About

Ben Book Pic

OK. So. Me.

I grew up in Solihull/Birmingham (Sheldon, if you must know) but moved first to Exmouth (Plymouth University’s old Rolle College campus – sadly now defunct) and then on to Bristol with my now-wife Natalie before finally settling in lovely Portishead with our twins, Daisy and Jack.

I always enjoyed writing at school and university and used to scribble away daily without ever showing it to anyone. But then I stopped. Maybe life intervened.

But in 2013 I thought I’d try something – just a short story, which I shared with a few friends. They seemed to enjoy it. Then I began to write the odd poem, which I posted on ABC Tales, and some of the kind users there said nice things. I entered a competition to write some flash fiction for the 300th edition of Shortlist Magazine, and whadda-yer-know…they printed it!

On New Year’s Day in 2014 I was poking around on Twitter when I chanced upon a tweet by the poet Jo Bell, who was about to embark on a project called 52 – write a poem a week throughout the year, inspired by her prompts, and share them with other members.

What can I say? It changed a huge amount for me, and by the end of the year I’d had 15-20 poems accepted by a few print and online journals. What’s more, having read poems by other “52ers” I was able to finally nail down my personal taste for poetry and decided to launch Clear Poetry, which focussed on publishing new accessible work by both newcomers and established writers. The site ceased publication in December 2017 after three years of fun and frolics and gave hundreds of poets an audience for their work, including 1,000 followers on Facebook alone.

In terms of my own work, I’ve had a number of poems published both in print and online.

In February 2016, Indigo Dreams published by debut pamphlet, Communing. It sold quite well and some people even said nice things about it.

In March 2018 my first full collection, We Are All Lucky, was published by Indigo Dreams.

In November 2021 my second full collection, Hi-Viz, was published by Yaffle Press.

In January 2022 I launched a new online journal, Black Nore Review, which takes its name from a lighthouse near my home on the Severn Estuary.

And then of course in the background there are the mixtapes. I’ve always loved music, and would often fill C90 cassettes for friends. I even pretended to be a DJ sometimes in the Student Union bar at university. The main thing is sharing the music I enjoy, which is where Random Flow Radio comes in. Expect soul, reggae, funk, guitars, synths…anything, really.

The overall aim of this blog is really just somewhere I can gather all of the online threads I’ve buggered about with over the years, as well as to publish news about my writing and possibly share my thoughts on the work of others. Thanks for browsing!