Benjamin Appleby-Dean's Blog: The Dry Well
July 8, 2020
Gamedev Community Podcast: Constructive Narrative Writing
I'm a guest in the latest episode of the GameDev.tv Community Podcast, talking about my new game and narrative design in gaming:
https://soundcloud.com/user-351690218...
https://soundcloud.com/user-351690218...
May 11, 2020
Author Interview: A Squire's Tale
A Squire's Tale, coming out Thursday the 14th of May, is my new medieval fantasy project - and my first foray into interactive fiction!
Choice of Games interviewed me about some of the inspiration behind it: https://www.choiceofgames.com/2020/05...
Choice of Games interviewed me about some of the inspiration behind it: https://www.choiceofgames.com/2020/05...
April 30, 2019
New interview on Gingernuts of Horror
Gingernuts of Horror have interviewed me about LGBTQ themes in my work and in horror as a whole:
https://gingernutsofhorror.com/interv...
https://gingernutsofhorror.com/interv...
April 9, 2019
Childhood Fears article on Gingernuts of Horror
Today I've got an article over on Gingernuts of Horror talking about the things that frightened me as a child, and how they've affected my writing: http://gingernutsofhorror.com/feature...
January 1, 2019
Coming soon: COLD STONE SECRECY
In exactly 1 month from today, I'm releasing my first attempt at self-publishing, Cold Stone Secrecy: Twelve Poems. It's an anthology of my best work over the last eight years.
From fantasy author Benjamin Appleby-Dean comes a collection of poetry exploring love, loss and society. Each of these twelve poems dives into subjects such as fairytales retold, relationships broken down, or hidden changes lurking below the surface of our world.
From fantasy author Benjamin Appleby-Dean comes a collection of poetry exploring love, loss and society. Each of these twelve poems dives into subjects such as fairytales retold, relationships broken down, or hidden changes lurking below the surface of our world.
August 17, 2018
NARC Magazine - Five Haunting Literary Fairylands
My newest book, The Stickman's Legacy, goes into a dark and unusual version of Fairyland; so I decided to celebrate the release by listing my own favourite literary journeys into Faerie for NARC magazine:
http://narcmagazine.com/feature-ben-a...
http://narcmagazine.com/feature-ben-a...
June 19, 2018
Guest Post at The Howling Turtle
Hello all!
I've got a guest post today over at The Howling Turtle blog, talking about the experience of writing my most recent book - you can find it at the link below:
http://howlingturtle-pdx.blogspot.com...
I've got a guest post today over at The Howling Turtle blog, talking about the experience of writing my most recent book - you can find it at the link below:
http://howlingturtle-pdx.blogspot.com...
May 31, 2018
New Release: THE STICKMAN'S LEGACY
I think every author has that one book.
The one you worked away at for years, scribbling down ideas on the back of scrap paper, crafting elaborate worlds and huge casts of characters before you dared write a word of the first chapter.
The one that hovered over your teenage imagination like a brewing storm, ever-receding into the future as you promised yourself that one day, this day, any day soon you'd actually sit down and start it.
The one where you finally poured every idea you'd ever had into it, spilling your life and dreams into the pages until it felt like you'd never think of anything else to write about again.
And then you finish it and move on. You write other stories, less ambitious but better crafted. You maybe even see some of them published. And you finally come back to your magnum opus and realise with sinking heart you're going to have to rewrite the entire thing from scratch.
This is my one book. Seven years planning, three years actual writing (including the aforementioned rewrite), five years getting it to publication.
Half my life.
I'm excited, nervous and a little bit proud to finally share it with all of you.
Mary never knew her father until he died and brought his enemies to her doorstep. Searching his house for answers, she unearths an ancient nightmare and is drawn into a world of corporate magicians, subterranean kingdoms and living architecture, all of whom have history with the Stickman - and their own sinister agendas for his daughter.
As a secret war breaks out across London with her at the centre, Mary finds fragments of her own past resurfacing, and has to understand the true nature of her legacy before it's too late...
The Stickman's Legacy is a dark fairy-tale about the stories we tell ourselves.
The one you worked away at for years, scribbling down ideas on the back of scrap paper, crafting elaborate worlds and huge casts of characters before you dared write a word of the first chapter.
