Do Not Give Up Kid

By Britt Kemp

"Do Not Give Up Kid" is a collection of short stories + reflective essays by Britt Kemp spanning from 2011 to 2017. Together, these seven stories encompass a prolonged coming of age that is distinctive to the author but also, in a sense, universal. There's a bit of everyone to be found in these (digital) pages. As Sarah Maria Rainer states in the foreword, "She writes in a self-deprecating tone that is wholly relatable to anyone who has ever thought maybe they aren’t “the shit.” The stories shift from first-person memories to third-person forays into fiction; it's best to view the pieces as footnotes of a greater work than a cohesive, themed collection. In the end, narrator and the writer emerge as their own heroes, ready to bear yet another day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Britt Kemp
• Release date: Jul 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463215210

Britt Kemp

Britt Kemp is a writer and storyteller from Erie, Pennsylvania who has resided in Brooklyn, New York and now calls Tempe, Arizona her home. She has tried her hand at several creative endeavors, including stand-up comedy and podcasting. In 2016, she was a part of the Yoko Ono “Arising” art project at the Reykjavik Art Museum. Miscellaneous other projects include the website The Useless Critic and the podcast People Getting Through Shit. Britt works in marketing and lives in the Valley of the Sun with her herd of guinea pigs. (@brittnik on Twitter)

Book preview

Do

Not

Give Up

Kid.

A fiction + essay collection by Britt Kemp

2018

Copyright ©2018 by Britt Kemp

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Contents

The End of the World

Quiet Girl Confessions

The Duchess’s Tears

Last Day of Magic

The Patron Saint of Phoenix

The Robin

Everybody Here Secretly Hates You

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Foreword

Britt Kemp often writes stories about the missteps of being human. She writes in a self-deprecating tone that is wholly relatable to anyone who has ever thought maybe they aren’t the shit. The stories in this book are a fantastic bouquet of Britt Kemp’s storytelling dossier. This book reads like a collection of coming of age stories where the narrator often begins as her own enemy and ends as her own hero.

I first met Britt Kemp when she volunteered to do a monthly storytelling event that I host. At the time, it seemed like she didn’t know anyone in the room. She introduced herself to me and quietly sunk away into the crowd. When it was her turn to tell her story, she came up to the front, sat on the stool and slunk into her sweatshirt. She read from her phone that night, and the story she told was both emotional and funny. Self-deprecating but always her own hero in the end.

I’ve had the pleasure since then, to see Britt Kemp become a very confident and competent storyteller. Her stories point out social flubs and relatable mistakes that bring audiences to laughter. It has been inspiring to watch so many memorable storytellers in the Phoenix and Tempe area find their voice, and Britt Kemp has been one of my favorites.

- Sarah Maria Rainer

- July 2018

The End of the World

Originally presented at Untidy Secrets Storytelling in Tempe, AZ - February 2016

Growing up fervently religious in blue-collar, Rust Belt Pennsylvania, there were a few truths to my prepubescent life I held to be certain:

1.) We were all bad people from the day we emerged from the womb.

2.) Jesus would return at any moment, you just didn’t know when nor did you know how and the Bible or the priests that recited the Bible to me during endless afternoon masses assured me of this – nor did you have the ability to even guess that time.

3.) People who called pop soda were outsiders and should be treated as such.

I believed the world would end at any moment, although I knew CAVEAT EMPTOR on trying to Miss Cleo that shit. I regularly would wake up in the middle of the night to some indescribable noise, arguably animals or car collisions or drunk people.

Must be the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I would lazily think before rolling back on my other side, and thus, to sleep.

The end of the world was a very real concept I wrestled with as a child. To me, it was a never a matter of if. It was always a matter of when. I sometimes would look upon Middle Ages-era artwork in school. You know, with the cherubs and the demons and the naked people scattered about, looks of terror tightening their fruit-like faces. Everyone in these paintings is almost always white and basically naked. Apparently everybody else remained on Earth. With clothes. Probably from The Gap.

I looked upon these paintings like scenes from future crimes, predictions of a grim tomorrow that would eventually materialize.

Eventually.

The world has ended several times in my decidedly post-Catholic life, since the spiritual crises of my early youth. The first time the world came to a halt was at the turn of the last century. I believed in Y2K, and somehow convinced my mom to stock up on amenities (e.g., water, toilet paper, and People magazine).

Moooooooooom! I moaned in the nascent voice I had that hasn’t changed since puberty. It’s going to end, AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! MOM!

Y2K came and absolutely nothing fucking happened, but we had a surplus of bottled water for the next five years.

The next time I thought the world would end when I was fired from McDonald’s at the age of 17. They gave me the reason of, and I quote exactly from my somewhat fuzzy memory, stealing a bag of French fries. Even as a borderline more rational adult, that explanation seems unlikely. Perhaps I was too flustered at the cash registers to keep up with the constant pace of old people who spat at me their orders from behind plastic teeth and young people who thought I was, to borrow from Elvis Costello, less than zero.

I had written my Dear John letter