sure-fire thing. Like the more traditional artistic endeavors, it’s a goofy thing. A fun thing. Neither the
sums generated nor the future of publishing is the point. The point is trying some new things; pushing
some new buttons and seeing what happens.’ (This last sentence very much describes King’s method
throughout his entire career—consider such examples as Cycle of the Werewolf, The Green Mile,
revising The Stand, and publishing deleted scenes from ’Salem’s Lot).
This piece was posted on Stephen King’s official web site on December 4, 2000 as the last of a
series of such items on The Plant, each covered above.
A Word from Stephen King (2000)
This two-paragraph letter was sent to members of The Book-of-the-Month Club’s Stephen King
Library: ‘Looking back on these previous trips to the brink is like reading a map in progress...they are
all still friends of mine, from Carrie, the ugly duckling, to Johnny Smith, the reluctant seer, to George
Stark, the psychotic writer. I have known all these people, have lived with them, and have wanted
more than anything else for others to live with them, too.’
The letter was first distributed in 2000 to new members of The Stephen King Library, a series of
the author’s books available through The Book-of-the-Month Club, replacing two earlier versions— A
Note From Stephen King and From The Desk of Stephen King (see above). The chances of obtaining
a copy are slim, excepting through another member of the King community, or if the Library is still
using this introductory letter and readers choose to join (warning: The Stephen King Library has a
reputation for poor service and communication).
An Evening with Stephen King (2000)
This is a transcript of the speech King gave to a ‘University of Vermont audience’ on March 30,
1999. The author notes ‘Tony’ Magistrale (a noted King academic), who ‘kicked my ass in tennis this
afternoon’, had invited him. He begins in a jocular manner, mucking around and putting on his Uncle
Stevie mask: ‘… I want to remind you to check the backseat of your car before you get in. It wouldn’t
hurt to check the trunk. And you wouldn’t want to get onto one of these country roads and get halfway
home and see that face come up in the rearview mirror. You realize that anybody who hid in the
backseat of your car...would have to be insane. They’d have to be dangerous, right?...When you get
home and you get into the bathroom, you might ask yourself, was the shower curtain pulled when I
left?’
He says many people ask of his writing, ‘How much of it do you believe? How much of this stuff
is supported by your personal belief system?’ His reply: ‘...I don’t know about other writers, but I
believe everything.’ He goes on to claim he is ‘the most totally gullible person in the world’, giving
examples that are best described as interesting!
He finally gets down to his theme—‘The whole question of exploration of belief is probably the
only way in which pop fiction can be serious. I believe that exposition of belief remains its greatest
strength even more so than the social issues, which always seem to get the lion’s share of the credit
when it comes to critical analysis. Belief and the exposition of belief shows an amazing utility when
it’s merged with a good story.’
King says, ‘I have expressed the things that I believe as well as I can in some of the books I’ve
written. In The Stand and The Tommyknockers...the belief expressed underneath the story is that
technology is a blown horse...In Cujo and Storm of the Century...I tried to express the belief that
sometimes good people do not win. Sometimes good people die. Sometimes good people are
corrupted...In Misery and Bag of Bones, I think I was trying to say that writing is not life...In books
like Pet Sematary and “The Dark Tower” series, I try to express my belief that love is deaf...Love is
the best we have. We’re stuck with it when things get dark. Without love in the dark, we’d go mad.’
He continues, ‘ Tom Gordon is a book about God....’; and ‘Last but not least I have expressed in
several books my belief in some insensate force—not necessarily God—I’m not sure I believe in that
in a personal way, but in the sort of way that William Wordsworth talked about and then later in his
prose, John Steinbeck, when they talked about an oversoul. In my books, I’ve called that “the coming
of the white”’. The speech closes with King declaiming, ‘A novel should exist—a story should exist
—as story but there ought to be something more going on. There ought to be more ticking there than
simply story. There ought to be some expression of belief. It makes it more fun and textures the work
in a way that otherwise you don’t get.’
This fifteen-page article, which is particularly important to an understanding of King and his
work, appears only in King’s Book-of-the-Month Club collection, Secret Windows: Essays and
Fiction on the Craft of Writing, published in 2000. This book can be easily obtained from
secondhand book sources.
Horror! (March 2001)
This is King’s short contribution to a broader article (in which a collection of different people
recount the most frightening moments of their lives), specifically in a sidebar titled The Most
Frightened I’ve Ever Been... King briefly tells of meeting Vincent Price in line at the grocery store,
and his declaring, ‘I understand how intimidating I am for a young fellow like you.’ Other
contributors include Norman Schwarzkopf, Rick Mears, Mike Ditka, Robbie Knievel, Oscar De La
Hoya, Tino Wallenda and Chuck Yeager.
