Phillip Slaney

My name is Phillip Slaney. I’m the author of A Waste of Infinite Space — a novel about a disaffected young man who fails at every path society promises will lead to happiness, until a ruthless clown school shows him that failure itself may actually be the way.

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I’ve struggled for a long time with questions of meaning, especially in modern life, often felt frustrated by the way they’re handled in contemporary writing. Work that takes itself very seriously can become heavy and lifeless, while writing that leans too hard on humour can feel nihilistic. My own writing is an attempt to combine meaning and humour and explore difficult questions without turning them into lectures.

 

I’ve been writing and performing for the last five years and have a background in filmmaking, acting and theatre. I trained for two years with the clown teacher, Philippe Gaulier, who encouraged me to pursue writing. He left me with a lasting respect for professionalism, simplicity and the value of sharing joy. It continues to shape how I write, particularly in my use of vulnerability, honesty and the willingness to let mistakes reveal character and emotion. Alongside my writing, I currently perform a live comedy act under the persona of an incompetent spiritual teacher. This work allows me to explore spiritual seeking, authority and self-delusion through satire, and forms part of a wider creative method of deliberately placing myself in real experiences and later reshaping those experiences into fiction, reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson.

 

I have a long-term meditation practice and a close relationship with the Thai forest Buddhist monasteries in the UK. My philosophy and spiritual undercurrent is filtered through experience rather than doctrine, drawing loosely on Buddhism, Christian mysticism and Eastern philosophy, as well as the work of modern spiritual writers such as Eckhart Tolle.

 

My reading tastes are eclectic but tend toward work that blends humour, existential inquiry and narrative drive. In fiction, early influences include The Hobbit and Harry Potter, while later my tastes evolved to range from John Steinbeck and A Confederacy of Dunces to Madame Bovary, A Game of Thrones and Maurice Druon’s historical novels. I’m particularly drawn to science fiction that engages with consciousness and philosophy, such as the work of Greg Egan and Ted Chiang.

 

In non-fiction, I’m drawn to narrative-led writing and psychological or comedic memoir, including biographies of Andy Kaufman and Jack Dee, as well as writers like David Grann and Jon Ronson. I also admire screenwriters such as Charlie Kaufman and Richard Linklater for their ability to balance interiority, humour and narrative momentum.