Alexander Paul Burton Donates Books for Pride: A Bridgwater Author Brings His Novels Home
There is a particular kind of homecoming that happens on paper.
This Pride season, Bridgwater-born author and composer Alexander Paul Burton donated thirty hardback editions of his newly published LGBT+ novels to Bridgwater and Taunton libraries, marking both Pride month and the reopening of Bridgwater Library after major refurbishment work.
The gift spans gay literary fiction, romance, and speculative short stories, all released this year and all part of a wider series shaped by Burton's own journey out of Somerset and into the wider world.
The donation was covered locally by the Bridgwater Mercury and the Somerset County Gazette, the two papers that serve the towns where the books now sit on the shelves.
From the Parrett to the Thames
Burton was born and raised in and around Bridgwater, including Catcott, before a life that took him through London and Japan and eventually to Toronto, where he now lives with his partner. Water, he says, has always followed him: the Parrett, the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal, the Levels, and the coast.
"Rowing itself, with its blazers, with Henley Royal Regatta, its Oxbridge associations, belonged to a completely different England, one that working-class kids from Bridgwater weren't really invited into," he explains. "But the water was always mine first, in Somerset, long before I ever sat in a boat on the Thames. In a sense, the journey from the Parrett to the Thames is its own story of migration and crossing class lines, which is exactly what these books are about."
That thread, of belonging to a crew, a club, a place that was not originally yours, runs through the whole donation.
"What rowing and running share with the expat life is that both are about belonging to a crew, a club, a place that wasn't originally yours," Burton says. "As a gay man and as someone who left home, I've spent my life arriving somewhere new and very quietly asking whether I'm actually allowed to stay and belong. These stories are about earning that place, oar by oar, mile by mile."
Why a library, and why now
The timing was deliberate. Bridgwater Library reopened at the end of June after closing in October 2025 for essential repairs, and Burton wanted the return of the building to coincide with something being given back to it.
"These are stories about leaving home, belonging somewhere new, and the people who make that possible," he says. "Bridgwater is where I'm from, and it felt right to bring something back, especially now, with the library reopened and ready to welcome people in again."
A self-published novelist and neoclassical composer, Burton's work explores migration, belonging, and identity, often drawing on his years of competitive rowing with Thames clubs while he studied for an MA at Westminster and worked in the non-profit sector.
The donation is a small gesture with a long reach: five titles, sitting on the shelves of the town that made him, waiting for the next working-class kid from Bridgwater to find a story that says they are allowed to belong too.
And more here: https://somersetleveller.co.uk/news/bridgwater-born-writer-donates-books-to-county-libraries-to-mark-pride/