The one that hovered over your teenage imagination like a brewing storm, ever-receding into the future as you promised yourself that one day, this day, any day soon you'd actually sit down and start it.
The one where you finally poured every idea you'd ever had into it, spilling your life and dreams into the pages until it felt like you'd never think of anything else to write about again.
And then you finish it and move on. You write other stories, less ambitious but better crafted. You maybe even see some of them published. And you finally come back to your magnum opus and realise with sinking heart you're going to have to rewrite the entire thing from scratch.
This is my one book. Seven years planning, three years actual writing (including the aforementioned rewrite), five years getting it to publication.
Half my life.
I'm excited, nervous and a little bit proud to finally share it with all of you.
Mary never knew her father until he died and brought his enemies to her doorstep. Searching his house for answers, she unearths an ancient nightmare and is drawn into a world of corporate magicians, subterranean kingdoms and living architecture, all of whom have history with the Stickman - and their own sinister agendas for his daughter.
As a secret war breaks out across London with her at the centre, Mary finds fragments of her own past resurfacing, and has to understand the true nature of her legacy before it's too late...
The Stickman's Legacy is a dark fairy-tale about the stories we tell ourselves.
May 30, 2018
Coming Soon
Wicked, wicked Mary Spindle
Burn too bright and soon you'll dwindle
Fading from the world of men
Clever, clever Mary Spindle
Strike the sparks you've learned to kindle
Soon those fires will burn again
Burn too bright and soon you'll dwindle
Fading from the world of men
Clever, clever Mary Spindle
Strike the sparks you've learned to kindle
Soon those fires will burn again
January 23, 2018
RIP Ursula Le Guin
... Okay, this one got to me.
I started off reading fantasy by a common route when I was young - Tolkien, CS Lewis, and too many children's classics to name. And there it might have stayed, if I hadn't also been given a copy of the Earthsea books.
All my preconceptions were turned upside down. Magic became a vivid, consistent thread instead of the handwaving it was in most books. Cultures broadened beyond the Western medievalism of most created worlds. Wizards went to strict stone universities, years before Rowling. Her writing was lyrical and poetic without being wordy, and her villians weren't simple caricatures of evil but reflections of the self.
Most of all it was Tenar who drew me - Priestess of the Nameless Ones, Mistress of the Labyrinth, then farmer and mother and saviour of a broken wizard and a burned child. I'd never read a character anything like her before.
I put a lot of childhood books aside when I grew older, but Earthsea stayed with me. Then as a teenager I discovered her other work - the inter-space diplomacy of the early Hainish novels, the incisive social anarchy of The Dispossessed, and most of all the groundbreaking gender fluidity and deconstruction of The Left Hand of Darkness, a book that challenged my preconceptions all over again.
No other author in my lifetime taught me so much about feminism and gender, but also about self-awareness, about the richness and breadth of human culture, about the importance of magic. No other author has affected my own writing so much.
RIP, Ursula le Guin. You left a hell of a legacy.
I started off reading fantasy by a common route when I was young - Tolkien, CS Lewis, and too many children's classics to name. And there it might have stayed, if I hadn't also been given a copy of the Earthsea books.
All my preconceptions were turned upside down. Magic became a vivid, consistent thread instead of the handwaving it was in most books. Cultures broadened beyond the Western medievalism of most created worlds. Wizards went to strict stone universities, years before Rowling. Her writing was lyrical and poetic without being wordy, and her villians weren't simple caricatures of evil but reflections of the self.
Most of all it was Tenar who drew me - Priestess of the Nameless Ones, Mistress of the Labyrinth, then farmer and mother and saviour of a broken wizard and a burned child. I'd never read a character anything like her before.
I put a lot of childhood books aside when I grew older, but Earthsea stayed with me. Then as a teenager I discovered her other work - the inter-space diplomacy of the early Hainish novels, the incisive social anarchy of The Dispossessed, and most of all the groundbreaking gender fluidity and deconstruction of The Left Hand of Darkness, a book that challenged my preconceptions all over again.
No other author in my lifetime taught me so much about feminism and gender, but also about self-awareness, about the richness and breadth of human culture, about the importance of magic. No other author has affected my own writing so much.
RIP, Ursula le Guin. You left a hell of a legacy.
