Ben Slythe
The Official Site
The Official Site
Some of my other work is described on this page.
This also seems like the right place to link to my other sites.
I tell stories. In exchange for beer.
Some time ago I started writing and telling short stories. Some are entirely my own work, some are my retellings of history, some are blatantly adapted from the work of any writer whose copyright has expired.
I'm getting ready to publish a collection of stories which represent three years of storytelling evenings during the Faversham Festival. This book is called The Faversham Tales and will be available in paperback and electronic versions.
If you're interested in me reading a story or two at an event, please let me know. I do enjoy that sort of thing. Now, there's a story behind how I started writing stories, so keep reading...
The first of the stories I told in public was entitled Magna Carta - A Biography in Five Ports, yes, ports, not a typo.
It was written and performed for the Faversham Society, my local heritage society, and is available at the drop of a hat to be read in person. Assuming you have no hat to drop it's also available in a lavishly illustrated booklet in glorious black and white and I even have a video version. The tone is conversational, irreverent, but not wildly offensive and does cover the essentials of the history of this rather remarkable document. I'm happy to sell you my readings, my booklets, or my video for the price of very few drinks and I genuinely believe it's a story everyone should know.
Oh, yes. One more thing. If anyone reading this has contacts in the world of Japanese-style comic books, or has skills in that area themselves, I have an idea. I'll provide the text, just come up with some suitable graphics for the tale and, this is brilliant, we can call it Manga Carta.
I have embarked upon something truly worthy. Feel free to skip this section; it's probably of interest to exactly one person on Earth and, well, I already know what it says.
One of my stories is a gently entertaining retelling of the epic Anglo-Saxon poem The Battle of Maldon. While researching this piece I found that there wasn't a translation of the original text into English that I actually liked. I have, inevitably, embarked on a plan to rectify this.
Did everyone else know that translating ancient texts into a modern language and conveying the tone of the original while making the translation comfortable for a modern reader was actually quite hard? Anyway I'm not giving up. Expect the piece to be finished by my descendents.
I actually offer screenwriting and other creative writing workshops and short courses, tailored to suit any sort of group or format.
They've always been very well received, and I'm particularly pleased whenever someone who has attended one lets me know they've just had their first screenplay or play taken up. Details can be found, along with lots of other useful information at By The Lens. If you don't want a workshop, the site also contains a pretty good primer course in screenwriting structure, all for free.
All content copyright Ben Slythe