The piece appeared in the March 2001 issue of Men’s Health magazine. Copies can be secured
through online used magazine resources.
On Ed McBain (March 2001)
This is King’s portion of a larger article from many contributors, A Tribute to Evan Hunter/Ed
McBain. King opens his section with Hunter/McBain’s contributions to literature: ‘In essence, there
is this: Ed McBain injected the sort of reality into the police procedural novel that Dashiell Hammett
and Raymond Chandler had injected into the private eye novel in the 30s and 40s. It can be argued
(I’ll do the arguing if no one else wants to) that what McBain did was more important, because cops,
both of the uniform and plainclothes variety, are real people and private eyes—the sort epitomized by
Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, at least—are not. They are romantic knights errant placed against a
realistic background, no more than that. That McBain would be the one to create this naturalistic
subgenre (and to revitalize the entire genre by doing so) should come as no surprise. Before he was
Ed McBain he was Evan Hunter, a serious mainstream novelist whose works have spanned almost
three generations.’
He closes with a concise view of what Hunter/McBain had done for readers: ‘A veteran of the
pulps and the paperback originals, he has always felt that the paying public has one unalienable right:
to be entertained. It is a service he has performed with élan and brio for nearly 50 years. For this I
salute him and thank him with all my heart.’ King’s tributes to Hunter/McBain continued in an untitled
October 15, 2005 piece (see below).
This article appeared in the March 2001 issue of Mystery Scene magazine, copies of which can
be found at used magazine resources online and, sometimes, eBay.
Vassar Commencement Speech (2001)
King gave the Commencement Speech at Vassar College in New York on May 20, 2001. He gets
off to a typically humorous start: ‘Last week, this week, next week; all over America young men and
women—and some not so young—in caps and gowns are listening to scholars, politicians, eminent
thinkers, and probably Oprah Winfrey send them forth into their lives. You here at Vassar have
invited the man most commonly seen as America’s Bogeyman to do that, and I have to ask you...What
were you thinking? What in God’s name were you thinking?’
After the laughter died down he spoke of death, and considering the amazing future of medicine,
the question of who in attendance could still be around for a reunion in 100 years: ‘Human life is
brief when placed in time’s wider perspective is something we all know. I am asking you to consider
it on a more visceral level, that’s all. Thinking of all those empty chairs a hundred years from now is
frightening. Yet it also offers some valuable perspective.’
All this talk of mortality has a point and it is from this section that Family Circle would draw
the title of its article excerpting the speech: ‘Should you give away what you have? Of course you
should. I want you to consider making your lives one long gift to others, and why not? All you have is
on loan, anyway. All you want to get at the getting place, from the Maserati you may dream about to
the retirement fund some broker will try to sell you on, none of that is real. All that lasts is what you
pass on. The rest is smoke and mirrors.’
Most readers will know the Kings have long been philanthropists but, in this speech, he is
unusually outspoken about the matter, announcing a donation of $20,000 to a local charity and
encouraging those in attendance to ‘help to match that amount...Each strictly according to his or her
resources; nobody gets hurt.’ King didn’t ask this to ‘… solve the problem of hunger and want in
Poughkeepsie or Dutchess County, let alone in the whole world, but because you’ll enjoy your own
coming meal more fully knowing that you shared your joy and your good fortune in having been a part
of this happy occasion. And don’t let it be a one-shot. Let it be the beginning of a life’s giving, not just
of money but of time and spirit.’
This important speech was originally posted at Stephen King’s official website in 2001 but is no
longer accessible there. At the time of writing it was available at Vassar’s web site:
http://www.vassar.edu/go2001/speech.html. Edited excerpts were printed in the November 1, 2001
issue of Family Circle magazine as Full Circle: What You Pass On. Frankly, the piece could do with
wider circulation.
Untitled (August 21, 2001; August 28, 2001)
This letter, posted on King’s official Internet site, discusses the electronic pre-publication of an
excerpt from The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla. He opens this short piece: ‘Roland of Gilead
—also known as the gunslinger—has finally saddled up again’, and informs readers his plans are to
finish the final three Dark Tower novels at the same time. He then urges fans to read the excerpt, The
Dark Tower V—Prologue: Calla Bryn Sturgis 205; and closes: ‘Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and
Oy all wish you well. So do I. And as the residents of the Calla might say, may this do ya fine, tell
God thankee.’
Updating the piece a week later King briefly adds he was pleased to find some readers had
picked up on the homage in Calla Bryn Sturgis to Akira Kurosawa’s film Seven Samurai and says
the reference will become clearer in the finished novel, as indeed it did (along with the reference to
director John Sturges).
