campfire

What it's about
The sun sets, the campfire is lit, the dark night presses in--suddenly, the wilderness seems very big and very scary. THE CAMPFIRE COLLECTION offers spine-tingling tales about the wilderness experience gone awry. From beastly attacks to near-death experiences to supernatural encounters, this anthology captures the cruel, freakish nature of the outdoors with terrible true stories and riveting fiction. Durable and designed to be flung in a backpack, this rugged companion is perfect for any overnight excursion. Whether you're in a tent in the backyard or at the top of Everest, THE CAMPFIRE COLLECTION is a chilling read from writers who have lived to tell their tales.

How it happened
Sarah Malarkey is my good friend, a San Francisco girl born to surf, swear, climb and publish books. She was at Chronicle (still is) and we'd go camping and she thought this would make a great idea for a book. I came up with the themes for what scared us silly out there (the Elements-Beasts-the Unknown-Oursleves), tracked down the pieces, wrote one myself and an introduction, and voila. Here's the intro...

I get scared.

I don't get scared at movies or on city streets or in a dark house, alone. I get scared outdoors. I used to seek fear out, when I was a kid growing up in Maine. My best friend and I would go on walks through the woods at night. This was in the summer, on an island where his family rented a home. There were no roads, no cars, no electricity. From the house you could follow a thin trail toward the center of the island. The trees were so thick that they formed two living walls on either side, and the branches crowded close, almost touching our shoulders. We'd talk for a while with flashlights, then turn them off and stand quiet and still in the path, squinting into the trees. There was nothing out there but tiny scraps of moonlight and Maine and the million trees and the sounds of our breath.

And that. Did you hear that?

What?

That. My friend was a faster runner than I was, but every now and then I'd beat him back to the house.

Since those days I've sat around hundreds of campfires, in mountains and deserts and on beaches, in Maine and California and Texas and Mexico, staring into the blue-black middle of a flame, chasing after that thrilling kind of fear again. And sometimes it can happen. It can happen in that quietest part of the night, when everyone is about to go to sleep, but instead someone leans forward and says in an even, still voice: listen, let me tell you a story.

The seventeen pieces in this collection are the stories I always wish i have with me, to tell or hear or read alone, in the wild, far from home. In finding them and reading them, I've realize that the longed-for sensation of that island in Maine was about more than fear. It was fear commingled with the awe and respect that comes from loving the outdoors.

Each of these stories is an outdoor story, in one way or another. Some of the stories are true. Some are screamers, some are chillers, some will make you wince or smile or frown. many of them are the work of the best writers of our times. All of them will stay with you, and all of them are dangerous.

So listen, let me tell you a story...