AEB Book Reviews – Now on Reedsy

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Humour , , ,

Having read some of the content on MHAM, the editorial team on the book reviewing platform Reedsy Discovery approached me with a favourable proposition. Behind the scenes a few conversations have been taking place but now some of my reviews have gone live I can officially announce that as of this month I have have joined the team at Reedsy as an verified book reviewer.

To say those reviews are going down well is perhaps a smidge of an understatement. Put it this way, I have been ranked as number two.

*Polishes knuckles on chest*

To help maintain a healthy balance with work/life/my other writing exploits my reviewing inbox is currently open to mostly non-fiction and short story. My reviews are published on the website to coincide with the book’s publication release date so expect plenty more going live in the upcoming weeks.

**

Since starting I have already been approached by several independently published authors to ask for my services in an editorial capacity. Therefore…

In addition to book reviews (which you can submit to me direct), I am now also taking on commissions as a Developmental Editor.

Drop me an email with an overview of your work in progress (details on the contact tab) and I will get back to you.

**

Keep an eye out on the MHAM webpage (even better if you subscribe) for plenty of upcoming book reviews as I vet my way through some of the best hidden gems independent publishing has to offer.

Reedsy Discovery Profile: https://reedsy.com/discovery/user/aeb_reviews

**

Could you spare a dollar or two? Donate here!

Alice’s Funding Page

**

An Earful of ELO and Bitter Tea: Why I Write

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, Commission, Culture, Event, Humour, Literature, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , ,

What do you picture when you think of the writer? A recluse, working in the half-light of winter or in the sun-kissed parklands of summer? Novel thoughts that flow through dainty calligraphy on tanned pages? Web string ideas that will one day sit proud and hardbacked in Waterstones or Foyles. Half an hour to transpose to pixel, twelve weeks to complete, another month or two for luck.

Ha.

If that’s the vision, let me grace you with the reality, as I find myself propped in a generic coffee shop. The table is scratched as a post, the air sticky and the green chair worn away to the bare threads. There is only one word for it, uninviting. But what does it matter? My leggings are peppered with rips and holes anyway, the stains and the marks, it’ll wash out.

A train goes past, one of those piddly little things that carry children at walking pace, no, slower than that, a snail’s. The driver sounds its electric toot-toot as it crawls by, my right ear left ringing while my left is pumped with coffee grinding and the tinny music of overhead Electric Light Orchestra. The best ambiance £2.25 of tea can buy. I sip the cold fluid with a grimace, bitter and stewed.

It’s gone 18:00, my hair is wet with grease and my young face slightly more etched from another exhaustive day at the office-come-dining table. Eyes swollen, fingers twisted. I worked through lunch, which every psychologist from here to Timbuktu will say is a one-way trip to an early grave, but the extra hour of toil then means an extra hour of freedom now. A fragment of bliss with a half-eye on time. Later, a stranger beckons at my door to collect dusty offcuts from my garage; he won’t negotiate on the timings and I really could do with that £20.

Writers are leather beaters, we take the skin of an idea and scrape, beat and dunk until that piece of flesh returns gold. Sometimes our elbows linger for too long in foul-smelling liquids that the only thing golden is our stained skin, saturated with stench.

Write. Write harder and faster and quicker and smarter and eloquently, until your fingertip pads run smooth and your skin cracks with effort. That’s what writing is. I’d consider myself a very successful woman indeed if I were ever to stumble across my work in a library or charity shop. Maybe that makes me simplistic, or maybe that makes me even more of a dreamer. I scrub my manuscript some more.

I started putting keyboard to laptop in 2014 on little more than a whim and utter boredom, to fill lonely nights in a strange town I barely knew. Eight years later I find myself plagued with a parasitic urge I can barely comprehend. What time is it? When did I last eat? How long before the staff spot my empty cup and kick me to the curb?

I don’t write because I want to, I write because it is an addiction. Leave hollow hope be for there is nothing to be saved.

My colourless eyes glance sideward as the same empty train edges closer once more.

**

This piece was kindly sponsored by Ben Miller, who spotted my business card on a noticeboard and commissioned me to write a post on “Why I Write”.

