Tom Benn

I am an award-winning author, screenwriter, and Associate Professor in Crime Writing at the University of East Anglia. I teach creative writing at all levels (undergrad, MA and PhD), and also beyond the academy. My research interests include the politics and poetics of genre fiction; crime writing, especially classic and revisionist noir, hardboiled and pulp fiction; working-class writing and subcultures; and regional vernacular fiction.

My first novel, The Doll Princess (Cape), was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Portico Prize, and longlisted for the CWA’s John Creasey Dagger. My other novels include Chamber Music (Cape) and Trouble Man (Cape). I won runner-up prize in the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, and my essays and fiction have appeared in Granta and the Paris Review.

I won the BFI’s iWrite scheme for emerging screenwriters. My first film, 'Real Gods Require Blood', premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Short Film at the BFI London Film Festival. My fourth novel, Oxblood (Bloomsbury), was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, the CWA's Gold Dagger, and in 2023 won the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. I have fiction in The Book of Manchester (Comma Press, 2024) and Bog People: A Working-Class Anthology of Folk Horror (Chatto, 2025). I'm also co-Director of UEA's Creative Writing MA Crime Fiction and I programme for Noirwich Crime Writing Festival.