Good writing—good stories—are the imagination’s firing pin, and the purpose of the imagination, I believe, is to offer us solace and shelter from situations and life-passages which would otherwise prove unendurable.

A pair of metal teeth in a convenience store may prove to be more than a novelty in Chattery Teeth. In My Pretty Pony, an elderly man on his deathbed warns his young grandson against the dangers of letting time slip away. A music exec learns that his dream job may lead him to a dark and murderous past in Sneakers. And in Dedication, a maid working in a hotel uses black magic in the hopes of benefiting her unborn son.

Stories

1 “Dolan’s Cadillac” Castle Rock, February—June 1985
2 “The End of the Whole Mess” October 1986 issue of Omni
3 “Suffer the Little Children” February 1972 issue of Cavalier
4 “The Night Flier” Prime Evil (1988)
5 “Popsy” Masques II (1987)
6 “It Grows on You” Fall 1973 issue of Marshroots
7 “Chattery Teeth” Fall 1992 issue of Cemetery Dance
8 “Dedication” Night Visions 5 (1988)
9 “The Moving Finger” December 1990 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
10 “Sneakers” Night Visions 5 (1988)
11 “You Know They Got a Hell of a Band” Shock Rock (1992)
12 “Home Delivery” Book of the Dead (1989)
13 “Rainy Season” Spring 1989 issue of Midnight Graffiti
14 “My Pretty Pony” My Pretty Pony limited edition coffee table book (1989)
15 “Sorry, Right Number” Previously unpublished
16 “The Ten O’Clock People” Previously unpublished
17 “Crouch End” New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1980)
18 “The House on Maple Street” Previously unpublished
19 “The Fifth Quarter” April 1972 issue of Cavalier
20 “The Doctor’s Case” The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1987)
21 “Umney’s Last Case” Previously unpublished
22 “Head Down” April 16, 1990 issue of The New Yorker
23 “Brooklyn August” Io #10, 1971
24 “The Beggar and the Diamond” Previously unpublished

Ever read a story out loud to a friend — knowing it’s not the kind of story they’d read on their own?

I do that all the time (even snippets of novels to give them a taste). I read “Crouch End” out loud to one of my sisters, in a weird Scotts/English accent that I tend to use when reading Lovecraftian horror. She accused me of robbing her of sleep for a week. That’s the sign of a good story.

I’ve read several of these out loud to friends and family and I love the way they react to the tone of the story — whether it’s “Dolan’s Cadillac” and my brother-in-law’s attitude goes from ‘why bury a perfectly good car’ to something more appropriate – to “The Moving Finger” and my cousin’s refusal to use the bathroom unsupervised while visiting me — I like to share these “little” gems with naysayers.

I’ve even been known NOT to let them know the name of the story or author because of their preconceptions.

Heck, ask me about reading Canturbury Tales to my foster-mom one semester in college 🙂

re-read “Home Delivery” from Book of the Dead 1/20/2005 — story was adapted into graphic-novel format with Glenn Chadbourne in Secretary of Dreams vol 1