Wendy Erskine: ‘What made me want to write stories was that I didn’t see the world, as I saw it, reflected in much fiction’
Earlier this year, short story maestro Wendy Erskine released her debut novel, The Benefactors, a title which has been shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the An Post Book Awards. Here, the Belfast author discusses her process, her inspirations, and how an advert on Facebook kickstarted her career in writing.
I fell in love with Wendy Erskine’s writing when I picked up her first short story collection, Sweet Home, in 2018, and was equally enthralled by her 2022 collection, Dance Moves. Earlier this year, I gobbled up her debut novel, The Benefactors, a story that sticks in the mind like toffee in the gums.
The story introduces us to Frankie, Miriam and Bronagh, who are all very different women, but all mothers to 18-year-old boys. They do not know each other yet, but when their sons are accused of sexually assaulting Misty Johnston, whose family lacks the wealth and social standing of their own, they’ll leverage all the power of their position to protect their children.
The book is an incredible polyphonic chorus of perspectives and snapshots that colour the specific trauma at hand, while also bringing into focus the wider societal context of trauma and its aftermath. It’s brutal and it’s tender and so poignant, while still managing to make you laugh.
Did you always want to be a writer? Tell us about your journey to becoming a published author.
I suppose everyone has got a range of things that they might dream of being: a gymnast, a freedom-fighter, a master criminal, a swimwear model. Being a writer for a long time was something in that kind of realm. My journey started when I got one afternoon a week off work. (I’m a head of department in a secondary school.) I knew that I didn’t want to spend the time just mooching around the town, swatching eyeshadows and drinking coffees, so I was looking for a kind of project of one kind or another.
I’d thought maybe I should go to the gym and blast it on Monday afternoons, try to get really in shape. And I’d also thought about volunteer work. But then I saw that The Stinging Fly in Dublin was running its six-month fiction workshop, and it just so happened to be on a Monday evening. That was what got me started. I realised very quickly that I loved writing. I had a story in The Stinging Fly magazine – my first ever published work – and then Declan Meade from The Stinging Flyasked me if I would be interested in doing a collection. I couldn’t say yes quick enough.
What inspired you to start writing?
To be honest, seeing an advert on Facebook for The Stinging Fly course. Without that, it would never have happened. I owe my whole career, such as it is, to Declan. There’s a little bar in Amsterdam, the Nieuwe Lelie, and we would be there, at least once a year, and I would always end up having this conversation about how I thought I could write a book, maybe, possibly, in theory, potentially. Without The Stinging Fly, it would just have been those wistful conversations, after three or four drinks.
Tell us about your debut novel, The Benefactors. Where did the idea come from?
I could give a lot of answers to this. It’s not just one idea, or that one idea came clearly and cleanly. It’s more like a concatenation of things coalescing in sometimes surprising ways. I had the idea of a scene like something from a spaghetti western – but instead of gun-slingers, three women versus three women, slow ritualistic action under an apocalyptic sky. I’d heard the idea of a dad putting Mentos in a bottle of Coke to precipitate a geyser of foam. I’d heard someone describe someone’s outfit as pure ‘DLA.’ That stands for ‘Disability Living Allowance’. All that went into the mix, and I wrote a book about an 18-year-old young woman, Misty, who is sexually assaulted by three middle-class boys she thought were her friends. Class, mothers and sons, parenthood, money, love: it’s all there.
What do you hope this book instils in the reader?
Mainly, I hope a reader enjoys it. It’s an act of generosity, really, that a reader is prepared to give you nine, ten hours of their time when they could be doing so much else. I hate didactic writing that is trying to manoeuvre the reader into thinking a certain way. It ends up being a very two-dimensional experience, and for me as a reader, an unsatisfying one. So this is not a text that is there to instil any messages. All I can hope for is that it is an absorbing, thought-provoking, immersive and enjoyable reading experience.
What did you learn when writing this book?
That writing a novel is easier than writing a short story collection. With a short story collection, you are starting from scratch each time, getting to know the characters, getting to understand the locales. Whereas with the novel, it is such a luxury to remain with the same people for the duration.
