About

This is the blogsite of Brindley Hallam Dennis & Mike Smith. We’ve been inseparable for years.

Between us BHD and Me have racked up several prizes, awards, Commendations and shortlistings for our writing.

Published in paperback, and as an e book, October 2019, a collection of essays by Mike Smith on the short stories of Rudyard Kipling.

A series of poems by Mike Smith: ‘Read all of Martin?Extinct? in one sitting. Absolutely brilliant, man. This is deep and mysterious work. Full of pithy wisdom, raw ache, love, loss, the mystery of -as so often in a poem- who is talking to who(m).’ NP,Carlisle

The Writer’s Secret, 12 more tales from BHD..

Other Stories And Rosie Wreay, 49 tales, flash fiction, monologues and short stories… available here.

Ten Murderous Tales from BHD, available here.

A collection of 12 essays on short stories, including film adaptations of Somerset Maugham, The Magic Shop by H.G.Wells, the ‘ground breaking’ collection by George Moore, The Untilled Field, and others from the 17th to 21st centuries. Available here.

A collection of 10 short poems, plus the award winning Ullswater Requiem. Available here from Amazon for Kindle or in paperback

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Nothing-Else-stories-Readings/dp/1530677750

Another bunch of essays on the short story and its writers!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Readings-Writers-Essays-Short-Stories/dp/151767574X

Published as E books for Kindle (and in print versions)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-Found-Barrel-Full-Beer/dp/1517324629/

The latest short story collection from Brindley Hallam Dennis, The Man Who Found A Barrel Full of Beer, and other stories ……

Departures, ten short stories by Brindley Hallam Dennis (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Departures-stories-Brindley-Hallam-Dennis-ebook/dp/B00TIWMEO6)

Thank you for the copy of Departures…. I enjoyed those ten short stories immensely and I don’t think I have ever been more aware of what an art form it is. They’re little gems, glimpses of lives and events like snatches of conversations heard in passing or an artists sketch. ……you evoke the intensity of relationships and suppressed passions wonderfully well…,BB, Shropshire

not a dud in the bunch, all of them good enough that they can make the gym and the fekking cross-training machine disappear for a few merciful minutes. Bravo. Really. Excellent stuff…..KT,Cork

Ambiguous Encounters, ten short stories by Brindley Hallam Dennis & Marilyn Messenger (http://www.amazon.com/Ambiguous-Encounters-Story-Times-Book-ebook/dp/B00V273OLM)

English of the English, Responses to the tales of A.E.Coppard by Mike Smith (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UEONRV6)

The following three are out of print, but I have some copies for sale (email brindleyhd@aol.com).

Talking to Owls (short stories) – (BHD) Pewter Rose, 2012

OMG! I just read your story Some Cumbrian Bull. Is this art forecasting life or what?!
What a laugh…couldn’t put it down till I got to the end. JD, Cumbria

A Penny Spitfire (novella) – (BHD) Pewter Rose, 2011

That’s What Ya Get – Kowalski’s Assertions – (BHD) Unbound Press, 2010

Valanga – (poems in experimental form, MS) -Freerange Press, 2007 (50 copies)

Second Time Around – (Short Stories, BHD) – Chelifer, 2006 (100 copies)

Martin? Extinct? – (poems, selections from, MS) Freerange, 2005 (50 copies)

No Easy Place – (poems,MS) Chelifer, 2005 (100 copies)

The Broken Mirror (poems, MS) Outposts, 1976. (168 copies)

Love Affair With A Landscape (poems, MS) Curlew Press -c1976 (c50 copies)

Bhdandme have appeared in The Blue Nib, Literati Magazine, Borderless, Speakeasy Magazine, Stand, Outposts, Acumen, The New Writer, Inktears, Early Works Press, Sentinel Champions, Markings, Current Affairs, Cumbria Life, Grist, Pinhole Camera, Beautiful Scruffiness, Ipse, Orbis, Lancashire Evening Post, Urbane Gorilla, Night Balancing, Pick, Cadenza, Tears in the Fence, Muse, Southlight, Windfalls, Tattoo Highway, EditRed, The Journal, Cumbria Magazine, Grope, Strath, Promontory, Omens, PEN New Poetry 1976/7, Radio Three, Radio Cumbria, Theatre By The Lake, The Thresholds International Postgraduate Short Story Forum & elsewhere, and have several short plays published by Lazy Bee Scripts. BHD’s short stories have been frequently performed by the London based Liars League, and by their colleagues at Liars Leagues in Hong Kong, New York City, and Leeds.

8 comments

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12/11/2011 at 6:46 pm

Kevan Ogden

Just finished reading PENNY SPITFIRE. Bought it off you sometime ago in Kendal but started reading LIFE AND FATE first. (Long book!)
Style Joycean – with thought and speech interchangeable. Reminds me a little too of Grassic Gibbon’s SCOTS QUAIR – in the way a kind of community voice is created – speech eliding into thought and then moving between characters.
Impressed by the detail – researched or remembered? Both probably. I particularly liked the anecdote about attempting to feed the Hindus with beef. And the last chapter was a beaut. Also liked the chapter with Charles planning a brave new world (David Hare’s PLENTY slipped into my head).
I think though you’re slightly hindered by the problem I have – that words are there to be savoured and are not mere mechanical units for shunting a story along. You find the words that sound best, link them and create a picture – shape epiphanies. You won’t get into the supermarkets that way! (You might make BOOTHS!)
I had a chat with you at the Brewery in Kendal and slipped you a card with my website. Wondered if you’d checked my novel out? It’s at http://www.freenovels.co.uk. A brief comment on the first chapter would be nice- though I’d also appreciate any ideas you might have for publicising it – eg are there other places where I might be able to do readings. (Don’t look for me in supermarkets either – unless life on the pension proves a struggle and I end up stacking shelves).
Kevan Ogden

13/11/2011 at 5:54 pm

bhdandme

Thanks for the comment. Curiously I’m reading Life & Fate too… a second go. I r4ead it a couple of years ago, and decided to repeat rather than listen to the adaptation. Also, read Sunset Song in the summer, the first in LGG’s trilogy. I read your first chapter too, and enjoyed it! I mean to get a copy onto my E-reader. When I tried to leave a comment it didn’t work. Probabvly my inability with technology! Keep in touch! BHD

01/10/2014 at 8:38 pm

Thom Hickey