Please sponsor me to keep doing what I love by donating here: Alice’s Funding Page

**

Volunteering to Beat Cancer

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, Charity, Event, Humour, Uncategorized , , , ,

I signed myself to volunteer recently at a Cancer Research UK Race for Life event at Cheltenham racecourse.

Stick me in a high visibility jacket with a radio and I’m your girl (be it with a slightly inflated sense of importance).

It was very windy (hence the squint) and, being Britain, I did get caught out in the rain for a short spell. Observation of the day, racecourses aren’t great for weather protection.

Here are some choice phrases from my time as the very important marshal number six on the 3km, 5km and 10km run:

  • “I want your tutu!”
  • “3km that way, 5km that way. Also, check me out with my semaphore arms!”
  • “You’re doing this so I don’t have to!”
  • “No such thing as going too slow. Look at me, I’m standing still!”
  • “It’s very windy here!”
  • (In response to someone asking for a mid-course vodka tent) “don’t have shots, but lots of shouts – YOU’RE AWESOME!” (It made them laugh.)

A big shout out to everyone across the country who make Race for Life (and similar) events happen and to all those taking part and raising money to support such a worthwhile cause. I’d wholeheartedly recommend volunteering for anyone looking for a fun day out (with a laugh or two along the way).

Links:

Cancer Research UK

Cancer Research UK – Get Involved (Volunteering Opportunities)

**

Could you spare a dollar or two? Donate here!

Alice’s Funding Page

**

Come Again?

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Book, Book Review, Humour, Poem, Uncategorized, Writing , , ,

Doing a bit of industry research one evening I come across this book of poetry, “Dung Beatles Navigate by Starlight”.

I know I can give as good as it gets on the waffle game (and I’m not talking about sweet treats) but this is next level:

The book’s description reads:

“These poems explore the boundary between science and poetry, and juxtapose the lexicon of organic chemistry, in particular, with a botanical discourse which is more conventional in poetry, but which the scientific treatment defamiliarises. Far from being abstruse and heavy, the treatment here lightens the subject with an imaginative playfulness, as in ‘The First Green Human: The Observer Interviews Clorinda’, where Marvell’s pastoral character is turned, through a journalistic register, into a personification of current ecological concerns.“

My reaction?

I’m done. No way can I compete with that level of blurb-ery (#ShouldBeAWord) talent (and I’m not entirely kidding).

In other news, Mumma B says she’s reassured in knowing that her daughter isn’t the only one who can spout waffle. Whoop.

(Link: https://cinnamonpress.com/store/dung-beetles-navigate-by-starlight/)

**

Could you spare a dollar or two? Donate here!

Alice’s Funding Page

**

Financial Recommendation for 2022 – Invest in Wood

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Finance, Humour , , , , ,

The other evening I decided I wanted to pop down to the local shopping centre (mall) to do some creative thinking kinda stuffs.

Now here’s the thing, it was about 18:45 when I arrived and, knowing that the shopping centre closed at 20:00 I was fairly adamant I was NOT going to pay for coffee, knowing that thirty minutes down the line Sammy-stickler (not their real name) would be out with his broom trying to nudge me off the premises of their well-to-average-do establishment. I was not going to splash out £3.20 for a coffee.

So I head into the shopping centre. It was pretty chill atmosphere, I think they were playing an Eternal song over the speakers (in fairness, it does often feel like Swindon is stuck in the nineties).

Pumped full of the sweet nineties tuneage, I decided to pop into one shop. Just one. A single shop to stretch my legs a bit and get me into the zone.

Yeah…that didn’t happen. Two words – ex-display clearance.

Fifteen minutes later I’m now the proud owner of some new wooden coat hangers.

That’s my shadow on the floor, for anyone who’s never known the pain of taking photographs of inanimate objects at 22:00

It doesn’t end there! Because sure, I could have got ten for £2, I could have even walked on by (those were the only two options so we’re really talking an all or nothing opportunity here). And what is life without seizing the opportunities that come our way?

That’s right, I went and bought twenty ex-display, pink wooden coat hangers for £4. (And I didn’t even need to pay for the bag #Smooth #ThisGirlIsOnFire)

Remember how I said was determined to not spend £3.20 on coffee?