This piece was posted on Stephen King’s official web site on August 21, 2001 and was updated
on August 28, 2001. Older posts are no longer accessible online but copies circulate in the King
community.
Elements of Tragedy: The Weapon (September 23, 2001)
This short piece contains some of King’s thoughts about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks
on the United States. ‘People keep saying “like a movie,” “like a book,” “like a war zone,” and I keep
thinking: No, not at all like a movie or a book—that’s no computer-generated image, because you
can’t see any wash or blur in the background. This is what it really looks like when an actual plane
filled with actual human beings and loaded with jet fuel hits a skyscraper. This is the truth.’ He also
says that the events were not like a book or a movie because the terrorists simply used box cutters,
and the speed and surprise of the attack, to accomplish their goal.
He closes with these chilling words: ‘It could happen again. And now that crazos the world over
see that it’s possible to get 72 hours of uninterrupted air time on a budget, it will almost certainly
happen again.’ King’s sad take on survivor guilt as a result of these terrible events is worked out in
his 2005 short story, The Things They Left Behind, first published in the Ed McBain edited
anthology, Transgressions.
The piece appeared in the September 23, 2001 edition of The New York Times Magazine, a free
publication included in Sunday editions of The New York Times. Any major library will have copies
of the newspaper on microfilm/microfiche and this magazine supplement should be included.
Untitled (October 30, 2001)
This letter, posted on King’s official Internet site, discusses the top five winning entries in the
United States On Writing contest (a separate contest was held in the United Kingdom: in that case the
winner’s story was printed in the mass-market paperback edition of On Writing). King opines, ‘I
think a lot of people harbor the secret dream of being a fiction writer. Why not? You don’t need any
special tools, brushes, or even classes. All you’ve got to do is power up your laptop and you are
ready to go’; and says he received over 1000 entries through his web site, but most of the submissions
were bad (!). The exceptions included the five, which were posted on the site: ‘Read and enjoy.
Better yet, get in touch with these people and tell them what you think about their work or what you
didn’t. Like the human beings who create it, writing does not exist in a vacuum.’
This piece was posted on Stephen King’s official web site on October 30, 2001. Older posts are
no longer accessible online but copies circulate in the King community. Despite instructions to the
contrary in the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page on King’s website readers of On Writing still
query about submitting entries!
Jack’s Back: Stephen King’s Thoughts on the Sequel (September 2001)
Black House was the sequel to The Talisman, both collaborative efforts by Stephen King and
Peter Straub. King describes some of the discussions the co-authors had about the new novel: ‘Little
by little, we built up the underpinning of a story—a plausible history of Jack Sawyer, the Missing
Years. While we were writing The Talisman, Peter had mentioned—half joking, half not—that if we
ever wanted to revisit Jack Sawyer, we could write the ultimate haunted-house story. Books are
slippery things, though; while the haunted-house thing was certainly part of the plan when we started
work on Black House, it quickly became secondary to the monster who’d built the haunted house. But
that’s okay. If a book comes alive, it tells you what it wants...and Black House was very lively, even
when it was nothing but a letter and a number— T2.’
Black House, like its predecessor, is a novel of both fantasy and horror. But: ‘In the end, we
tried to write the kind of page-turning suspense novel that readers will like. And in order to do that,
we had to please ourselves. It should be enough to say that in this case, we did. It was a complete
pleasure to revisit Jack Sawyer and to revisit the Territories.’
This piece was first included in a US promotional Black House press kit in September 2001. It
also appeared as Jack’s Back at the official UK Black House web site that same month. Finally, it
was included as Jack’s Back: Thoughts on the Sequel in the eBook version of the novel, published
by Random House in September 2001, which included other extra material including notes by Straub
and editor Lee Boudreaux. This is yet another important piece that deserves wider circulation.
Building A Haunted House (January 26—February 1, 2002)
King sold a screenplay about a haunted house to Steven Spielberg in 1995, and then
incorporated Spielberg’s suggested changes into the screenplay several different times. Finally the
script was so different from the original idea that the project was abandoned after the third draft.
Later, King expanded the concept into a miniseries for ABC— Rose Red, aired in early 2002. He
relates this background and deals with another influence: the infamous Winchester mansion.
Sarah Winchester, the widow of Oliver Winchester (owner of the namesake rifle manufacturer)
had been told during a séance she would not die while her mansion was being built. She therefore
ceaselessly added to it and King says: ‘At some point, years and years after reading this fascinating
tidbit, it occurred to me that there might be a really good novel in the story of the never-ending
mansion. “Suppose,” I thought, “that at some point the house took over... and started building
itself? ” 206 I loved the idea of a house that was somehow bigger on the inside than on the outside.’
