Q&A with Alex Philp

Alex Philp writes short fiction and screenplays. Her short fiction has been published in Griffith Review, Overland, Westerly, and elsewhere. She was one of the winners of the 2022 Griffith Review Emerging Voices competition and in 2023 was awarded a fellowship by Screen Queensland to attend the Sidewalk Narrative Lab in Birmingham, Alabama.

TSR is thrilled to have published your piece ‘Market Price’. The story’s inciting incident—and the bizarre transformation it provokes in your protagonist—is cringe-inducingly visceral, like an X-Files storyline by way of Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I can already envision an adaptation of this story, so I wasn’t surprised to learn you’ve previously written short films. Can you tell me more about the origin of ‘Market Price’, and how your approach to short fiction differs from your approach to screenwriting?

I’m thrilled to publish the piece in TSR! The idea was a combination of an old character with the new inciting incident thrown in. I first wrote the protagonist as the protagonist in a novel that I was working on for a while, but her character didn’t quite feel right for a novel. It felt like she really belonged in a tighter, more focussed narrative. Then, a few years later, I had lunch with some excellent friends at a restaurant that specialised in oysters. There were these little white ovals on the table that we thought were mints…(ha). Maybe echoing Sizzler days where you got those great mints at the end of the salad bar? So, the story sparked from there.

My approach to short fiction is a bit looser than my approach to screenwriting. A screenplay is visual storytelling and a document that you’re giving to a team as a blueprint—so you need to get characterisation across with clarity and economy. With short fiction, I think that why a character is doing something can be a little more ambiguous, at least for me when I’m writing.  

I’m struck by the way ‘Market Price’ articulates its protagonist’s ambition and alienation. As the story progresses, she grapples with brusque housemates, a domineering boss, mysterious ailments, and a (literally) toxic work environment—there’s little room for connection or self-expression. Have you always been interested in these themes, and do they manifest elsewhere in your work?

These themes have always interested me for sure. I often write about characters either in their work environments or on holiday/travelling—there’s something about these two zones/states that make the tussle between connection and alienation really stark to me. Maybe because often you feel like you’ve just got to keep it together while at work and while travelling, no matter what you’re going through, and this creates good tension. Also, I love a liminal or heterotopic space, which restaurants, planes, hotel rooms (nearly all places of work and travel, really) are for me.

Speaking of which, how do you maintain a sense of joy in your creative practice? And where can we follow you to catch more of your writing?

Reading a great piece by someone else always creates joy, and makes me want to write well myself. I’m always happiest in those seconds between reading a really bloody brilliant final paragraph from another writer and then feeling the urge to reach for my own laptop. You can catch me at alexphilp.com!

Ruby Hillsmith

Ruby Hillsmith is a writer, editor and poet living on Wurundjeri land. She was a Writers Victoria Writeability Poetry Fellow, a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow, and co-editor-in-chief of the 31st edition of RMIT’s Visible Ink. She has mentored local and national Writeability groups on behalf of Writers Victoria.