Right, so hear me out on this. That one coffee would have been finite, served, drunk and, well, let’s say “processed” in a couple of hours. These coat hangers will last me years and years and years and years. And yes, before you ask I do indeed already have a wardrobe full of the black plastic hangers I bought almost ten years ago and yes, they’re still in a decent state. But think of the bigger picture – right now it will set you back nearing £10 for just eight hangers. Eight!

SEE?! It makes complete financial sense!

So at the end of the day who’s really laughing? And please don’t say the Neon Sheep store that saw me coming, I’ve heard it already and it’s not getting any funnier.

**

Could you spare a dollar or two? Donate here!

Alice’s Funding Page

**

Writing Retreat in the New Forest *VIDEO*

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) Book, British, Humour, Mellennial, Mermaid, Staycation, Travel, Uncategorized, Vacation, Writing, Young Professional , ,

Video of my recent five-day break in the New Forest, England. I went out specifically to focus on writing and while it didn’t quite turn out entirely as I’d hoped, I had a very relaxed time in beautiful surroundings.

Until the next time!

**

Please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to my funding page:

Ko-Fi

**

“Cleaning-Up the Microwave” (a Chemical Fume-Induced Song)

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, comedy, Event, House, How To, Humor, Humour, Mellennial, Mermaid, Music, Swindon, Uncategorized, Young Professional , , ,

From the makers of That’s When the Cleaning Fumes Got to Me, I present me, cleaning the microwave with equally questionable methods.

If it’s not the fact I forgot to turn the mircowave off (apparently it’s not safe), it’s the realisation afterwards of the potential effects those fumes were having on me.

But still, at least the microwave is clean now.

**

Please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to my funding page:

Ko-Fi

**

Reactions to “Chicken Con Carne”

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, Cooking, Cotswolds, family, food, Humor, Humour, Swindon , , ,

Less than an hour after I upload my last post, Alice’s “Chicken Con Carne”, my phone buzzes. Two separate messages, one from Mumma B and the other from brutally honest mate Laura. Wishing we well? Asking what I’m up to? Nope, expressing concern over my grasp of international dialogue and my hands. As you do.

That’s right, I did indeed study Food Technology and the Spanish language at GCSE, with respective grades of A and B (I even won an award for my cooking). Where did it all go wrong? One word, University-catered-halls-of-residence-slash-studying-hard-slash-it-was-around-this-time-I-discovered-GoT-and-daytime-TV.

It gets worse. I visited Mumma B the other day and she’s given me a knife, that is how concerned she is. It must make her the first parent in history to thrust a knife into her daughter’s hand and beg me to take it. She even smuggled it into my handbag when I tried to leave it behind.

(The best bit? The video was recorded months ago. The face on Mumma B when I told her? Priceless.)

**

Please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to my funding page:

Ko-Fi

**

Alice’s “Chicken Con Carne”

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) British, food, Humour, Uncategorized , , ,

For this one there isn’t much to say that isn’t covered in this video. I think I’m getting better at this cooking malarkey.

And plated up…

So go on, tell me you’re not a little bit impressed. And, if you’re not impressed, it’s because you’re the one who’s been stockpiling all the beef and/or Quorn mince.

**

Please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to my funding page:

Ko-Fi

**

“Six-Year-Old’s Lockdown Song to Missed Friends” – Two Years On

My Housemate's a Mermaid (Alice E. Bennett) comedy, Coronavirus, family, Humor, Humour , , ,

I cannot believe it’s been two years since I first heard “Six-year-old’s lockdown song to missed friends” (catchy title, I grant you).

What do you mean, you haven’t heard this song? What the heck is right with you?!

Say what you want about the first UK lockdown in 2020, but the local news reporting was at the very top of its game back then. Slow news month? Pfft! I don’t know what you’re taking about!

I can’t find the video on YouTube, okay, so you’ll have to trust me this link is safe and click on it to have a listen for yourself:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-52403189

And please don’t ask me how much time I spent trying to find this on the internet. An unhealthy amount, that’s what. (And an amount that could well have put me on some police-watch list).

Ah, April 2020. As I recall, around about this time I was spending 90% of my day rocking back and forth with a half-eaten packet of dry cream crackers in my hand. With this song stuck in my head.

Those were the days.

**

Please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to my funding page:

Ko-Fi

**