On a months-long overseas trip, Melanie Kinsman craved someone to talk to other than Sam, her partner. He stepped up to the challenge with a comical impersonation

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In 2004 I was a young writer at the University of Adelaide. I was working as an editor on an anthology of short stories when a piece by Sam came across my desk. We emailed back and forth for a while, working on the story, but I never met him in person.

A few months later, I was out in town with some friends and noticed he was there. While we’d never crossed paths in real life, I knew what he looked like. In my fairly inebriated state I decided a great way to introduce myself would be to walk up to him and start reciting excerpts of his story. I don’t know what I was trying to achieve, but I made an impression and he was obviously flattered.