Oddly Enough, It Wasn’t About Larry Walters At All

Inspiration

Oddly Enough, It Wasn’t About Larry Walters At All was originally written for Round One of the 2010 SlingInk Scribbling Slam in response to the prompt "What if ... you arrive at the airport ten minutes too late?" I've always been fascinated with Larry Walters, the guy who strapped a load of balloons to a lawn chair and launched himself into the air, and it seemed an entertaining idea to incorporate this into a nightmare, segueing into a discussion with a psychotherapist with whom the protagonist is obsessed. It scored 85/100, and the judge, Kirsty Stanley, commented that she "loved both sections of this (especially the dream). Could have been 2 successful stories."

Publications

Well, I kept it as one story because otherwise I didn't really see how the first part would end or indeed how the second part would get going. After quite a few rejections, it eventually got published by The Ilanot Review in their Summer 2013 "Hybrid Writing" edition, entitled Sentences. Always nice to see a piece get a print publication.