Once the cartoon was over, Edgar, the albino projectionist, paused the projector and turned the house lights up. Far below, in the darkened cinema, the audience began to file noisily out of the auditorium.
Edgar waited impatiently for the room to empty before finishing his work. He reversed the projector’s ratchet, then pressed the blue button. The film began to rewind onto the huge spool.
As the machine whirred, Edgar placed the other film reels shown that evening into cases and the cases into the rack. He slipped covers over machines, then checked that the room was tidy enough for the next day. It was.
Edgar was in a hurry because he had a date with Emily Watson – the waitress from the Laguna restaurant – and tonight looked as though their relationship might develop into something more than the kissing and touching bouts that it consisted of at present. Read more…
R J Dent says: ‘I wrote Between the Framesbecause I wanted to look at different notions of image, identity and perception; these are themes that have become increasingly important due to the surveillance/CCTV era we now live in. I also wanted to try and write a surreal story that was grounded in, but which challenged, notions of what we think and what we see, contrasted with how we think we are perceived.’
John Wyndham (10 July 1903 – 11 March 1969) was the pen name used by English science fiction writer John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris.
During his writing career, John Wyndham used various combinations of his names, such as John Beynon, John Benyon Harris, or Lucas Parkes.
By 1931, Wyndham was selling short stories and serial fiction to American science fiction pulp magazines, mostly under the pen names of ‘John Beynon’ or ‘John Beynon Harris’. He also wrote some detective stories.
Over time he altered his writing style and in 1951 started using the John Wyndham pseudonym for the first time. He wrote The Day of the Triffids. The novel was an enormous success and it established Wyndham as an important science fiction writer. He went on to publish six more novels and several short story collections under the name John Wyndham, all of which appeared in his lifetime.
Here is a bibliography:
Foul Play Suspected (1935) (as John Beynon) novel
The Secret People (1935) (as John Beynon) novel
Stowaway to Mars (1936) (as John Benyon; also known as The Space Machine and Planet Plane) novel
The Day of the Triffids (1951) novel
The Kraken Wakes (1953) (also known as Out of the Deeps) novel
Jizzle (1954) short stories
The Chrysalids (1955) (also known as Re-Birth) novel
The Seeds of Time (1956) short stories
The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) novel
The Outward Urge (1959) inter-connected short stories
Trouble with Lichen (1960) novel
Consider Her Ways and Others (1961) short stories
Chocky (1968) novel
Sleepers of Mars (1973) short stories
The Best of John Wyndham (1973) short stories
Wanderers of Time (1973) short stories
Exiles on Asperus (1979) short stories
Web (1979) novel
No Place like Earth (2003)
Plan for Chaos (2009) novel
John Wyndham died aged 65 at his home, survived by his wife and brother. Subsequently, some of his unsold work has been published and his earlier work re-published.
Here is a short film about the works of John Wyndham:
Here is a link for buying the works of John Wyndham:
Michael Baldwin grew up in Gravesend and Meopham, and was educated in the local Grammar school and then Oxford, followed by service in the Coast Artillery Regiment of the Thames and Medway estuary. Many of his published stories and poems are based in the Medway area of Kent.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Michael Baldwin worked as a teacher, university lecturer and broadcaster. He has written for radio, stage and film; and his Thames TV series Writer’s Workshop won a Rediffusion Prize as well as awards at many international festivals. His verse play, All American Bust was performed at the Royal Court Theatre.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and former chairman of the Arvon Foundation at Lumb Bank, Michael Baldwin gained a Japan award for his work in documentary television, and a Cholmondeley Award for his volume of poetry King Horn, a collection written by Michael Baldwin during the years he lived in the south of France.
He has judged national and international writing competitions and was for many years a judge of the Daily Mirror/W H Smith Young Writers Competition.
Michael Baldwin has taught creative writing at the Arvon Foundation, Fen Farm, Las Cabanes, the University of North Carolina, and at Skyros. He was Head of English and Drama at Whitelands College, Putney, and a Principal Lecturer at the Roehampton Institute.
Michael Baldwin is the author of twelve novels, including: There’s a War On, Miraclejack, The Rape of OC, Exit Wounds, Holofernes, Dark Lady and The First Mrs Wordsworth.
His volumes of autobiography include Grandad with Snails and In Step with a Goat.
Michael Baldwin is also the author of several short story collections, a number of non-fiction works, and several volumes of prize-winning poetry, including Buried God, Hob and Other Poems, King Horn and Death on a Live Wire.
In order to give an indication of the power of Michael Baldwin’s poetry, here is Death on a Live Wire:
Note from R J Dent: ‘Here’s the complete poem Social Study copied from Here Today, the anthology edited by Ted Hughes. It is in two collections by Michael Baldwin: How Chas. Egget Lost His way in a Creation Myth and Buried God. I’ve transcribed it exactly, taking care over every detail, including the punctuation. The above is exactly as MB wrote it. I’ve included it here as many people have searched for Social Study and have been unable to find it. Along with Death on a Live Wire, Social Study is regarded by many as one of Michael Baldwin’s finest poems.’
The final words are from Michael Baldwin:
‘In the past reviewers have found my work violent. All I can say is that it must be. The world is.’
R J Dent 