He ends the piece: ‘We went on to film a novel-length miniseries that I think fulfills Mr.
Spielberg’s original ambition: to make the scariest haunted-house picture of all time. If you like it,
thank that Steven. If you’re too scared to watch the final 30 minutes and have to switch over to that
wimpy doctor program, blame this Stephen.’
This piece appeared in the January 26-February 1, 2002 issue of TV Guide magazine. Copies
are relatively easy to secure through online used magazine dealers.
Cone Head (April 22—29, 2002)
In this short but revelatory article King explains why, in the spring of 1970, he was arrested for
stealing dozens of traffic cones! While driving home, he ran into one of the cones, which dislodged
the muffler of his older model Ford station wagon. He tried to collect all the cones he could (on the
theory this would avoid damage to other vehicles) and was eventually pulled over. He was found
guilty of petty larceny and fined one hundred dollars. At risk of being sent to County Jail due to his
inability to pay the fine, the young writer was saved by a check he received from Adam magazine for
a story he’d submitted, The Float. In two interesting links King tells the Adam part of the story in the
Notes to Skeleton Crew (see our Author’s Notes and Introductions to His Own Work chapter, where
he claims to have been fined $250); and, in Someone Shouted J’accuse, deals with his arrest and
subsequent exoneration on a charge of intoxication in the same year as the cones incident.
King closes: ‘And that is how I found myself unemployed and with a criminal record a month
shy of my twenty-third birthday. I began wondering if I was going to turn out to be a Really Bad
Person. Being a Really Bad Person is a shitty job, but somebody has to do it, I reasoned. Perhaps
stealing traffic cones was only my first step downward. I think that was the summer I realized that we
are really not all stars of our own show, and that happy endings—even happy middles, for God’s sake
—are absolutely in doubt.’
This article appeared in the April 22/29, 2002 issue of The New Yorker magazine. Most major
libraries archive this title. Original copies of the magazine can be found online easily and cheaply.
An Interview with Stephen King (June 6, 2002)
This is a humorous self interview posted on King’s official website to update fans: ‘Stephen
King sat down with himself on the evening of June 3, 2002, to discuss his progress on the last three
Dark Tower novels, and to talk a little bit about what readers can expect. And when. The interview
ended with the Red Sox game still in progress, but it can be noted here that they went on to lose. But
then, so did the Yankees.’
He talks about what he has been listening to (Eminem) and what he has been watching
(Unfaithful); then about when each subsequent Dark Tower novel will be published, who is doing the
artwork, and also drops some hints about events in the last three installments.
It appeared on Stephen King’s official web site on June 6, 2002. Older posts are no longer
accessible online but copies circulate in the King comm-unity.
National Book Awards 2003 Acceptance Speech (2003)
This transcription is of the speech King gave at the 2003 National Book Awards on November
19 that year. Several literary critics, including the infamous Harold Bloom had negative things to say
about King receiving the 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He
responded to this during his acceptance speech: ‘There’s been a certain amount of grumbling about
the decision to give the award to me and since so much of this speech has been about my wife, I
wanted to give you her opinion on the subject. She’s read everything I’ve written, making her
something of an expert, and her view of my work is loving but unsentimental. Tabby says I deserve
the medal not just because some good movies were made from my stories or because I’ve provided
high motivational reading material for slow learners, she says I deserve the medal because I am a,
quote, “Damn good writer.”’ Smiles all round!
For years, King has talked about the difference between “popular” and “literary” writing but
never has he been so clear-cut as here, where it matters most. One of the world’s most widely read
authors is receiving one of the most prestigious literary awards and is rightly proud of the fact: ‘I’ve
tried to improve myself with every book and find the truth inside the lie. Sometimes I have succeeded.
I salute the National Book Foundation Board, who took a huge risk in giving this award to a man
many people see as a rich hack. For far too long the so-called popular writers of this country and the
so-called literary writers have stared at each other with animosity and a willful lack of
understanding. This is the way it has always been. Witness my childish resentment of anyone who
ever got a Guggenheim.’
This piece appeared on The National Book Foundation’s official web site in 2003 and is
deserving
of
wider
circulation.
At
the
time
of
writing
it
was
posted
at
http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech_sking.html.
An
excerpt
appeared
as The
Distinguished Contributor in The Stephen King Desk Calendar 2006, an item exclusive to
Doubleday Book Club members that resells on eBay.
