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June 2, 2009: Look for the July issue of Esquire, on newsstands
shortly, for a new story called Morality. You aren't likely to miss it—the
story is painted on the body of model Bar Refaeli on the front cover. Here is
the story description: Chad, an aspiring writer who is teaching school until he
lands a publishing contract, and his wife, Nora, who is working as a home nurse
for a retired minister, are like most people these days struggling financially.
Nora is approached by her employer with a proposition that could make
their dream of a home in Vermont a reality. But will it be worth the moral
consequences? And here is a
link to the cover.
King's
summer picks are now up on his official web site. He also has an
Entertainment Weekly column touting 7
Great Books for Summer.
Scribner is keeping wraps on the cover art for Under the Dome until
September, at which time they will launch it with a special promotion. There
will be an excerpt of the novel in a summer issue of Entertainment Weekly,
and a signing tour that launches on November 10 in New York.
The production of the Ghost Brothers of Darkland County CD/book
package is slated to commence on June 15, when producer T Bone Burnett begins
laying down the tracks in Los Angeles for the 18 new songs John Mellencamp has
written for his musical theater collaboration with King. King's dialog will
later be assembled in John's Belmont Studio. The cast for the production is
still not finalized. Projected release of the completed project is January 2010 and will be in more than one configuration, with a "deluxe" version to
include a book containing the show's full text and song lyrics, a CD featuring
the show's dialog and songs, and a second CD with only the songs.
According to a recent
interview, Eli Roth is no longer attached to direct an adaptation of Cell.
"I walked away from it," he says. "I love Stephen King and I love
the book, but I want to write my own stories."
"The Things They Left Behind" has been optioned by 1492 Pictures in
partnership with Reliance Big Entertainment.
May
13, 2009: The Stand came up often in discussions of the recent flu outbreak,
so GQ tracked King down for a timely interview: The
Flu, Stephen King, and You.
The May 10th episode of Family Guy was a tribute to and parody of
three film adaptations: Stand By Me, Misery and The Shawshank
Redemption. The episode can be viewed online at the Fox website or at Hulu.
King's office has confirmed that there will be an author tour for Under
the Dome, but no information about locations or dates has been released yet.
Raul Esparza will narrate the audio version of the novel, which will be released
on 30 CDs.
The hardcover omnibus of Dark Tower: Treachery hit stores last week.
Richard Isanove will be handling all the artwork for the fourth series, Fall
of Gilead. Jae Lee is expected to return for the finale, Battle of
Jericho Hill. According to Isanove, the original schedule had breaks between
each installment "that would allow us to get a head start on the next one
and spend about 5 to 6 weeks per issue." However, the publisher observed
that they were losing readers during those hiatuses, so the schedule was
accelerated. Battle of Jericho Hill is "the Epic battle, the climax
of the whole series and a key event in the Gunslinger's mythology. Armies facing
each other in total mayhem along the lines of Lawrence of Arabia, Ran
or Braveheart but with cowboys in a medieval setting," Isanove said
in a post online. "The only way for Jae to be able to put into it the work
that it deserves was to get a head start. So, while I'll be doing double duties
on Fall of Gilead and try to keep the look of the series as consistent as
possible, [Jae Lee] will be penciling the Battle of Jericho Hill."
New illustrations from the upcoming Talisman graphic novel adaptation are
available at King's
official website.
John Mellencamp is casting performers for a CD/book package of Ghost
Brothers of Darkland County. This edition will contain recordings of the
songs and the dialog from the musical, with T-Bone Burnett producing and acting
as musical director. It won't be a "cast album," but will contain
performances by major artists. The book will include the text of the musical,
also called the "book" in theater lingo.
Duma Key and Just After Sunset were nominated for Bram Stoker Awards.
The winners are set to be announced on the Stoker Award Weekend, which is June
12-14, 2009 at the Burbank Marriott Hotel near Los Angeles. Just After Sunset
and "N." have been nominated for Shirley
Jackson Awards. Winners will be announced on Sunday, July 12th 2009, at
Readercon 20.
Swedish film company Noble
Entertainment plans to release the DVD of Dolan’s Cadillac on July
1st. No word yet on a domestic release.
It's hard to believe that it's been 25 years since the film version of Firestarter
was released. The location used for filming, Wilmington, NC, is commemorating
the event. See Released
25 years ago, 'Firestarter' changed the fate of Wilmington and Drew
Barrymore stand in enjoyed time with actress.
