12
Oct 2026
Reading
Fenwick Festival — opening reading
Twenty-five minutes from the first chapter of The Quiet Meridian, followed by an hour of questions with the festival's programmer. Signing afterwards; the shop stocks all four books.
Diary & news — 2026 into 2027
Where she'll be,
and what happens
Vell reads for twenty-five minutes, answers everything for an hour, and signs until the queue is finished. If an event is listed as free it is genuinely free, and if it is listed as sold out the waiting list is real and does move.
- 6 dates confirmed
- 3 countries
- Booking via Ashcroft & Vane
01Confirmed dates
The autumn diary
04
Nov 2026
Launch
The Quiet Meridian — launch night
Publication day. A short reading, a longer conversation with her editor of eleven years, and the first signed copies of the first printing. Capacity 120.
19
Nov 2026
Conversation
In conversation with Aliya Roth
Two novelists who both write about work talk about writing about work. Expect argument about research, and about how much of it belongs on the page.
28
Nov 2026
Workshop
Writing the physical world — day workshop
Twelve places. A full day on description: measurement, materials, weather and the discipline of getting one fact right per scene. Bring a scene that isn't working.
06
Dec 2026
Lecture
On accuracy — the annual lecture
A new lecture on invented coastlines, falsified notebooks and the ethics of the tidy answer. Free, unticketed, and always over-subscribed — arrive early.
22
Jan 2027
Panel
Salt Rooms in translation — panel
With three of her translators, on the sentences that refused to cross. Conducted in English with Norwegian interpretation.
02What to expect
What an evening actually looks like
People often ask what the format is, so here it is in full. Nothing is a surprise, and nobody is made to speak.
- 00:00
Doors and books
The shop opens first. Buy the book before, not after — the queue is shorter.
- 00:15
The reading
Twenty-five minutes, one passage, no interruptions, no slides.
- 00:45
Questions
An hour. Every hand taken in order. The dull questions are usually the best ones.
- 01:45
Signing
Until the queue ends. Name spellings on a slip of paper, please; dedications welcome.
03News archive
News, most recent first
Press enquiries- June 2026
The Quiet Meridian gets a publication date
Vantry & Ash will publish in hardback on 4 November 2026, with the author reading the audiobook herself for the first time.
- March 2026
Salt Rooms optioned for television
A four-part adaptation is in development. Vell is writing the first episode and has been careful to say only that.
- November 2025
The Cartographer's Hand reissued
Small Ordnance Press returns the essays to print with two new pieces and a corrected map.
- August 2025
Estuary Society Medal
Awarded for a body of writing on landscape and labour. The citation praised “an unfashionable patience”.
- February 2025
A fifth book begun
Notebooks opened on a novel concerning a lighthouse keeper's logbooks. No date, no title, no further comment.
04Booking
Inviting her to read
Vell accepts roughly one invitation in five, and answers all of them. Festival and venue enquiries should go through the agency with dates, capacity, fee and travel in the first message — it saves three emails.