The Picture of Mrs Tandoğan

Inspiration

The Picture of Mrs Tandoğan was originally written in 2012 with no particular market in mind. I think the opening line ("Jessica was working at home the day the house next door vanished") presented itself to me and I had to write a story from there on. As I wrote it, it turned into a meditation on the power of memory and I was quite pleased with the end result.

Placings

The eight prestige competitions that I submitted it to over the next three years clearly had other ideas, as it ailed to achieve even the slightest mention.

Publications

Fortunately, the excellent print magazine Structo were more enlightened and they published it in issue 14 (Autumn and Winter 2015). Maybe it's more of a literary magazine story than a competition one.

Notes

In the introduction to the 2016 edition of Best British Sort Stories, Nicholas Royle remarked that Structo, in edition 14, "published an entertaining story by Jonathan Pinnock". This is the closest I've ever got to BBSS.