Joe Bennett (writer)

Julian "Joe" Bennett (born 20 April 1957) is an English-born author, columnist and playwright living in Lyttelton, New Zealand.

"He’s the People’s Columnist, a great prose stylist, funny and original, a scholar and a humanist, firmly on the side of common sense ...

Bennett's first memoir, From There to Here (2023), is an account of his childhood and youth in England, and recounts his growing awareness that he was gay.

In the book Fun Run and Other Oxymorons (2000), his second collection of columns, Bennett writes:"If anything holds these articles together it is that I like people but not in herds.

In December 2011 he appeared in the media for refusing to evacuate his Lyttelton home as ordered by the Christchurch City Council due to fears of falling rocks if another earthquake was to occur.