Victoria Bennett
Author Events
Victoria is available for festivals, bookshops, libraries, book clubs, and online events. For booking enquiries please get in touch.
28 April 2025 — Online Launch of The Apothecary By The Sea, in conversation with Polly Atkin (Sam Read Booksellers)
30 April 2025 — Wild Women Writers Salon 23: Tracing Footsteps (online, BSL supported)
1 May 2025 — Launch of The Apothecary by the Sea & Private View, Highland Park Flagship Store, Kirkwall
2 May 2025 — Book Signing, The Orcadian Bookshop, Kirkwall
12 May 2025 — Orkney Nature Festival
September 2024 — Orkney Science Festival, St Magnus Centre, Orkney
August–September 2024 — Islay Book Festival, Islay, Scotland
May 2024 — Chelsea Flower Show, Great Pavilion, London
March 2024 — Orkney Arts Society, Stromness Town Hall
March 2024 — Reading Minds, Helensburgh Book Festival — Sold Out
April–May 2024 — Colonsay Book Festival · Warwick Books · Kibworth Books
Summer 2023 — Orkney to Okehampton Reading Tour
Borders Book Festival · Lighthouse Bookshop Edinburgh · Waterstones Kendal · Westwood Books Sedbergh · Dogberry & Finch Bookshop Okehampton · Verey Books Pooley Bridge
Autumn/Winter 2023
Women's Radio Station Book Club · BBC Radio Cumbria (3-part broadcast) · BBC Radio West Midlands Sunday Bookclub · Wild Women Writers' Salons (online) · Scottish Libraries Week Kirkwall · OMC Bookclub online
Wild Women Press
Victoria founded Wild Women Press in 1999 to offer a space for rural northern women to share their stories and explore their creativity. Over two decades on, the community has grown into an online global network of writers, creatives and wild women. The Wild Women Writers' Salons continue online — and Wild Woman Life, the Substack, is where Victoria publishes notes on wildness, writing, and the world of plants.
Subscribe to Wild Woman LifePress & Features
'A beautifully written paean to the healing powers of nature and an ode to the brutal climate of Orkney.'
Scottish Field'The tone is one of intimate possibility… gently determined.'
Jemma Neville — Gutter Magazine'The author captures the strangeness that makes the Orkneys, once visited, stay in the mind.'
Country LifeReviews
'The world is in perpetual crisis. And yet, in backyards and at kitchen tables, mid-life women are doing what we have always done in times of personal or global churn. We tend to all that is cyclical and hopeful: plants and people. Soil and soul… The Apothecary by the Sea is a book of micro-essays, sectioned by seasonal rhythms that reads as though an alternative almanac or commonplace book. Garden memoirs abound, but few are like this… The tone is one of intimate possibility… gently determined.'Jemma Neville, Gutter Magazine · Book of the Month
'A beautifully written paean to the healing powers of nature and an ode to the brutal climate of Orkney'Scottish Field
'The author captures the strangeness that makes the Orkneys, once visited, stay in the mind: the low mounds of land rising out of the grey sea, the magnificent Neolithic remains.'Country Life
'This is a book full of history and geography and botany, each has its place and they are woven together seamlessly. Nature writing at its finest.'
'Lyrical, evocative… The entire book just feels so infused with love and care. It reads as so sincere and is a perfect antidote if you need a break from a cynical reading streak.'
'The kind of book that gently nudges you to pay more attention to your surroundings, your routines, and maybe even to what you actually need.'
'There's something spellbinding about this very moving book, both the writing and the transformative effect of Orkney on Victoria Bennett.'
'Whether you are a botanophile, you love the sea, the description of forlorn places, you like armchair travel, or you like meaningful memoir — this book is for you. This book was a joy.'
'I absolutely loved this book; the writing is engaging, informative and deeply poetic. Victoria Bennett manages to mix botany, apothecary knowledge and her own personal journey in a way that ensures you are never overwhelmed by dry facts.'
Featured
'The world is in perpetual crisis. And yet, in backyards and at kitchen tables, mid-life women are doing what we have always done in times of personal or global churn. We tend to all that is cyclical and hopeful: plants and people. Soil and soul… The Apothecary by the Sea is a book of micro-essays, sectioned by seasonal rhythms that reads as though an alternative almanac or commonplace book. Garden memoirs abound, but few are like this… gently determined.'
Read the full review →
'Enduring and humane, a work that feels like a small glass jar of sea-scented balm pressed into the reader's palm, asking only that we breathe deeply and remember that we belong to the turning of the earth.'
Brigit Anna McNeill — author of The Wild Within'A beautifully written account of midlife, place and the body… a poetic resistance.'
Louise Kenward — editor of Moving Mountain'A great insight into the apothecary growing all around us, and the power of listening to our own needs.'
Marian Boswall — author of The Kindest Garden'A profound invitation to enter into conversation with the land—and, in doing so, yourself. A companion for times of transition, when old maps no longer serve and new ways of being quietly form.'
JC Niala — author of The New EdenInterviews & Podcasts
Reviews
'There are some books that you read, knowing that they will stay with you for a long time. Victoria Bennett's memoir All My Wild Mothers is one of those books. … I can't promise that this will always be a relaxing read, but All My Wild Mothers is one of the most achingly precious books that I have encountered in recent times, and I can thoroughly recommend it.'On Magazine
'I am quite spellbound by it. Poetic, compelling, heartbreaking yet hopeful, it's beautifully written and I am quite in awe of Bennett's strength and resilience, creating something beautiful out of life's inevitable grief and harshness.'Philippa Moore · Blog
'There are no simple solutions offered here, nothing so pat as that "gardening heals all hurts", but Bennett writes into the broken places and finds joy … I hope we'll see it recognized on the Barbellion and Wainwright shortlists alike.'Rebecca Foster · Bookishbeck
'This is a gift to readers, a great achievement of storytelling but also of compassion … in doing so lets us all feel less alone.'Cumbria Life · Book of the Month
