Writer
Tom’s work has been published in magazines throughout the U.S. and Canada, including Grain, The Dalhousie Review and New West Review. His collection of short stories, Blind Man’s Drum, was a finalist for Saskatchewan Book Awards, and his short story, Wars and Rumours of War, was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Humour.
Tom’s new novel - The Boy Who Was Saved By Jazz is published through NeWest Press and he has toured Canada on a book tour. Listen to Tom's interview on CKUA Arts & Culture. The Boy Who Was Saved By Jazz was listed by CBC as one of the 25 curated and recommended books to read in Canada during Pride month.
A few quotes from early reviews
"It was amazing!... a unique beautifully crafted story about identity and the many forces that shape it. It is the journey of a mother and son, each moving through grief, loss and secrets, searching for a path back to one another."
-Arc Review
"A stunning piece of literary fiction with an intriguing storyline that pulled me in right away."
-Cora Y, Reviewer
"The title will be left lingering on the reader even after you finish. The characters are vastly motivated and the paternal ties are evident in every decision made. What a beautiful coming to age story, one that makes you look around at the things and people that make you belong."
-Summer H, Educator
The Boy Who Was Saved By Jazz: Book Seller
Tom has received three commissions to write for the theatre, including Friends, a play published by Red Deer Press, and an adaptation of The Iliad, which toured Spain. He has been produced by Canadian Broadcasting Company, written the foreword to sixteen publications of new plays, and penned lyrics for plays produced in Barcelona and Canada.
Tom's fiction featured in Fall 2018 issue of Grain Magazine!
Praise for 'Blind Man's Drum' (Thistledown Press, 2002)
"An absolute delight. Bentley transforms the inner monologues of family guilt and grudge and bafflement into darkly comic arias of the unspoken, punctuated with the chronic discords of what should never have been said. The best moments here are as good as writing gets."
- Toronto Globe and Mail
"The best satirical look at what Canada once was since Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Slamll Town. Blind Man's Drum warms the cockles of the reader with the assurance that there remains a place in the population of Canadian small towns for the backward and the quirky."
- The Danforth Review, Toronto
"Told with a soft, kindhearted voice, Bentley creates characters that not only leap off the page, but sit down next to you to read over your shoulder, chortling at their own exploits. Bentley presents his characters as the landscape, the readers exploring their surroundings through the senses of their narrative drives."
- The Ultimate Hallucination
"Hilarious. Irreverent. Speaks to the perversity in us all. Bentley, a man of seemingly infinite creative talents, has found his niche. A fine launch to a writing career."
- Saskatoon Star Phoenix
"These linked stories hum with a kind of raw energy. Bentley is adept at both subtle and grandly comic character sketches."
- Thomas Wharton, Saskatchewan Book Awards