My short story ‘The Importance of Being Polite’ was published by Fly on the Wall Press last month (July 2019). It features in the Summer Edition of their magazine, alongside other ‘weird and wonderful’ stories and poems (Weird and Wonderful being the name of the issue!).
I wrote this one back in 2016, with the simple aim of penning something fun; a Woody Allen-esque piece of short fiction. It was partly inspired by a reading of Allen’s 1977 brilliant short ‘The Kugelmass Episode’; a purely tonal inspiration, for the subject matter of both stories is quite different (in Allen’s, a dissatisfied professor is magically transported into the classic novel Madame Bovary, where he’s able to carry out an affair unbeknownst to his overbearing wife – inspiration, no doubt, for the comedy legend’s 2011 film Midnight in Paris). When it comes to dialogue, whether I’m writing a short story or a screenplay, Allen’s been a huge influence on me.
You can purchase a digital or physical copy of the issue which now houses ‘The Importance of Being Polite’ here.