Tell us about your writing process?
In short, I just get on with it. I don’t have time to waste. Although writing is kind of magical in the way you are creating something from nothing, it’s also graft. Plain hard work. In terms of the actual writing, I let the characters lead the whole process. As soon as you start using characters as vehicles for plot or as cyphers for something or other, things start not to work. But that’s just how I view it. I’m not one of these people with spreadsheets and walls covered in post-it notes. I hold a lot in my head.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
Supermarkets, people’s shoes, songs, instruction manuals, Chekhov, flower arranging, Belfast Live, buses, Gramsci, Canada Goose coats, Emil Cioran.
What are your top three favourite books of all time, and why?
These change all the time! If you asked me tomorrow, I would say something totally different. Today it is The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Alma Cogan by Gordon Burn and Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa. The Bluest Eye is such an angry book, I feel, and rightly so. I think its whole presentation of the family is peerless. Alma Cogan is atmospheric, tawdry and unafraid to look at people at their worst. Hunchback is a short book, uncomplicated in how it is written, but deeply, pleasingly complex.
Who are some of your favourite authors, Irish or otherwise?
I just have so many. Sean Hewitt, Oisín Fagan, Elaine Feeney, Sinéad Gleeson, Lucy Caldwell, Adrian Duncan, Eoin McNamee, Susie Dickey, Michael Magee, Patrick Holloway, Tim MacGabhann, Daragh Fleming, Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin. I could be here all day. Nicole Flattery. Rachel Connolly. Colin Barrett.
What are some upcoming book releases we should have on our radar?
The new Susannah Dickey novel. The new Louise Nealon novel. The new Lucy Caldwell collection.
What book made you want to become a writer?
No book made me want to become a writer. In fact, it is the opposite. What made me want to write stories was that I didn’t see the world as I saw it, reflected in much fiction.
What’s one book you would add to the school curriculum?
Well, I have actually been involved in the writing of the present and previous A-Level specifications, so I have, in my time, added quite a few books to the school curriculum. William Blake is nearly always a hit with kids.
What’s the best book you’ve read so far this year?
I really enjoyed For and Against a United Irelandby Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride. I loved Emma Warren’s book about youth clubs.
What’s your favourite bookshop in Ireland?
I’ve been in quite a few great bookshops this year. The people from Bridge Books, Dromore, are fantastic. I just loved The Secret Bookshelf in Carrickfergus. Books Upstairs is one of my favourite places. And I adore No Alibis in Belfast. They have done so much for me over the years in terms of support, friendship and inspiration.
What’s some advice you’ve got for other aspiring writers?
Firstly, if it is important to you, try to devote time to writing. Don’t sit down at the computer thinking about other writers and their books. Keep the focus on what it is that you want to do. Don’t be too hard on yourself because you are probably trying to write while also doing a job, or looking after kids, or being a carer, or doing other things. Just try to manage to do what you can. Forget about the muse seizing you, or writers’ retreats or being in the mood. Just get something down. You can improve it later.
Lastly, what do the acts of reading and writing mean to you?
Reading and writing are my favourite ways to spend time. I find writing exhilarating and just a pleasure to do. I’m speaking about fiction here. I sometimes write non-fiction, and I find that really hard. I always feel my non-fiction is compromised by consideration for other people or the subjectivity of memory. When I write non-fiction, I am always aware of a companion piece, a shadow piece that would be more revelatory or ‘true.’ When it comes to fiction, it’s easy because you are only beholden to people who don’t exist.
But ultimately, reading is a way of spending time. I think people can be terribly superior about it, although it is, I repeat, my own favourite way of spending time. I know people who’ve read tons of books. And I know people who have read none. The idea that people who have read loads of books have greater empathy or more of a handle on life than those who haven’t is, in my experience, total nonsense.
Wendy Erskine is shortlisted in the Novel of the Year category in this year’s An Post Irish Book Awards. You can vote for all your favourite books from 2025 at www.irishbookawards.ie/vote.
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