Steph Bennion's Blog

THE LUCK OF THE DEVIL has a special place in my heart. It's almost autobiographical: the main character Susan is also a heavy-metal-loving civil servant who happens to be transgender; and at the time of writing I too was living in South London, nursing fading dreams of playing bass in a rock 'n' roll band. The novel is a contemporary thriller of both comedy and tragedy, set in a world of superstition, psychiatry and the metaphysical. Here's the obligatory blurb: "Susan Jones, a transgender woman struggling to get by in the economic woes of 1990s Britain, is under the care of psychiatrist Doctor Mordussen. He in turn is obsessed by her disturbing nightmares. But are her demons real? An unexpected road trip to Ireland awakens traumas of the past. A seventeenth-century sorcerer, evil nurses, a castle reborn from the ashes and a bloodthirsty sheep do not making getting to the bottom of the mystery any easier. The old wise woman of the village knows more than she's telling. Susan must confront her demons in more ways than one. Can her love of heavy metal, her battered Volkswagen camper van and two best friends save the day?" Paperbacks are out now and available to purchase from Amazon, price GBP 15.00 / USD 20.00 (print-on-demand pricing can't compete with mass-market paperbacks, but they are higher-quality). I also hope to have a copy or two with me on the merch table at Ditch the Demon gigs. The ebook has been reissued with the revised text and is available from all the usual stockists with a recommended retail price of GBP 4.00 / USD 5.00. Happy reading! Steph.

A NEW LIVE ALBUM by DITCH THE DEMON is out now as a digital download! (Prozakville Records). LIVE IN THE BIG BAD CITY is our first attempt at a live album. This came about after we discovered that Setmixer records all gigs in select venues; and that for a small charge bands can purchase the individual sound-desk tracks to mix a live recording. The New Cross Inn in London is one such venue and we happened to play a headline gig there in January this year. There were sound issues on the day (the perils of live rock 'n' roll), but after selecting the best tracks and much tweaking, we've ended up with something that hopefully captures the raw essence of Ditch the Demon live. The album features one new song - "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" (written by yours truly) - from our forthcoming second studio album, which we are recording late September / early October. LIVE IN THE BIG BAD CITY is a BandCamp exclusive, download-only, offering ten tracks for just GBP 5.00 (+VAT)! Our next gig is at The Ship in Gillingham, Kent, on 17 August - a KimboFest fundraiser for the Alzheimer's Society, free entry. Gig details and more can be found on our website at www.ditchthedemon.co.uk. Happy listening! Steph.

JEMIA DE BLONDEVILLE, a Hastings-based poet and artist (and good friend of mine) recently reached out for help in putting together a book of her poetry. The result is WHERE FAIRIES ONCE DWELT, a slim volume of her whimsical writing, which she will be selling to raise funds for local wellbeing charity Arts on Prescription. Her poetry is very evocative of the 1970s hippy spirit, the thirty or so poems in this collection offering an ethereal take on nature and the supernatural. My contribution was to design and collate the paperback book itself around Jemia's poems, create the book cover to her specifications (front and back) using artwork created by Arwen Rose of Willow & Wolfe, then prepare print-ready files for publication. WHERE FAIRIES ONCE DWELT is available from Bookbuster in Hastings (price GBP 2.99), and from Jemia herself if you manage to catch her at one of the town's many poetry events. I believe she also plans a book launch event at Arts on Prescription at their Art in the Park centre in Alexandra Park, so look out for that too! It's a cute little poetry book and should sell well locally. Happy reading! Steph.

HOLLOW MOON, the first book of my eponymous space-opera series, has been reissued! After publishing the ebook of HOLLOW WORLDS last year, I decided to go back and read the earlier titles ahead of tackling those not yet in paperback. It's fair to say that my writing style has evolved (improved?) over the years and the temptation to revisit the text of earlier books has lured me back to my keyboard. The result is a throughly refreshed third edition of HOLLOW MOON, which I think flows rather better. Alongside this, I've also refreshed the free introductory ebook THREE TALES FOR CHRISTMAS, which includes Chapter One of Hollow Moon. Looking ahead, the other books of the Hollow Moon series will be revisited in turn. Next through, I will be turning my attention to a paperback edition of THE LUCK OF THE DEVIL, which I've been wanting to do for a long, long time... Happy reading! Steph.

