ISAAC J BURNS · SEAMLIGHT PRESS
Keep the Light Burning
Stories are meant to be carried. Sometimes that means putting one into someone else’s hands.
Keep the Light Burning is the community book-giving programme built around the stories published as Isaac J Burns.
It begins with The Dusklight Keepers. It will grow beyond it.
2026 nominations: 1st–30th September
15 FOR THE 15TH · 2026
Fifteen books. Fifteen places. For the 15th.
Each year, 15 for the 15th will place fifteen books into settings where they can be shared, borrowed, read aloud and passed from one reader to another.
For 2026, the book is The Light That Went Thin.
We are inviting nominations for fifteen schools, libraries, children’s wards, community organisations and other suitable shared-reading settings across the UK and Ireland.
This is not a competition and recipients are not selected at random.
We will read the nominations as a family and choose the fifteen places where we believe the books can do the most good.
Multiple nominations do not increase a place’s chances.
Nominations open: 1st September 2026
Nominations close: 30th September 2026
Recipients announced: 15th October 2026
Book: The Light That Went Thin
Edition: Paperback
Publication: 29th October 2026
Area: UK & Ireland
Who can be nominated?
Schools · Libraries · Children’s wards and appropriate healthcare settings · Community, literacy and reading organisations · Other suitable shared-reading settings
15 for the 15th is intended for shared-reading settings rather than individual households.
No purchase. No voting. No social-media requirement.
A date that already meant everything.
WHY THE 15TH
Isaac is our eldest son. He was born sleeping on 15th October 2017, at 38 weeks.
His name is now the name I write fiction under.
The magpie that follows the Isaac J Burns stories is there for the same reason: in our family, magpies have become one of the ways we think about Isaac being near.
15 for the 15th grew from that.
Rather than letting 15th October be a date that only asks us to look backwards, we wanted it to also put something into the world.
Fifteen books. Fifteen places. Something given in his name, and something that can keep travelling.
Keep the light burning.
15th October is also the final day of Baby Loss Awareness Week, with the Wave of Light at 7pm. That remembrance stands on its own and is not used as a book-promotion moment.
THE FIRST SIX LIGHTS
Six books. Three places that matter.
Before 15 for the 15th begins its annual cycle, Keep the Light Burning starts with six direct gifts.
Two books will go to each of three places connected to our family:
Sheffield · Barnsley · Southampton
In each place:
1 hospital · 1 library
The recipients will be confirmed directly with the organisations involved before the books are sent.
Six first lights. Then fifteen more.
This is only the beginning.
BEYOND THE FIRST LIGHTS
Keep the Light Burning is not a one-book campaign.
It begins with The Light That Went Thin, The First Six Lights and the first year of 15 for the 15th.
As more books are published under Isaac J Burns, the programme can grow with them — finding new ways to put stories into schools, libraries, hospitals and communities where they can be shared.
Some parts will return every year. Some will belong to particular books. The principle stays the same: use the stories to put a little more light into the world.
Keep the light burning.
Isaac J Burns · Fantasy & Speculative Fiction
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