PORTLAND, Maine — As a high school English teacher, Dave Patterson spends far more time reading and thinking about short stories than most people.

It’s time well spent, since he’s also a writer of short stories who’s out with a new book. “Euphoria” is a collection of 10 short tales set in a fictional town in Maine of the same name.

“I get to talk about short stories a lot,” Patterson said. “The beauty about being a teacher is I get to think about books for a living.

“Now, my audience isn’t always interested,” he added with a laugh, acknowledging that teenaged students can be a tough room to work. “But more often than not they are [interested] because if you find a great short story that takes you through a journey and takes you all the way to the end—the characters change at the end—t

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