Two recent Entertainment Weekly columns: In
Bad Company and The
Trouble With Earworms.
March 20, 2009: Scribner has issued this plot synopsis of the upcoming
1120-page novel Under the
Dome:
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s
Mills, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the
rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and
fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as
"the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the
neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on
impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and
when—or if—it will go away.
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed
with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a
physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave
kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at
nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is
keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is
the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out. |
It looks like It will be remade as a feature film. Warner Bros. has
hired Dave Kajganich to adapt the novel, with Dan Lin and Vertigo's Roy
Lee and Doug Davison producing. Though it's hard to take stories seriously at
this point, when the script hasn't even been written, the rumor is that it will
focus on the adult Losers rather than flipping back and forth between the two
eras. Kajganich is also attached to a remake of Pet Sematary.
March 6, 2009: This weekend's issue of USA Weekend magazine features a
King cover story, 35 Scary Years with Stephen King. The article is also
online at the USA
Weekend website. To find out what newspapers carry the insert in your area,
go here.
Here's an
article where King's agent, Ralph Vicinanza, discusses "Ur." The
story is now available for iPhone users, too, but not for general audiences yet.
Director Mick Garris and producer Mark Sennet met with Maine Governor John
Baldacci last week to discuss the possibility of filming Bag of Bones in
Maine and to explore financial incentives for the film. Bag of Bones has
a $20 million budget, and Sennet expects to spend $10 million wherever the film
is made. Filming could begin as early as this summer.
Here's a new
website for the film adaptation of Dolan's Cadillac.
Here are interviews with Robin
Furth and Tony
Shasteen from New York Comic Con, discussing the Del Ray graphic adaptation
of The Talisman. There have been reports of an Issue 0 installment
featuring an episode that does not appear in the book itself, but serves as a
prequel to the whole story.
In Entertainment Weekly: Torture
and "24" and I
love Breaking Bad
February 10, 2009: A brief update about yesterday's announcement
concerning King's new novella, "Ur," which features the Amazon Kindle.
An Amazon official estimates that "Ur" would run about 100 traditional
print pages. There's a video of King reading from "Ur" on YouTube
and an interview here.
February 9, 2009: King's next novella, "Ur," was inspired by
the Amazon Kindle book reader. At today's launch of the Kindle2, Amazon
announced that "Ur" would be available on the newest version of the
device. Early indications were that it was to be an exclusive release, but there
may be a non-Kindle version available for purchase as well. Stay tuned for more
details as they become available.
Here's a description of the story: "Following a nasty break-up, lovelorn
college English instructor Wesley Smith can't seem to get his ex-girlfriend's
parting shot out of his head: 'Why can't you just read off the computer like the
rest of us?' Egged on by her question and piqued by a student's suggestion,
Wesley places an order for Amazon.com's Kindle eReader. The [pink?] device that
arrives in a box stamped with the smile logo -- via one-day delivery that he
hadn't requested -- unlocks a literary world that even the most avid of book
lovers could never imagine. But once the door is open, there are those things
that one hopes we'll never read or live through."
King appeared at the Kindle2 launch and read from "Ur." There are
pictures of him reading from his Kindle here (images 4 & 5 of the slideshow) and a Q&A with King at USA
Today.
February 3, 2009: USA Weekend will have a cover story on
Stephen King in its March 6-8 issue. Lorrie Lynch flew up to Maine to talk to
him in December. "We got into a discussion of popular authors vs. the
academic elite, a subject he has strong opinions about, and I asked him if his
mainstream success over the past 35 years paved the way for the massive careers
of Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling and Twilight author Stephenie Meyer."
Click read
more for King's feelings about those two as well as some other best-selling
authors.
There's a new video
interview with King at Borders to promote the release of Stephen King
Goes to the Movies.
Captain Trips, the first series of graphic novels adapting The
Stand, will be released in a hardcover omnibus edition on March 10th.
Dark Tower: Guide to Gilead will be out this month. Since the Golden
Age of Eld -- when Gilead was first named the capital of the fledgling Kingdom
of All-World -- the city has served as Mid-World's most influential urban
center. In the latest DARK TOWER handbook, explore Gilead's seedy Lower Town and
its affluent West End corridor! Learn about the religions of Buffalo Star and
the Queen o' Green Days! Marvel at the legend of Lord Perth! Beware the threats
posed by the Blue-Faced Barbarians and Kuvian Night Soldiers! The Guide to
Gilead is the only way to navigate the past, present and future of this
magnificent metropolis!
