We’ve been spoiled in recent years by getting two novels from Stephen King. 2016 will see the end of that streak. The recently published End of Watch is the only book from King we’ll see this year. Later this fall, though, we’ll get Hearts in Suspension, edited by Jim Bishop, a collection of essays by King and others about his time as a student at the University of Maine. The publisher says that King’s essay is quite long (the longest of the set of about ten essays by various authors), and that the essay is “funny, truthful, and an involved work about Steve’s experiences during the 60’s, 70’s and the anti-war work of the Vietnam era, and so much more.” King also discusses his “Garbage Truck” series that was published in the college newspaper. Since many readers look for these rare works, this will be an interesting insight into his series of columns.
And then, of course, there’s the exciting news that the new Cemetery Dance edition of The Shining will contain scads of extra material, including the rare prologue “Before the Play” and the long-lost epilogue “After the Play,” as well as a bunch of deleted material.
Thought it’s not by King, the stories collected in the new Six Scary Stories from CD are selected by King and introduced by him. King discovered these stories when he judged a competition run by Hodder & Stoughton and the Guardian. He was so impressed with the entries that he recommended they be published together in one book. How cool is that?
King did a dozen or so publicity events across the country to promote End of Watch. The Reno event at Barnes & Noble was recorded and you can watch the video here. It’s on Facebook, but you don’t need an account to watch. There’s an audience recording of the Pennsylvania event here, and a recording of the hour-long conversation between George R. R. Martin and King in New Mexico here. King also appeared on the CBS Morning show at the start of the tour.
While he was on tour last month, King revealed that he had collaborated on a novel with his son, Owen. The book, called Sleeping Beauties, is set in the fictional Dueling, West Virginia, and revolves around a women’s prison in an area that is similar to Moundsville. No publication date has been announced for this book yet.
Here are some other recent King appearances, not related to End of Watch:
- Stephen King on The Dark Tower movie: An EW podcast
- Stephen King Declares “Audiobooks Are Terrific!”
- Stephen King, Anna Quindlen and Garden Gnomes (in which King discusses Corgi dogs)
- Stephen King on Trump, Writing, Why Selfies Are Evil (Rolling Stone)
- On The Origin Of Scott Landon’s Driving Music
As vigilant as everyone is about things showing up on the internet, sometimes things slip by unnoticed for a while. This is the case with “Cookie Jar,” a new story by King that appears in the Spring issue of VQR (Virginia Quarterly Review). According to the timestamp on the post, the story has been online since the end of March, but it wasn’t until late June that anyone noticed! You can read it at the VQR website. The next short story appearance that we know about will be “The Music Room” in the anthology In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper, edited by Lawrence Block. King read the story during his Pittsburgh stop.
DVD release: Just Desserts will be out on July 12th. This DVD contains documentaries, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage related to the making of Creepshow.
Award news: In addition to being nominated for a Hugo, “Obits” from Bazaar of Bad Dreams won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story. The collection itself has been nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award.
Movie & TV news:
- Filming of The Dark Tower continues. At the end of June, location shooting in South Africa finished and moved to Manhattan. There is still very little confirmed information about the cast (beyond the major players) or the story. You can see some photos from New York, primarily of Matthew McConaughey, here and here.
- The first half of the It reboot started filming at the end of June in Ontario, Canada. This one focuses on the kids. The cast consists of Bill Skarsgard (Pennywise), Jaeden Lieberher (Bill Denbrough), Finn Wolfhard (beep! beep! Richie Tozier), Jack Dylan Grazer (Stan Uris), Wyatt Oleff (Eddie Kaspbrak), Chosen Jacobs (Mike Hanlon), Jeremy Ray Taylor (Ben Hanscom), Sophia Lillis (Beverly Marsh), Stephen Bogaert (Bev’s father), Jackson Robert Scott (Georgie Denborough), Nicholas Hamilton (Henry Bowers), Owen Teague (Patrick Hockstetter ) and Javier Botet (unknown).
- The Mist TV series started filming in Nova Scotia this week. Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under) is the only cast member announced so far. She plays Nathalie, a modern-day ecological martyr. While she is seemingly more connected to nature than most people, her instincts about her fellow humans are dead on. Spike TV is filming 10 one-hour episodes of the series.
- Cell is finally out, available on many OnDemand services. I haven’t seen it yet, but I probably will soon. I have modest expectations.
- James Franco will star in and, perhaps, direct an adaptation of “Drunken Fireworks”. The script is being written by Matt Rager.
- Here’s the current status of the proposed adaptation of Gerald’s Game. The director, Mike Flanagan, also talks about his desire to direct a movie in the Dark Tower franchise.
