries across three continents during a career in government service and speaks six languages.

Website: https://www.denisebeddowswrites.com/

JULIE COHEN is an award-winning, bestselling author of over 25 novels. Her work has been selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club and the Richard and Judy Book Club. 

She is a teacher of creative writing and a founder of the Romantic Novelists’ Assoction Rainbow Chapter for LGBTQ+ writers. From 2025 she will be undertaking a PhD by Published Works in Creative Writing at the University of Reading. 

Her latest novel (written as Julie Mae Cohen) is EAT SLAY LOVE (Bonnier 2024), and her next novel is PARADISE (Orion 2025). She lives in Berkshire, UK with her teenager and a terrier of dubious origin.

Websites:

www.julie-cohen.com

www.juliemaecohen.com

DAVE SIVERS grew up in West London and has been writing all his life, including columns and articles in newspapers and magazines, as well as short stories in Take a Break magazine and other publications. 

His books include the popular crime fiction series featuring the Aylesbury Vale detectives, DI Lizzie Archer and DS Dan Baines. His latest novel, Price to Pay is the seventh in the series and his twelfth published title. His DI Nathan Quarrel books are set in Hertfordshire. 

Dave lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife, Chris, and is a founder of the annual BeaconLit festival of books and writing.

Website: https://www.davesivers.co.uk/

ALI LOWE is the author of three acclaimed novels: The Trivia Night, The Running Club and, most recently, The School Run, which was a WHSmith Book of the Month in Australia. Her next novel, The Private Island, is on sale in the UK in July. 

Ali is a journalist by profession: she was Features Editor at OK! magazine in London and has written for bridal magazines, parenting titles, websites and newspapers. She has dual Australian and British citizenship and lives on Sydney’s northern beaches with her husband and three children.

Lissa Evans has written seven novels, including Their Finest Hour and a Half (filmed as ‘Their Finest’) and a loose trilogy comprising Crooked Heart (longlisted for the Bailey’s Prize), the best-selling Old Baggage, and V for Victory. Two of her books for children, Small Change for Stuart and Wed Wabbit, were shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Lissa has a background in radio and TV comedy and was the producer of ‘Room 101’ and ‘Father Ted.’

Website

https://www.lissaevans.com