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Fiction
"It’s the kind of work that makes us want to try our hand at something new, so successful with this unique format we can’t help but want to read more works like it and explore more ideas that so perfectly match this style.”
The Downtime Review
I have had short fiction published or forthcoming in the Downtime Review, Left Brain Media, MiniMag, Unlikely Stories, Firework Stories & Short Story. I am also currently finishing a short story collection, And So I Took Their Eye and debut novel, A Question of England. Find out more below.
Also have articles published in magazines including Huck, Lost and The International Times.
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And So I Took Their Eye
Short Story Collection
In Mayan culture they believe in the ancient saying “an eye for eye” and after a young girl was raped in a country called Guatemala, they hung the guy who did it in the street for all to see. I’d never heard of Mayan’s or Guatemala even but that’s what Yorkie told me as we stacked shelves at the Co-op one Saturday morning for £6.26 an hour.
When a man is murdered on the black-sand beaches of Guatemala it sparks a sequence of life-changing events across the globe. Involving an interlinked group of people, from an egotistical yoga instructor down in the deserts of Mexico to a Syrian refugee landing on the beaches of Greece, a murderous pastor in the jungles of Bolivia to an Italian suit maker living under the shadow of his illustrious father, these stories tell of arson, murder, assault and love. Each with an unreliable narrator who has a story to tell as they explore what happens when justice is taken into your own hands, and ultimately, what it means to be human.
And So I Took Their Eye is a novel that explores social power – looking at those who challenge it and those who abuse it due to sex, race, class or wealth. With a focus on immigration and the refugee experience it discovers the lengths people must go to to be accepted into a place. Though a novel in its entirety, each chapter has been individually published as a story in a variety of international publications including the Fiery Scribe Review, Left Brain Media, The Downtime Review, Firework Stories, Malu Zine, MiniMag & Unlikely Stories, with one shortlisted for the 'State of It' political culture writing competition. It is influenced by Jennifer Egan’s Visit From the Goon Squad, Rodrigo Fuentes’s Trout Belly Up and the writing of Fernanda Melchor.
Currently looking for a publisher.
A Heroes End
Fiery Scribe Review
One of my favourite stories has just been published in Issue Six of the literary journal Fiery Scribe Review (less than 5% accepted).
It’s set in Guatemala and the closing story of the interlinked wider collection.
Dear Babbo
Downtime Review
"We were enamored with his deft handle on voice that was allowed to shine so particularly well because of the epistolary style employed here. The narrator’s slow descent into despair was realistically gradual while maintaining that unavoidable sense of momentum between letters. The larger world is implied artfully, without an over-reliance on expository interjections, injecting the story’s world with a real lived-in feeling. It’s the kind of work that makes us want to try our hand at something new, so successful with this unique format we can’t help but want to read more works like it and explore more ideas that so perfectly match this style.”
The Downtime Review have published another of my stories, Dear Babbo in their new Spring Issue.
Dear Babbo comes in the form of a series of letters, sent from a son to their father (babbo). It is one of the bleaker stories, with an exploration of parenting and the impact of capitalism on society.
Therapy for Therapists /
Cleaning Teslas
Malu Zine
Delighted to be published in Issue 8 of the beautiful Malu Zinewith two stories set in the Bay Area. One through the eyes of an insecure therapist and another through a Guatemalan nanny, they explore toxic masculinity and racism in the Bay.
Eagle of the Desert
MiniMag
Eagle of the Desert was posted in the "wither" Issue of MiniMag. It’s about an egotistical yogi and an exploration of western arrogance.
True Colours
Left Brain Media
True Colours is a short story exploring faux-liberalism in modern politics and society. It is on the shortlist for Left Brain Media's “State of It” writing competition,
Though directly telling a story of NIMBYism in the Bay Area and the treatment of unhoused people, True Colours was written more generally in response to recent events across the globe. It - in a very on the nose way - explores the ways many liberals like to present themselves in comparison to the reality of their politics.
True Colours is part is one of an interlinked set of 10 stories with more coming in different publications very soon.
A Question
of England
Made long-list of LWB Books 100 competition
Guided by week-long Arvon Editing Fiction course and Editorial Review with The Literary Consultancy
It was a horrible feeling, one that only appeared in step with some of the very worst moments of her life. She had predicted it would come, of course. Had predicted it from the very second Alex had explained his “revolutionary” new idea for the quiz. He hadn’t listened though. Of course he hadn’t. And now here they were. Sat in the darkness whilst a cauldron of violence swirled around them all.
What happens if the questions at your local pub quiz forced you to question your own identity, your culture, your country? That is what faces the attendees of the Nicholas Nickleby pub quiz as they sit down for their normal night of trivia to find everything has changed. The host is different, the crowd is different, and the questions are different in a way that will rattle each and every one of the attendees to their core.
For every team taking part – from Charlie, the quiz obsessive attending with his squabbling childhood friends to Francis, the gentry stud owner from Canvey Island on a work Christmas party, to academic Julia and the group of women supposedly on a hen-do to Sue, the second generation Chagossian facing up to her past – they find themselves in a pub quiz unlike any they’ve ever experienced; one with an unexpected motive at its heart.
And as the evening draws on and more questions are read, events spiral out of control. Soon the various teams are locking horns with the new host, with their teammates and with each other. All the while this mysterious quiz hangs over them, a social experiment stretching them to their limits, as they battle with the one question being asked of all of them: what does it mean to English?
Only when the attendees start to answer that does a painful truth reveal itself, one that forces all who finish the night to leave a very different person from the one that walked in.
Premise:
A Question of England is a contemporary literary fiction, unique in the way that all events unfold over the course of just one evening at an English pub quiz, with the chapters structured by the quiz questions of the night. It is told through eight unreliable narrators involved in the quiz, slowly oscillating between their perspectives before growing in speed alongside the tension and rhythm of the night. The book is an exploration of English culture with a particular focus on identity politics, nationalism and toxic masculinity.
To find out more, please contact me at: benjamindavidcrisp@gmail.com
An Eye for an Eye
Firework Stories
An Eye for an Eye is a short story that explores classism and snobbery in England, set during a game of cricket. It is inspired by the work of Fernanda Melchor and is part of an interlinked set of stories in the style of Jennifer Egan, each with an unreliable narrator who has a story to tell, exploring what happens when justice is taken into your own hands, and ultimately, what it means to be human.
Whose Story
Unlikely Stories
Whose Story is a short story exploring toxic masculinity, narcissism and the mistreatment of refugees. It’s also a bit of a look at the nature of the story itself and who has the right to tell them.
A Different Time
Short Story Me
A Different Time is a piece of flash fiction, looking back at the strange, confusing world of adolescence and how it shapes who we are today.