I ran into Alex Shvartsman at a science fiction convention in Baltimore, and he invited me to submit a story to an anthology of funny SF and fantasy that he was putting together, sixth in a series.

I thought that sounded like fun, so I started work on a story called "Double Agent," about a guy visiting a parallel universe who discovers that his alternate self is a spy.

It didn't gel. I was completely capable of writing the story, but it wasn't coming out funny, which sort of defeated the purpose. I was mulling over ways to fix it when a dinner table conversation got silly and turned into a discussion of the differences between a henchman and a minion. That seemed like far more fun than "Double Agent."

Within a couple of days that had turned into "An Evil Opportunity Employer," a superhero story about a contracts lawyer, which I sent to Alex. He bought it, and it was published in Unidentified Funny Objects 6 in October of 2017. It's been reprinted once or twice since.