Shopping List

Loydell, Rupert ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2730-8489 and Lilwall, Amy (2019) Shopping List. Short Fiction in Theory & Practice, 10 (1). ISSN 2043071X (In Press)

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Abstract / Summary

Are the unnamed characters who write and respond to these post-it notes flatmates or lovers, friends or acquaintances? Is their relationship as fractious as this prose suggests, or can it be read as indicative of something deeper, a series of signs and indicators, pointing elsewhere? The medium, somewhat outdated in our digital world, suggests fleeting exchanges, ships that pass in the night, all the while signalling shared space, shared responsibilities and shared lives. The story is as complex as the reader wants to make it, as the authors themselves use this brief epistolary form to contemplate the mundanity of relationships, the emotional manoeuvring, assumed subtexts and back-stories of each and every moment or event. The authors are a novelist and a poet, writers each involved in their own relationships, colleagues interested in collaboration and new forms. Who is the third voice (or third and fourth voices) this dialogue has created? The story has led Lilwall and Loydell to writing the unexpected, responding to each other’s prose and shopping items in turn, surprising each other and themselves, before refining and editing the work together.

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