Creative Differences and Other Stories by Graeme Simsion

Author:Graeme Simsion
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2022-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

8

Emily

For a moment, I’m disoriented. I’m setting up for my afternoon class at the old convent, and Piper walks in. Piper belongs to my college class, not this community program.

‘Can’t get enough of you,’ she says. The line sounds prepared. But if she’s enrolled, there’s nothing I can do. People can sign up at any time. I have a dozen regulars, including two men, one of whom joins us on video from the forensic psychiatric hospital. Even he isn’t writing a crime novel.

I introduce the newbie, and she mentions the essay prize. As far as I know, no one else in this group has even been published. Their welcome is effusive.

We only have two pieces to workshop, and I’m stretching the discussion to fill time when Piper offers to read a piece.

‘Same rule as my other class,’ I say. ‘Submit a week in advance so I can give it the time it deserves.’

‘Oh, this is just a little exercise my mentor gave me,’ she says. ‘It’s popular fiction. But I’d love to hear what the class thinks.’

Everyone wants me to make an exception for their new classmate.

She hands out copies—three pages, single-spaced—and reads aloud. I blank out her voice and read at my own pace. The subject matter is a million miles from what I’m used to from my students.

Piper has a guy with a gun, a terrorist, killing an unsuspecting citizen and going through a bit of anguish about it—the sort of anguish you might have if you broke up with your boyfriend. From high school. The class is full of praise: lively, so different, like my guilty-pleasure reading but literary. Only Greg, our ‘not guilty due to mental illness’ man has a criticism.

‘It’s very good writing. I wish I could write like that. But it doesn’t feel true to me. Killing a person is a big deal, not just legally. All the details stay with you. If you haven’t done it, it’s hard to know what it’s like. I suppose most readers won’t know either. And I guess if you do know what it’s like, you’re not going to say that on Goodreads.’

I wonder what Scott will think. I hope he hates it as much as I do.

I walk home, hoping to clear my mind, but Piper’s piece is gnawing at me. Thanks to The Girl, I know a lot about that kind of writing: in fact, it’s the only kind of writing that I can talk about with the authority that comes from success. I’m drawn to helping Piper make it better, or at least showing her how it should be done. It’d be comfort writing for me. And Scott did suggest I work on something else.

‘I want to know how to assassinate somebody.’

I’ve told Scott I’m visiting my mother, and, as I’m out east, I’ve dropped into a shooting range I found online. The deception suits my mood.

My instructor, Chris, is taken aback, but I’m ready with an explanation and evidence on my phone screen. He laughs and tells me that he thinks his wife has read my book.

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