Our Story...

Simon

As part of a varied and award-winning career in photography and IT, Simon discovered a passion for the natural world and worked for more than a decade as a conservation photographer and cameraman. Specialising first in horse photography and touring with Monty Roberts, the American “Horse Whisperer” he later worked in partnership with wildlife charities in Africa. In 2020 he wrote and released Paw Prints in the Sand, an account of his time contributing to the conservation of big cats in Namibia. From 2022-2024 he ran an ethical sea tour company out of Brixham, educating locals and visitors alike on the diversity of wildlife that calls our seas home. Having managed the book department for a conservation company in the south west for the last three years, he decided it was time to combine all his knowledge and passion into a business of his own, and continue his conservation work through knowledge dissemination and the written word. He specialises in nature writing, natural history, the environment and wildlife conservation.

Cate

Cate is a travel writer, historical novelist and freelance editor and has lived in Brixham all her life. She has been a member of Brixham Writers Group since 2014 and was featured in their published anthology Written in the Sand. In 2022 she worked with local author and artist David Wallis to turn his lifetime of nature writing and sketching into a book, which is now available through a number of independent bookshops including Into the West. Into Eden, her first book about the adventure that first brought her and Simon together, is due for an updated re-release in 2026. For four years she worked as editor-in-chief of Amon Hen, the member’s magazine for the UK Tolkien Society which seeks to promote and study the works of J.R.R. Tolkien from The Lord of the Rings and beyond. During her tenure she presided over both the 300th issue and the Diversity Issue, which she is particularly proud of. She specialises in women’s and gender studies, travel writing and fiction.

In Tolkien’s work, to go “into the west” means to pass on from this life as we perceive it, and enter whatever comes after. To Cate, this is a great metaphor for literature in general and it’s why bookshops and libraries are her favourite places on Earth: “They’re a depository for the whole of human experience and for every human mind that was ever desperate to become known to others. You can’t truly experience a great bookshop or library and come away unchanged. Once a reading experience has altered something inside you, whether that’s through fiction that comforts you or an epic tome of non-fiction that educates you, by the time you and that book part ways again you have become someone new. You have passed into the west.”

Simon and Cate

For Simon and Cate, this is also a metaphor for their relationship. Simon moved to the south-west coast to be with Cate and feels more home in Brixham than anywhere else he’s laid his hat. As a couple, they’ve repeatedly travelled west to the United States, which is where they met, where they married, and where they’ve had their greatest adventures so far. They were changed by those journeys too.

Into the West isn’t just selling books, it’s selling dreams, ideas, ways of being; introducing readers to places they would never otherwise have travelled to and people they would never have met; broadening perspectives and amplifying the voices of others, so that we can better hear our own.

It’s selling you passage into the west.