Found: "An Apple for the Creature" edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner

Found: An Apple for the Creature: all-new tales of unnatural education edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner, 2012, 9780425256800.

I was checking this book in and not paying much attention s I did so.   I looked at the back cover and - Wait a Minute!  Donald Harstad?!  The Donald Harstad?  Hot dog.

Collection of supernatural short stories.  Each story has an education angle with most stories including a school setting.  With plenty of vampire and werewolf stories this is definitely not the kind of stuff I usually read. 

I sometimes read arguments and griping by people upset over statements regarding the differences - and perceived differences - of a writer's gender.  Well, I can tell you that some of these stories were easily spotted as written by women.  I have not run across a guy writer who writes shoes, clothes, hair, and eyes the same as any gal.  The way a woman character's lust and love is portrayed was very distinct to me when women were writing.

My favorites:
1.  Hartsad's Academy Field Trip, of course.  Several Iowa cops are attending an invite only training session in Des Moines.  The officers do a field exercise as part of the class.  One officer is a detective from Iowa City and is told about a vampire investigation.  Police work ensues.  Trick reveal ensues.
2.  Maberry's was okay.
3.  Marjorie M. Liu's Sympathy for the Bones was good.  A teen girl is raised by a witch in the woods and plots her freedom by killing the witch.
4.  Mike Carey's Iphigenia in Aulis.  A young - 10-years-old or so - girl is raised in a strict prison environment where she is always restrained when outside her cell.  Turns out she and all her fellow classmates/inmates were born from zombies.  Legalities against abortion mean they are kept alive until they are eighteen years old.
5.  Faith Hunter's Golden Delicious was more Maberry than Maberry's story.  A werewolf cop is teamed with a werewolf-stuck-as-wolf and some killer monkey in a training academy and investigates deadly witches.  Guns and goth.
6. VSI by Nancy Holder has two FBI agents assigned to a two-week training class.  The find out they are learning about vampires.  Surprise reveal ensues.  A second surprise reveal was expected but did not happen.

Comments:
1. I have not done many library videos lately but the Harstad interview is regularly found.