The problem with collections

A short story collection, when you think about it, is a really weird thing. This struck me when I was invited recently to a school to conduct workshops and read from my writing and talk about it. When you read from a collection you hope of course that it will lead people on to read the whole book, and maybe they will expect to. Well, there are several stories in my collection Balancing on the Edge of the World which I can happily read to school students, mainly those written from the point of view of children, one of which has been included in two school anthologies (which may indeed be why I have been invited). All good. But then there's the erotic story... Hm.