Aside from writing poetry, Benn enjoys writing short stories and has almost completed writing his first novel. He hopes you'll enjoy the following samples:

Extract from Backalley

Vern breathed in slowly, trying to calm himself down, and reassure himself that the pressure wasn't all that much. It was a simple job. But last simple job he did someone ended up dead and he hoped it wasn't him this time. The plan had been set out by Chesser ten minutes earlier in the parklands. Lacey was to do the deal with a big dealer up from Sydney, drop the cash to Vern who would be waiting below the overpass, then they would both meet Chesser back in the parklands.
A hungry vagrant pressed his nose up against the glass, staring at someone else's dinner. Vern studied him momentarily. It had been a hobby of Vern for quite sometime, watching people, wondering about what they were thinking, feeling. The old guy meandered off after receiving a few unwelcome looks from the diners. Vern looked up, still no sign of Lacy. This deal should have been done by now, he thought, staring back at the pavement.
There was a crack as a bullet and then another flew past Vern, over his head. He ducked for cover. There was no-one in the dark behind him, although someone could have been standing on the overpass above him and he might not have seen them. He heard the screams from behind him now, down at the restaurant and turned to look down there to see the shattered glass pane, and several businessmen slumped at their table.
A weighted envelope landed next to Vern, thin and opened, two words on its cover.
YOU'RE DONE.
All of a sudden, Vern realised he's been framed.
Vern walked quickly towards the parkland, and into the evening crowd. Many of them were coming towards him. He stood momentarily and stared back towards the commotion, as others were doing. Manoeuvring to appear as a curious passer-by, Vern waited until most had past him, and then disappeared along the waterside boardwalk.

Extract from Spring Loves

The afternoon feels tight as a tie, squeezing upon a prickly neck. Sweat wells up over the top of his collar. Silently the gaps between fibre and skin close as his throat thickens. It is not a hot day, far from it. For it is the heightening of senses in anticipation of moments to come that cause the unwanted perspiration. Heavy with the burden of work on his mind, Paul McMullen tries vainly to gather his thoughts and clear the slate such that his conversation will seem a mix of consider questions that will seem both sophisticated and interested. This quandary of mind is just one of Paul's challenges. To add to the confusion, he is lost amidst streets that are not of his nature.
There is, incorporated in this walk, this meander, a sense of uneasiness, a trundle that whispers between a run and a stagger, a change of place quite so frequently that the other pedestrians are left to curse and sidesteps in his wake. To Paul each corner adds a new dimension to his dilemma, a new name of a street unknown. Each footstep carries a new space, each moment of stroll, or wander, or quickened walk, or is the space, the emptiness of the pathway between him and his destination, which is neither here nor there, almost on the point of an illusion, in motion, in dynamic pace a reflection, a mirror of his ever changing mood of anguish, or fear.
The reader knows of each couple, each trio that passes him by. The reader knows that both the man of subject, and those fuzzy images that pass are merely a reflection of ourselves, in a different moment, at some moment, in love with a partner on their arm that they are yet to meet, have met sometime before, or a memory to pine for in this lost moment of mist, and mis-direction.
Images of past moments with her enter Pauls' mind, of moments past, laughing, languishing in each other's gaze, jeering and dancing, down the street in a pose of friends. And each of these moments, each of these reflections that the reader will meet on his lonely stroll through idle thoughts, through a city not familiar to him will be in a hundred different places at a hundred different moments, as the reflections of him, in shopfront windows will have a hundred different faces, although, only that stare will remain the same. The eyes always are same for the eyes tell the tale of loss, of sorrow, of complete happiness, of love, of lust, of deep longings that echo through the soul.
The dinner hour has begun. Restaurants are quietly filling, bars, not so loudly, replacing their post work customers with somewhat longer lasting clientele. The city is animated with weary, end-of-day stragglers, pre-night-time drinkers, restaurant lookers, and lonely, lost wandering souls. Matre-des' signal waiters to seat new arrivals, whilst others rush about fussing over customers already sipping their pre-dinner drinks, or setting knives and forks in the entre position.
Amidst all this, amidst all of this rush of people, movement of being between places, she waits. She waits impatiently for him, for he is late again. Katileen is the kind of woman who becomes nervous after dark without the company of others. She looks around once more, wishing desperately that he was there; that he was near her, anywhere, even the vision of him standing at a distant phone would soothe her. But this would not satisfy her completely, for the basic fact is that she detests waiting. Waiting, as an occupation, a consequence of mis-aligned moments fill Katileen with ripples of anxiety. Waiting for him, hoping for him, missing him, upset with him for leaving her alone after dark, anticipating him with every second that clicks by as a myriad of emotions funnel through her.