Paul reads his short story “Down the Valley Wild,” originally published in Borderlands 2, edited by Thomas F. Monteleone, Borderlands Press, 1991.

The story is in MP3 format and runs approximately 42 minutes.

Paul’s comments:

This story, always one of my favorites, went through several incarnations on its way to publication and benefited from some astute editorial analysis by Tom Monteleone after he bought it for Borderlands 2. Along the way, what began in my mind as a straightforward horror story became something else entirely.

It also turned out that “Down the Valley Wild” is the perfect length to fill one class period, and over the years I’ve had the privilege to read it to several audiences of high school students, with gratifying results. It’s always fun to watch jaded teenagers start out restless and fidgety, then gradually get pulled farther and farther away from the classroom, deeper and deeper into the tale. Those are humbling experiences. They remind me that we’re never immune to the magic spell of oral storytelling and that we all need to be read to once in a while, no matter how old we may be.

Click HERE to listen to “Down the Valley Wild”