Wendy Erskine

The very best fiction from Open Pen Magazine between 2016 and 2021.

AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVEL 2025 ' 'The style of Woolf but the heart of Dickens . . . impressive'Sunday Times'Erskine's great gift is for character. Not a single figure in this novel feels contrived'Guardian'A writer of an unrivalled range of imaginative empathy'Financial Times'I couldn't put this book down'Sheena Patel, author of I'm a Fan'A powerful, moving, compelling, utterly enthralling debut'Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13'Perfectly pitched, surefooted, and charged with feeling'Colin Barrett, author of Wild Houses From the prize-winning author of Dance Move and Sweet Home, this is an astounding novel about intimate histories, class and money - and what being a parent means. Meet Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh: three very different women from Belfast, but all mothers to 18-year-old boys. Gorgeous Frankie, now married to a wealthy, older man, grew up in care. Miriam has recently lost her beloved husband Kahlil in ambiguous circumstances. Bronagh, the CEO of a children's services charity, loves celebrity and prestige. When their sons are accused of sexually assaulting a friend, Misty Johnston, they'll come together to protect their children, leveraging all the powers they possess. But on her side, Misty has the formidable matriarch, Nan D, and her father, taxi-driver Boogie: an alliance not so easily dismissed. Brutal, tender and rigorously intelligent, The Benefactors is a daring, polyphonic presentation of modern-day Northern Ireland. It is also very funny.

'Daring, funny, heartbreaking' – Observer'One of the greats' - Lucy Caldwell, author of Intimacies'Comic brilliance' - Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations* As Read on BBC Radio 4 * Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize * The Irish Times Books of the Year *From the prize-winning author of The Benefactors, Wendy Erskine’s Dance Move is about the hugeness of life as seen through glimpses of the everyday. Meet Drew Lord Haig, called on to sing an obscure hit from his youth at a paramilitary event. Meet Max as he recalls an eventful journey to a Christian film festival. And Mrs Dallesandro who dreams of being a teenager again as she sits in a tanning salon on her wedding anniversary. In these stories, Erskine's characters' wishes and hopes often fall short of their grasp.'Ingenious' - The Irish TimesShortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year

'I could not put this book down and loved every page.' - Salena Godden'Humane, funny, surprising, profound.' - Chris Power'A masterpiece.' - David KeenanMeet Drew Lord Haig, called upon to sing the obscure hit from his youth at a paramilitary event. Or Max, who recalls an eventful journey to a Christian film festival. Meet Mrs Dallesandro, in the tanning salon on her wedding anniversary dreaming of a teenage sexual experience. And Sonya, who scours the streets of Belfast for the missing posters of her dead son. In Dance Move, the collection of stories from Wendy Erskine, we meet characters who are looking to wrest control of their lives, only to find themselves defined by the moment in their past that marked them. In these stories – as in real life – the funny, the tender and the devastating go hand in hand. Full of warmth, the familiar and the strange, they are about what it means to live in the world, how far you can end up from where you came from, and what it means to look back. Shortlisted for the irish Book Awards Short Story of the Year. Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize.

'A gripping, wonderfully understated book that oozes humanity, emotion and humour.' GuardianWinner of the 2020 Butler Literary Award Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize 2019Shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2019Longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award 2019‘Wendy Erskine’s first collection, Sweet Home . . . is every bit as good as her early stories in the always astute Stinging Fly magazine promised.’ Jon McGregor, New StatesmanSet in the author’s native Belfast, the ten stories in Sweet Home lay bare the heartbreak and quiet tragedies that run under the surface of everyday lives. A lonely woman is fascinated by her niqab-wearingneighbours; a middle-aged teacher becomes obsessed with a young Gaelic football player; and an employer covers for his two employees caught having sex in a public toilet. Wendy Erskine offers perfectly formed, brilliantly observed portraits of people trying to carve out a life for themselves, all the while being buffeted by the loss, grief and regret that come their way. Warm, compassionate and funny, Sweet Home captures life in contemporary East Belfast, in all of its forms. A Book of the Year in the Guardian, The White Review, Observer, New Statesman, TLS.