David B. Silva

Cemetery Dance Publications has announced the upcoming publication of Shivers VI, with stories by Stephen King and Peter Straub and a whole slew of others.

I was fortunate to get a story into the anthology as well. It’s called “Trouble Follows.” It’s one of those stories that took years to come together. I first started it in 2007. I liked the basic premise, which I’ll leave for another time, but it depended on the voice of the narrator to really make the story work. And I couldn’t find that voice. I remember, after weeks of work, bouncing the unfinished story off a friend. She was less than enthusiastic in her reaction, and that cool response took all the air out of my enthusiasm.

So I put the story aside, and basically forgot about it.

Until I had a chance to submit something to Shivers VI. “Trouble Follows” was the first story that came to mind.

I pulled it out and read the fifteen or so pages I had previously written and I could see right off the bat that I’d been trying too hard to capture that voice. You really can’t force a voice on a character. You have to let it come out. With that in mind, I went back through the story, deleted everything that struck me as a little over the top, and took a look at what I had left.

Surprisingly, the voice was there. It had been hiding under the weight of my forced intentions all along. I just hadn’t recognized it.

It’s always nice to be able to go back to an abandoned story and save it. And believe it or not, it happens more often than not. There’s something to be said for putting a little distance between you and your work in order to gain a proper perspective.

And now I’m very pleased to have “Trouble Follows” appearing in Shivers VI.

I hope readers will be pleased, too.

I thought I’d package up a couple of items for those who might be interested. These are rather rare. The first is a two cassette audio book of four of my short stories called These Dreams That Sleep Disturbs. The stories are: “Placenta In Black,” “Alone of His Kind,” “Slipping,” and “Brothers.” I’m really proud of this audio book. The readers are Reg Green and Jean Roylance, and they bring incredible life to the stories. The audio book runs 3 hours and comes with 3-D sound effects.

The second item in the package is a signed and numbered copy of A Little White Book of Lies. This was part of a series published by Borderlands Press. It carries an introduction by me, plus five short stories” “Fade In/Fade Out,” “Brothers,” “Never Far From Mind” (in its only appearance in print), “The Hollow,” and “Where The Past Lay Buried.” The common theme running through all the stories is about the trouble always waiting at the end of a lie.

The Little White Book of Lies was originally priced at $20, and These Dreams at $15.95. But $17 will get you both items. No postage. I’ve got around 15 copies of this package, so once they’re sold out, they’re sold out.

You can purchase through PayPal here:

Once payment is received, I’ll drop you a note to get your mailing address and answer any questions you may have.