The website of writer and poet Daniel Bennett
I've gone through one of those regular, and probably necessary, periods when I've stopped having much regard for poetry, especially my own. Fortunately, my teaching forces me to keep my hand in, and I'm always grateful to my students, whose dedication and enthusiasm ends up being infectious, and pulls me back in, when otherwise I … Continue reading Recent Poems
It's taken three years, but I've finished my novel, East City Real. It's really pleasing to reach this point, not least because there was a time, not so long ago, when I thought I'd never write another novel, let alone a novel of science fiction. I've never taken so long over a first draft before, … Continue reading East City Real
Here's an excerpt from the opening chapter of The Second Coming, my new novel following the adventures of hack actor and sometime detective, Billy Vehement. 'The helicopter hung level with the cliff edge, riding against air streams and holding its thrust, resembling a rogue dragonfly confused by the sight of the sea. The thud of … Continue reading The Second Coming: Excerpt
I'm really pleased to publish the second book in my cycle of detective novels featuring the hack actor, Billy Vehement. Set in 2008, the novel follows Billy as he's drawn into the disappearance of one-time performance artist, Stacey Mattick, and the investigation into the stabbing of the grandson to Brixton gospel legend, Beulah Brown. Untangling … Continue reading The Second Coming
I've published a new paperback edition of my second novel Scenes from the Island. It's a book I’m still proud of, even though writing it was a hugely difficult experience for me. An odd mix of genre and literary fiction, the novel found itself lost in the grid. I still find that a bit unfair-- … Continue reading Scenes From the Island
In what has been a hugely busy beginning to 2024, where work and family life have pretty much overwhelmed my ability to write, I'm really grateful to have Gareth Jelley of Interzone publish another one of my stories. This one is called 'Drink The Kombucha!' and you can read it as a further adventure in … Continue reading Interzone 297
'The sheer profile of the city is intricate and uneven. Above the walls appears, naissant, armorial and unreal, a high hatched outcropping of huddled balconies, black rufous brown vermillion and white; the upper stages of wicker towers; helmet-like hoods of tinted stucco; tamarisks; the smaragdine and olive of tropical vegetations; tinselled banners; gigantic grey sea-green … Continue reading Charivari of Roof-life
I'm very pleased to have launched a new paperback edition of my crime novel My First London Dream, now available here. The novel follows the adventures of hack actor and accidental detective Billy Vehement as he searches South London for the missing filmmaker Felix Link. My First London Dream is the first in a series … Continue reading My First London Dream
Good to see this extensive reference to Burial Ground, everyone's favourite schlocky Italian horror film in Sammy Harkham's Blood Of The Virgin. There were better scenes to pick, mind you...
'How far do the landscapes of one's childhood, as much as its emotional experiences, provide an inescapable background to all one's imaginative writing. Certainly my own earliest memories are of Shanghai during the annual long summer of floods, when the streets of the city were two or three feet deep in brown silt-laden water, and … Continue reading An Inescapable Background
Absence Club 