Untitled (2003)
This rare piece of a few sentences is a personalized fiftieth birthday greeting from King to
Stephen Jones, a widely respected British horror commentator, writer and anthologist.
It was printed in a limited edition (200 copies) chapbook, The Mammoth Book of Stephen,
edited by Val Edwards, and printed by PS Publishing to celebrate Jones’ 50th birthday in 2003. It
was distributed freely to those attending the celebratory party held at Mike and Paula Marshall
Smith’s house in London. Copies of this item almost never appear for resale. Keep an eye on eBay
and check with specialist King resellers.
Untitled (April 2004)
King drew a headstone for his own grave, with the epitaph: ‘He tried to be better than he was.’
The drawing is signed, ‘Dear Larry: Here’s an epitaph—Stephen King.’
It is printed in a collection, Remember Me When I’m Gone, compiled by Larry King and
published in a 2004 hardcover by Nan A. Talese, an imprint of Doubleday. At the time of writing it is
readily available both in bookstores and online.
Kingdom Come (October 2004)
This two-page essay is about King’s second original series for television, Kingdom Hospital.
He opens with a little medical humor and introduces us to some of the main characters: ‘Call me a
hypochondriac if you want to, but I loved the time I spent in Kingdom Hospital. It was one of the
more satisfying periods of my creative life. If that sounds strange to you, then you probably haven’t
yet met Peter, Dr. Hook, Mrs. Druse, sweet but scary Mary, and her lumbering, magical friend with
the sleek brown fur, the watchful black eyes, and the long, sharp teeth. Once you have, I think you’ll
understand. There’s never been anything like them before on television; there probably won’t be
again.’
The piece closes with King trying to place the mood and feeling of the series in perspective for
the reader/viewer: ‘To the seriously ill and the dying, no world is as surreal as that of modern
medicine and the modern hospital. We have tried to convey some of that surrealism—some of the
fright and some of the dark hilarity—while never losing our main thread: good people, rational
people, coming to grips with the fact that there is another world just below them, a vastly malign
place full of black voices and ungulate spirits. Chief among them is a little girl named Mary, and her
friend, Antubis, “who eats disease...who cures and kills.” Rarest of all in television as it now exists,
the interwoven stories of these characters come to a resolution. I think you’ll enjoy it. I know you’ll
never forget it. And, as always: pleasant dreams.’
This piece only appears in the liner notes to the DVD release of Kingdom Hospital. The entire
first (and only) season was issued by Columbia TriStar Home in October 2004 and should be
available from the usual outlets.
Comments onDesperationfrom Stephen King (February 23, 2005)
In this very brief piece, King states he doesn’t usually comment in advance on film adaptations
of his works but was making an exception here because Mick Garris is involved in the project. As
King fans know, Garris also directed Sleepwalkers, The Stand, Quicksilver Highway (King’s
segment was based on his short story Chattery Teeth), the miniseries adaptation of The Shining and
Riding the Bullet.
King says of the upcoming TV movie Desperation: ‘One word of warning: this is TV and it’s
impossible to tell in advance how much of a given piece of work will be cut. The version of
Desperation I saw was graphic and very frightening. This may make the network uneasy.’
The piece was posted on Stephen King’s official web site on February 23, 2005. Older posts are
no longer accessible online but copies circulate in the King community.
Stephen King’s Commencement Address (2005)
This transcription is of King’s May 7, 2005 commencement address at his alma mater, the
University of Maine.
He had given commencement addresses in the past (also at the University of Maine, in 1988—
see Stephen King (2000) above; see also Vassar Commencement Speech above), and knows the
important factors that come into play on these occasions: a good theme, humor and so on: ‘Delivering
a good graduation speech is difficult, and delivering a memorable one is close to Mission Impossible.
In striving for eloquence at an important moment of passage like this one, most speakers are able to
assemble only the usual bunch of platitudes—row, don’t drift (that’s for the phys ed majors); a penny
saved is a penny earned (for the economics majors); a good man is hard to find (for the sociology
majors); to be or not to be (for the English majors); and for the superstition majors, like me, step on a
crack, break your mother’s back. Very few people past the age of forty can remember who spoke at
their college commencement exercises, and almost no one can remember who spoke at their high
school graduations. That’s probably a good thing.’
Taking to his theme King exhorts the assembled graduates to ‘Stay in Maine’, in fact four times
in a row: ‘I promised I wouldn’t keep you long, that I’d cut to the chase, and so I will. The place to
start giving back is the place where you are right now. This can be home if you want it to be. That
Maine needs you is something you will hear frequently, because with your new skills, your new
education, your youth, your energy, and your enthusiasm, you are a valuable and sought-after
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