ATOMIC TWITTEN, our shambolic folk-comedy duo featuring Taylor on vocals/guitar and myself on bass, is once again gracing the five-day carnival that is Fat Tuesday, the Hastings version of Mardi Gras. We're performing on Saturday Unplugged on 1 March, a packed afternoon of free acoustic music sessions, which sees more than 50 emerging and established artists and bands (and us!) across all genres playing 15-minute sets at lots of lovely venues across Hastings and St Leonards, East Sussex. We will be performing a stripped-down set at the: Noah's Goat (1pm); First In Last Out (2pm); Porters (3pm); The Dolphin Inn (4pm); and Anchor Inn (5pm) hostelries in Hastings Old Town. Hastings Fat Tuesday presents over 350 free gigs, gatherings, parties and parades alongside ticketed events. A full schedule of what's happening over the five-day celebration can be found on Hastings Fat Tuesday website. Programmes are also available from participating venues. Support live music! Steph.

Smashwords, distributor of choice for WyrdStar ebooks for the last 15 years, recently merged with another long-established digital self-publishing service Draft2Digital. In practical terms, all WyrdStar ebooks remain available at existing online retailers, including Smashwords' own online store. More excitingly, Draft2Digital ebooks are distributed to more international vendors and library services, such as Fable, Hoopla, Thalia and Vivlio. To help readers find their preferred outlet, every book also now has its own Books2Read link on WyrdStar Books webpages. Happy reading! Steph.

So... No new seasonal Hollow Moon short story this year. What about a Christmas song instead? On the WyrdStar website for your listening pleasure(?) is my demo recording of "Santa's Coming", a song I wrote over summer for the band Ditch the Demon (though we ran out of time to do anything with it this year). The accompanying video is the public domain cartoon "Christmas Comes But Once A Year" (Max Fleischer Color Classic, 1936). Merry Christmas! Steph.

HOLLOW WORLDS is out now! The fifth and final novel in The Worlds Of Hollow Moon series is released today in ebook format, RRP 5.00 USD / 4.00 GBP from all your favourite online retailers. The obligatory blurb: "Dyson trees, biological skyships, space dreadnoughts, alien greys: the five systems are not big enough for this final adventure! Ravana O���Brien and friends are marooned far from home. A labyrinth of hollow worlds, the lair of mysterious aliens, giant spiders and descendants of lost colonists who believe Earth is no more. Priest Taranis is reaping his twisted destiny as space battleships and incompetent mercenaries prepare for war. In the shadows of a hollow moon, a scheming would-be god prepares to seal humankind���s fate." So, my little space-opera saga is complete. When I released the first few chapters of HOLLOW MOON on the HarperCollins "Authonomy" website back in 2011, I never expected to be still developing my fictional worlds thirteen years on. But what about this year's seasonal short story? Well... there isn't one (sorry!). What with finishing HOLLOW WORLDS and my musical endeavours with Ditch the Demon (not to mention a day job), I simply ran out of time. Besides, there's a whole new novel instead! What more could you want for Christmas? Happy reading! Steph.

HOLLOW WORLDS is finally available for pre-order! The fifth and final novel in The Worlds Of Hollow Moon series will be published as an ebook on 1 December, RRP 5.00 USD / 4.00 GBP. Blurb: "Dyson trees, biological skyships, space dreadnoughts, alien greys: the five systems are not big enough for this final adventure! Ravana O���Brien and friends are marooned far from home. A labyrinth of hollow worlds, the lair of mysterious aliens, giant spiders and descendants of lost colonists who believe Earth is no more. Priest Taranis is reaping his twisted destiny as space battleships and incompetent mercenaries prepare for war. In the shadows of a hollow moon, a scheming would-be god prepares to seal humankind���s fate." Happy reading! Steph.

THE SMASHWORDS SUMMER/WINTER SALE is here again! Throughout July, countless indie authors and publishers are offering marvellous deals on ebooks, including yours truly. Summer has finally arrived here in England (better late than never); ebook sales are a handy way to stock up on beach reading, if you're that way inclined. Or as a distraction to politics, though like many space opera authors I tend to add a bit of that into stories too. Writing fiction seems to be the only way to get the right people on the winning side. Anyway... from today, Hollow Moon books #2 to #4 - PAW-PRINTS OF THE GODS, CITY OF DECEIT and THE AVALON JOB - are half price from WyrdStar at Smashwords (RRP USD 2.99). The Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale runs throughout July. Buy ebooks! Steph.