Where the hell did February go? We even got an extra day this year and still…gone. Finito.
So, what’s new? Well, on September, 2024 I’ll have a new book on shelves…bookstore shelves and library shelves, if all goes according to plan. We have produced a new edition of my latest book that is aimed at young adult readers. So many teens begin their adult reading journeys with authors like King. It seemed like a good idea to create an edition specifically for them. My publisher hired an editor who has worked in the young adult field for a number of years to refine the text and to focus the book on teens.
For many young readers, when the last page of Goosebumps is turned, the first chapter of Pet Sematary begins, and a world of terror crafted by Stephen King is revealed. His novels are as fascinating as his life, and in this ultimate illustrated guidebook, young readers explore the cultural phenomenon and legacy of the King of Horror.
From scare-seeking child to impoverished university student to struggling schoolteacher to one of the best-selling—and most recognizable—authors of all time, this engrossing book reveals the evolution and influences of Stephen King’s body of work over his nearly 50-year career, and how the themes of his writing reflect the changing times and events within his life. With tons of photos, approachable bite-size sections, and gripping details to captivate young readers. Young adults will covet this comprehensive yet accessible reference to their favorite horror author.
They asked me if I could find a librarian or someone similar to write a foreword for this edition. In a moment of inspiration, I remembered Sarah-Jane Smith, the Sussex (New Brunswick) high school teacher who was part of a year-long (and ultimately successful) campaign to get Stephen King to visit their school in 2012. (You can read more about that here.) She’s no longer at Sussex Regional High School but I was able to track her down and ask if she’d be interested in writing something for the book. She was! I haven’t yet read her foreword, but I’m very much looking forward to seeing what she wrote.
Pre-orders are available everywhere books are sold. You can find all the links here.
In the fiction department, I’m off to a decent start to 2024:
- Somebody’s Watching, (I Just) Died In Your Arms: Crime Fiction Inspired by One-Hit Wonders, Volume I, January 2024
- Payback, The Killing Rain, April 2024
- Houston, We Have a Problem, Private Dicks and Disco Balls, May 6, 2024
I’ve done a few interviews this year, one of which almost didn’t happen. The initial request from ABC Overnights in Australia went into the spam folder on my hotmail account, which I never look at because I have my messages autoforwarded to gmail. But I was having trouble getting a 2factor authorization email for my antivirus software, so I looked in that folder and…voila! It had arrived the previous day. It was really fun to do a live radio interview (with someone who was on the other side of the world). You can listen to that one here. Two haven’t yet appeared—one will be in print in a magazine written in English for Spanish-speakers who want to learn English, which is a very cool concept. Speaking of Spanish, I was interviewed for Restaurant de la Mente: El mundo de Stephen King, which you can watch here.
We’ve seen some excellent movies already this year. Maestro was the first, a fantastic performance by Carey Mulligan, who is really the focus of the film. We enjoyed Oppenheimer and wouldn’t have cut a moment from it. Barbie was fun, but perhaps not as impactful as I’d hoped. The Holdovers was terrific and we also enjoyed the musical remake of The Color Purple.
The best TV series I’ve watched so far this year is season 5 of Fargo, perhaps the best season of the show. Just terrific. Recently saw the first season of The Tourist, which I’m calling Fargo Down Under. It’s quite unsentimental about its characters. A lot of them die in shocking ways. I binged all three seasons of Slow Horses and can’t wait for the next. Criminal Record was worth watching if only to see Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi go head-to-head. I liked the Spanish series Bitter Daisies (where I learned the word “margarita” means “daisy”), two seasons of the French series Black Spot, and Monsieur Spade, which puts Sam Spade in southern France many years after the events of The Maltese Falcon. I’m currently watching the Swedish series Post Mortem: No One Dies in Skarnes, which is an interesting take on a popular trope.
Recently finished: Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay. Currently reading Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly, Owning Up by George Pelecanos, Trust by Hernan Diaz and Carrie by Stephen King.
