Big Thinking Publishing

23/08/2026

Beyond Borders Global Anthology is our new children's literary project and we would love your support! Please like and share!

20/08/2026

We are in the news!! Dont forget to check out the project for yourself at: www.beyondbordersanthology.org!

https://www.blogpreston.co.uk/2026/08/garstangs-fairtrade-history-inspires-global-childrens-writing-project/

Big Thinking Publishing is launching Beyond Borders, an anthology inviting youngsters to submit stories, poems and artwork

20/08/2026

This is our new, Global anthology project! Please like and share to spread the word that we are looking for children's writing from across the world! Free to enter, and all participating schools/organisations will receive a free copy of the finished book!

Join Beyond Borders to celebrate children's voices worldwide through storytelling, poetry, and artwork. Contribute to an annual international anthology fostering cultural understanding.

19/08/2026

INTERNATIONAL TEACHERS AND HOME EDUCATORS.... WE NEED YOU!

I’m Kate, a former secondary teacher and now director of an independent UK publishing company.

I’m running Beyond Borders, a free project inviting children around the world to submit a story, poem or piece of artwork about their culture, heritage, traditions or community.

Selected work will be published in a real international anthology, launching on World Book Day 2027. 📚🌎

I’m especially looking for teachers outside the UK who’d like to get their students involved. You can enter as a class, group or with individual students, and it’s completely free. You will even get a complimentary copy of the anthology for taking part!

We want this book to contain young voices from as many countries as possible, so please do have a look!

Find out more here:

Join Beyond Borders to celebrate children's voices worldwide through storytelling, poetry, and artwork. Contribute to an annual international anthology fostering cultural understanding.

12/08/2026

We are pleased to announce that we are working with Blackpool Comic Book artist Goodinmaginations.com... go check them out and support! Indie creators and publishers need to stick together!

03/08/2026

We are back people!!

www.bigthinkingpublishing.co.uk

Come and check out the new website!!

28/07/2026

Okay let’s have it. AI will never take these jobs, and we don’t even just mean that as a rallying cry. But practically, literally, when you actually think about what these jobs are…

Look at these photos! That’s cold coffee that got forgotten because something more interesting happened. That’s a proof copy covered in sticky notes when it was already ‘finished’. That’s an author holding a book they made with everything they had, that’s us at an event in a book fair that exists because people keep choosing them over convenience. That’s a wine lunch that turned into an editorial conversation that changed a manuscript. That’s a student on placement who came in not knowing what they wanted to do and left knowing exactly. That’s my colleague’s hand-knitted scarf because obviously she knits her own scarves, of course she does.

This is what publishing looks like. This is what making ART looks like. And none of it, not a SINGLE bit of it, is about the output for us.

What AI is actually threatening isn’t the finished book. It’s everything that happens before it. The years of reading the wrong things and learning from them or the draft you scrapped that taught you what the book actually needed to be. The conversation with an author at an event where they told you something that reframed the whooole project. The detours and dead ends. The slow, unglamorous accumulation of honing your craft and knowing yourself well enough to make something that only you could make.

YOU CANNOT PROMOT YOUR WAY TO A ‘WHY’. You cannot skip the process and still call it art. And we don’t need to!! We’re not answering to an algorithm’s content schedule or capitalism’s obsession with doing everything faster and cheaper until it costs nothing and means nothing.

We exist because stories matter and the people who tell them matter and how they got there matters more than most people realise. That is the part we’re interested in. That is the part that can’t be faked.

Rant over.

22/07/2026

Will you be supporting any indies this weekend?? Small businesses only exist because people ✨choose them✨

We do try our best to be everywhere at once (please see exhibit A in this post). A market stall here, a writing panel there, reading challenges in libraries, creative writing workshops in schools. But we are a tiny team and there are only so many of us to go round!! The same goes for so many small businesses, so here is your friendly reminder to look out for us all - the small presses, indie authors, and all the little business standing next to us at every market - come and say hello and support where you can 🫶

We’ve been in Manchester and Preston throughout July, and this weekend we’re heading back to Preston for the Maker’s Market on Saturday 25th July,

Then it’ll be a journey down (and across) to Liverpool for the Croxteth Hall Maker’s Market on Sunday 26th July!

Kate will be waiting with open arms. Open arms full of books!!! So come and chat, browse and buy some brilliant children’s and adult fiction. And if you can’t make it, our online bookshop is up and running again!! Shopping from your sofa counts just as much ###

THANK YOU FOR BEING AN AMAZING COMMUNITY X

22/07/2026

Who has plans for the weekend? It's cooler, it's more manageable, it's about time you looked for your next fix at Preston Makers Market !! We'll see you there, along with a whole host of amazing suppliers.

And if you're a bit further afield, you can catch us the day after in Liverpool at Coxteth Hall!

21/07/2026

🎬 Coming to Netflix…never, because they’d never commission this. Which in itself is political.

I don’t make the rules. You can’t keep politics out of books 🚫