Eric (2010) is a separate edition of the story that originally appeared in Tales from Outer Suburbia (2008), about a foreign exchange student who comes to live with a typical suburban family. Although everyone is delighted with the arrangement, cultural misunderstandings ensure, beginning with Eric's insistence on sleeping in a pantry cupboard rather than a specially prepared guest room. For more about 'Eric', visit his corner at Allen & Unwin. You can also read this conversation with author Neil Gaiman about the ideas behind Eric and general creative writing practice.

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‘Eric’ was originally a name written underneath a pointy-headed character carrying a tiny suitcase, drawn in a sketchbook while on holiday. I often draw characters and give them ordinary names like ‘Bob’, ‘Dave’ or ‘Alan’ (which I find very entertaining for some reason), but this ‘Eric’ seemed especially amusing and believable. I wondered what his story might be.

Much later, my partner and I had a Finnish friend come to stay with us in Perth. He was a great guy, but very reticent (not uncommon for Finnish men) and often it was unclear as to whether he was happy or not about our planned outings. He was very polite and agreeable, but seldom expressed opinions. So the story is largely about the kind of anxiety that can arise when hosting a guest, as well as more general issues of cultural miscommunication.

A second source of inspiration was our budgerigar (a native Australian parakeet) named Eddie: a small chattering person in a periwinkle-blue vest who roamed throughout the house finding tiny objects to play with, and constantly announcing his presence with bright chirps, squeaks and chatter. Once I combined these two experiences, our Finnish house-guest and Eddie the budgie, the basic idea for a story emerged. The ‘pantry garden’ may have been inspired by my brother’s childhood hobby at one time of growing ‘crystal gardens’ in tiny aquariums – gardens that grew in the darkness of a cupboard.