Hello,
You might have noticed passing references on this newsletter to MY NEW BOOK. I am happy to say that MY NEW BOOK has now been published.
MY NEW BOOK, Noughties, is a book of short stories about growing older in an immature age. It began with the thought of what the many diverse people who were briefly famous in the noughties - indie musicians, reality television stars, New Labour politicians and so on - are up to now and progressed from there. Here is the blurb:
A long-forgotten indie band mount a comeback.
A man who tackled a terrorist struggles to move on.
An up-and-coming comedian’s past comes back to haunt him.
Journey with the ghosts of the recent past in Ben Sixsmith’s new collection of satirical short stories about culture, ageing, error and desire.
I hope it is a funny and thought-provoking little book, reflective of the present as well as the past. You can buy it as a paperback or e-book from Amazon:
You might not have expected MY NEW BOOK to be fiction. I have had very kind suggestions from agents and publishers about writing a non-fiction book and have come up with terrible ideas, or, at least, ideas for articles which did not have to be books. I did not want to write a book for the sake of writing a book.
I think in my heart I also wanted to go back to fiction, which was my first love. Besides, we hear a lot about how male authors are disappearing, and about how right-leaning authors are in short supply, and as much as I hope Noughties is neither male nor right-wing in an overbearing sense, it would be nice if it is a step towards reversing these trends.
Anyway, I really hope that you enjoy the book (which is, just so I can have the pleasure of saying it once more, MY NEW BOOK).
Thank you,
Ben