The website of writer and poet Daniel Bennett
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
If you subscribe to the digital edition of Interzone 294 you'll receive my story 'Benji the Killbot' as a free extra, with artwork by Martin Hanford. 'No one really knew who ran the killbots. For about a year or so, this fleet of drones had added to the insane sense of precariousness to life in … Continue reading Benji the Killbot
My review of Substantial Ghosts originally appeared in issue 61 of The Journal.The reader is offered an odd encounter towards the end of Doreen Hinchliffe's Substantial Ghost, her second collection after Dark Italics in 2017. In the poem, 'Twin', Hinchcliffe describes the narrator visiting an apparent twin's bedroom, after fifty years. ('Inseparable, we move and one, each/ Of … Continue reading Substantial Ghosts by Doreen Hinchcliffe
At this time of year, as summer builds and I head to the coast, I remember my old ambition to be a novelist. This usually comes with a sense of embarrassment and regret. I've written a few novels, and they've been mostly unsuccessful, although I'm lenient enough on myself to think of this as a … Continue reading The Novelist
‘At first, it seemed to us that there was no single portion of the surrounding shore which was not hidden beneath the masses of the hideous lichen; yet, in this, I found we were mistaken; for somewhat later, coasting along the shore at little distance, we descried a smooth white patch of what appeared to … Continue reading Greyness
'I have to guess where I am in relation to the hawk.' The Peregrine, J.A. Baker
'Humour and horror are never so far apart, and shaking with laughter often looked like shaking with fear.' I first read John Sladek around the age of fifteen, when I picked up Tik-Tok from the science fiction section of the local library. For a teenager used to the ordered universe of Isaac Asimov, reading this … Continue reading John Sladek and Black Aura
'In the evening, I'd pour myself a glass of very strong rum on the rocks, and I'd write hardboiled poems...' Pedro Juan Gutierrez I've spent my writing life on the periphery. It's not only a matter of success, or lack of, although that certainly plays its part. You stand watching the dance floor with your … Continue reading Genre and the Edges
Absence Club 