"Boomchee" by Shani Naylor

A law student sets her coworker up on a date, only to find out the guy has a mail order secret.

“Short Stories For Long Discussions…”

Mission Statement: After Dinner Conversation is an independent, nonprofit literary magazine that publishes philosophical short stories to encourage discussions with friends, family, and students.

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Letter From Tina

Hello friends,

Lots of freebies coming your way.

Free Audiobook

This weekend I’ll be at the Tucson Festival of Books handing out FREE audiobooks of my debut novel, A Footnote to Plato. Not a philosophical novel, exactly, but a literary campus novel about philosophy. (Click here to see the weird things I’m handing out and the book trailer.)

And guess what? You can get a free audiobook too!

For two days, March 9th-10, I’m just giving it away, no strings attached.

Free Writing Critique Group

As someone who has been reading submissions for a while now, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought, “Oh, this story is such a good idea—too bad it’s not ready for publication.” These are things a writing group could have spotted. Every writer needs feedback because every writer has blind spots. It continues to amaze me how glaringly obvious my blind spots are to outsiders, and how much consensus there tends to be about what and where these problems are.

It’s because I consider feedback so important that I’m offering to put together a critique group for the handful of you who appear to be interested—at no cost. We’ll leave the dates and details up in the air for now and work things out depending on the response. In exchange I hope you’ll be willing to write a short testimonial after all is said and done for ADC to use in the future. What do you say?

Message me if you’re interested in participating in a writing critique group in some form or another and we’ll work things out from there:

If that button doesn’t work you can email me.

Literary Citizenship

On the ADC website there are a few easy-to-miss sentences about volunteering as a reader: “There is no better way to improve your writing than by reading other authors’ writing!”

So true. This was how I got started with ADC, even before publishing my first short story. Aside from improving my writing, it also gave me a deeper connection with others in this niche segment of the literary world. Volunteering here or elsewhere is a great way to make connections—and you never know where it will lead.

Just email us at info@afterdinnerconversation.com to learn more.

Yes, We Are In The Library!

You can check out our monthly magazine at your local library via Libby, Overdrive, or whatever digital app your library uses. Don’t worry about us, when you check our books out from the library, we still get paid.

If you are a teacher, or have a book club, there are special options for you. Feel free to email us to find out more. (editor@afterdinnerconversation.com)

You can always subscribe to our monthly magazine via our website (digital or print), or via substack.

Scroll down (past the paywall) to hear Kolby read this story.

Happy reading and/or listening!

Tina

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"Boomchee" by Shani Naylor

I saw Barry this morning in Pak’nSave. A tall, older man with thick grey hair pushing a supermarket trolley. Even though I hadn’t seen him for about 25 years, he was unmistakable. I didn’t call out or wave. He wouldn’t know me from the crowd of middle-aged women doing their weekly shop. He made me think of Susie.

            It was her bright smile that first drew my attention to Susie. I’d been working at the Glaxo factory for a week and was still trying to put names to faces. I was one of a group of six university students who had answered an ad for a summer job, back in the day when Glaxo had its big pharmaceutical factory in Palmerston North.

            The students were given a range of jobs in the factory. Some were fun, like working the huge guillotine that cut through heavy stacks of cardboard, or the machine that wrapped boxes in sheets of plastic and sealed the edges with heat. But some jobs were straight out boring, like working on the conveyor belt. This involved taking things off the conveyor belt and putting them into boxes. I can’t even remember what we took off the conveyor belt. Little tubes of… something? When the students worked on the conveyor belt, we used to chat and laugh and tell jokes to pass the time of day. But I noticed that some of the permanent staff really had to focus to do the job. They found our chit chat and laughter distracting. I wondered what they really thought of us, this group of smart people who came in and picked up their jobs for a couple of months to make a few bucks, and then took off back to university. Maybe they resented us.

            But Susie wasn’t like that. She was the sweetest thing. And really quite pretty. She had curly blonde hair and was rather curvaceous (although a nasty person might call her plump). She had such a sunny nature, always saying hello and laughing at our jokes (even when I suspected she didn’t really understand them), with a big smile on her face. I knew my boyfriend Martin would say Susie wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but that didn’t matter. She was like the kid in your class at school who always got the lowest score, but was happy anyway. I felt a bit sorry for her. This was probably the best job she could hope to get. When I qualified as a lawyer and was doing amazing things in court, she’d still be here, sitting by the conveyor belt, picking things up and putting them into boxes. I don’t think she could even work the guillotine or the plastic wrapping machine. I chatted to her one day when we were sitting next to each other. I found out she was 26, lived at home with her parents, had a cat called Wendy, and had never had a boyfriend (she got a bit shy when I asked her about that). She was a lovely girl.

            That summer was the longest holiday Martin and I spent together. We’d hooked up near the end of the previous summer, when we’d met at a music festival. We sort of knew each other from school anyway. Then he went to Otago to do pre-med and I went to Vic to do law. We kept in touch during term time and spent our holidays back home in Palmy.

            That was where I met Martin’s older brother Barry, who still lived at home with their mother, even though he was in his mid-thirties. Martin also had two older sisters, but they had moved away, married, and had families. Martin was the baby, born when his mother was 45.

            Martin’s mum fussed over Barry. She did all the housework and got up early every morning to cook him breakfast, even though she had quite bad arthritis. Barry helped around the garden, mowed the lawn and drove his mother if she needed to go anywhere.

            Martin complained constantly about his brother. “Bloody Barry, he’s got Mum twisted around his little finger. He should make his own frickin’ breakfast.”

            I would say: “Well, at least she’s got someone at home to keep an eye on her.” I didn’t say: “She makes your breakfast too, Martin, when you’re home.”

            Barry was a bit odd. It was difficult to put your finger on exactly why. He was always very formal, even with Martin. He worked in the kind of old-fashioned men’s clothing shop that sold cardigans and slacks. Apart from work, he stayed home, watched television, did stuff around the house and that was about it. He wasn’t unpleasant or anything. He was always polite and said hello, but apart from that never took any interest in me. I thought maybe that was because I was at university and he felt intimidated. In hindsight, I think it was probably because I just didn’t matter to him. These days people would say he was on the spectrum. I thought he was just a bit different. He wasn’t bad looking though – being tall with nice thick brown hair.

            One day when I’d been working at the Glaxo factory for a couple of weeks, I had a brilliant idea. How about setting up Barry and Susie on a blind date? They were both single, both nice people, and both unlikely to meet someone without a helping hand. I told Martin my idea, and he was horrified.

            “No bloody way! It’s a terrible idea.”

            “But why not?”

            “We can’t just interfere in their lives.”