Mid-Week Check-In

The Final Roster for 'Silent Nightmares'

Me & Amanda Knox

Behind the Magic

Here’s the politicking that goes into every publication. With a story anthology the organizers court the “name” writers who can deliver a readership and sales. They include So-and-so who will ensure sales of so many copies. Likewise, So-and-so has a massive social media machine that can generate buzz. Because you want the book to get ink, to perform. To move the needle. The lovely writers-in-garrets fantasy aside, the success of a story collection depends on balancing art and commerce. New voices and old.

A good editor brackets new voices between the established ones. In the days of radio and MTV, new artists succeeded when they were sandwiched between, say, Michael Jackson and Madonna. A trick similar to being the obscure opening act for Prince or NIN.

That said, I’m enormously proud that Michael Bailey and I could get so many new voices into the Silent Nightmares collection. In 1994 I was writing short stories and making submissions, and every day I’d come home from work and find a few rejection letters in the daily mail. My expectations had sunk so low that I always took the mail straight to the bathroom and opened it while seated on the toilet. One day, one letter was from Linny Stovall, the editor of the Left Bank anthology series. I’ll let BooksRun describe Linny’s selection process:

… we often recognized the distinctive voices of some writers, even without names attached, and we got good at grouping submissions by those writers who studied with certain masters or in certain writing programs. Such was the case with aspiring writers who participated in the Dangerous Writing groups led by wonderful author Tom Spanbauer (Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon). It helped, of course, that Tom's students were always hitting us hard with submissions. One of Spanbauer's students worked for Blue Heron. As noted in an earlier review/publisher's note, this person introduced us to another Spanbauer acolyte, Chuck Palahniuk, who she invited to dinner at our house. Later, reading it without his name on it, we acquired his story “Fight Club” and gave him his first publication.

In short, I opened the day’s mail and found a $50 check for the short story “Fight Club.” Everything in my life turned around from that moment on the toilet. You have to love that fact that I was paid $50 for a story in a collection that now sells for $300 — if you can find a copy.

With no further ado, the titles for Silent Nightmares are:

• “Father Christmas” – Brian Evenson

• “Cause and Effect” – Alma Katsu

• “Always Winter” – Mari Ness

• “Tidings” – Ramsey Campbell

• “Shine a Light” – Zoje Stage

• “A Season of Reflection” – Wil Dalton

• “Kingston” – Chuck Palahniuk

• “We Have Always Been Red” – Annie Neugebauer

• “A Life Not Lived” – Joe R. Lansdale

• “Circle Back” – Neil Krolicki

• “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” – Joe Hart

• “God’s Wife” – Lisa Morton

• “Loki’s Story” – Eugen Bacon

• “The Cheapest State of Perfect Grace” – Gary A. Braunbeck

• “Rapture” – Michael Bailey

• “Christmas in Goblin” – Josh Malerman

• “Steam” – Krissy Eliot

• “Lost Hearts” – Cynthia Pelayo

• “The Singing Children” – Gabino Iglesias

• “Yuletide Games with the Suicide Kings” – Jonathan Maberry

With a line-up like that and backing from Simon and Schuster, chances are marvelous that we’ll get to assemble a Silent Nightmares II next year.

When I got my first acceptance, I’d been making submissions since 1989. Licking envelopes. Schmoozing editors. You can’t imagine my happiness when I got Linny’s comic letter: she wrote it in the persona of a cut-rate dentist who was offering bargain dentures to kids left toothless from fights. All writers should get such a happy moment on the toilet.

That said, it was no small joy last Friday to meet Amanda Knox and find out that she’d enjoyed reading my books while trapped in an Italian prison. May you all do your writing and make your submissions and persevere. Simply not quit. In all future anthologies I’ll ask my editors to consider work from new writers. May you all find yourselves sandwiched between Michael Jackson and Madonna.

For now, I invite you to meet and read your work at Slush Pile. The social interaction is just as important as testing your effect on an audience. Slush Pile meets at Salon Rouge from 6:30 until 9:30 in the evening, 7804 SE Salmon, Portland, OR. Usually we meet every second Wednesday, but I’ll keep you posted.

P.S. Have you watched Animal House yet? Between all the douchy slap-stick, look for the emotional authority, okay? That’s the only part that counts.