Thanks to my inclusion in the BSFA Longlist for the short fiction award, I’m experiencing a sudden surge in popularity – a friend interviewed me for his YouTube channel, and now the local news “is available for an interview”. And I am really eager to see what will happen, considering the last two times they wrote about me, they got my name wrong, once calling me “Daniele Menna” – because “Davide Mana” is such a complicated name to get right.

This is very strange.
I wonder what might happen should I win… women tossing their bras and their hotel room keys to me, like they did with Tom Jones?
And also, what would happen, should I not get an award – which, let’s be realistic, is the likeliest eventuality – … what then? Oblivion, hostility… what?

All of this is a sharp reminder of the fact that such things can be gratifying, and of course I’m excited about being longlisted and all that, and it’s an important sign that I am doing at least something right, and an award would be crazy good, but one would be wrong putting too much stock in all of this. In the end, the stories are all that remains, and what people felt reading them.

Which is the reason why I am happy to have sent away two pitches today, and I am currently working on a third.
Daniele Menna can probably rest on his laurels. I can’t.