Ben Platts-Mills

Ben is a writer and artist based in Somerset. His art training started early, under the guidance of his mother, who was an illustrator and painter. He left formal art education after A-levels but continued to practice independently along-side his professional work. His first book, English Language For Beginners, a documentary comic book about linguistics, was published in 1998. He then worked for 18 years at a community project in Hackney, London, where he helped set up and run a number of projects with disabled writers and artists, including a supported visual art studio. His memoir about this work, Tell Me The Planets, was published by Penguin in 2018. In 2021 he left London and returned to his home county of Somerset in order to spend more time writing and drawing. His illustrated science history essays for the BBC have been consistently among the most well read on the site, gaining hundreds of thousands of readers. He has also written about the history of psychiatry and neuroscience for Aeon.co and Psyche.co. In 2024, his drawing of the nuclear physicist Harry Daghlian was selected for the Trinity Bouy Wharf Drawing Prize exhibition, which toured the UK during the following year. Ben's approach to drawing stems mostly from comic book and graphic design traditions, with a strong emphasis on narrative. As a teacher and mentor, he wants to show people how drawing can be a way to investigate the world and tell lesser-known stories.