This will be followed on March 11th by a single-issue installment Dark
Tower: Sorcerer, "probing deeply into the incredible life of Marten
Broadcloak. We learn his deadly secret agenda and true goal is not to serve the
Crimson King, but to climb to the top of the Dark Tower itself and become the
overlord of all existence!"
There's a new Dark Tower critique out: Inside the Dark Tower Series: Art,
Evil and Intertextuality in the Stephen King Novels by Patrick McAleer.
"Stephen King is no stranger to the realm of literary criticism, but his
most fantastic, far-reaching work has aroused little academic scrutiny. This
study of King's epic Dark Tower series encompasses the career of one of the
world's best-selling authors and frames him as more than a "horror
writer." Four categories of analysis--genre, art, evil, and intertextuality--provide
a focused look at the center of King's fictional universe. This book reaches
beyond popular culture treatments of the series and examines it against King's
horror work, audience expectations, and the larger literary landscape."
A new stage version of Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption will
have its world premiere at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin on May 19 with previews
starting on May 14. Adapted by Owen O'Neill and Dave Johns and directed by Peter
Sheridan.
According to an article an earlier article in USA Weekend: Stephen
King has gone multimedia. "N.," one of the tales in the best-selling
author's latest short story collection, Just After Sunset, was turned
into an original Web video series in conjunction with Marvel Comics. The
collaboration has inspired King, 61; he's thinking about doing a YouTube video
for his novel Under the Dome, out later this year. Such projects are
definitely fun, King says. "But with all these multimedia things, the story
is the story still, the book is the book, and that's the source material. As
J.R.R. Tolkien might say, 'That's the one ring.' It rules the other one."
Del Rey announced the adaptor and artist on the comic book and graphic novel
versions of The Talisman which debuts early this fall. The book will be
penciled and inked by Tony Shasteen, and will be scripted by Robin Furth.
Lettering and project management will be handled by Dabel Brothers Publishing.
King's best of 2008 columns:
And two other recent EW columns:
Have you visited the virtual
office at King's official web site yet? The Cafe Press storefront is also
open.
November 13, 2008: Just After Sunset is now out. King sat down
with the people at Borders to conduct this
interview about the book. Here are recent reviews:
New issues of Dark Tower: Treachery and The Stand are out this
week from Marvel.
Under the Dome will be released by Scribner in the Fall of 2009, according
to SK's MB moderator. In a new
interview with Salon magazine, King says, "it deals with some of the
same issues that The Stand does, but in a more allegorical way."
The
master of suspense picks three contemporary classics for Barnes and Noble
Review.
King has an essay entitled "The Genius of "The Tell-Tale
Heart" in the MWA collection In
the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales by Edgar Allan Poe and Essays
King weighs in on the election campaign in this Entertainment Weekly article: The
HD Candidates.
October 14, 2008: Del Rey, an imprint of Ballantine Books at the
Random House Publishing Group, announced the acquisition of the comic book and
graphic novel rights to The Talisman. The creative team on the project
will be announced soon, and the first issue of the monthly comic is planned for
late summer/early fall 2009. "Illustrating The Talisman in the depth
that it deserves will involve at least 24 issues of comics, probably more,"
said Del Rey Editor in Chief, Betsy Mitchell, who acquired the project from
agent Ralph Vicinanza. "It's a tremendously visual story, filled with images
that burn in memory long after the book has been closed." King's Dark Tower
comics consistently inhabit the top of the comic book sales charts, and his
recent series, Dark Tower: Long Road Home was the top-selling comic book in
North America in March 2008.
In a recent interview
, frequent Spielberg co-producer, Frank Marshall said that The Talisman
is back to being a movie. "It's kind of on the backburner since we're
waiting to see how everything shakes out with the DreamWorks, Paramount, Amblin
thing."
The 10th anniversary edition of Bag of Bones is out in trade paperback. In
addition to a Q&A with King where he talks about ghosts, secrets, and being
alive, the book contains "Cat From Hell," which will also be in Just
After Sunset.
King and Richard Russo will participate in an on-stage conversation followed
by a book signing to be held at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley,
Massachusetts, on Thursday, November 6th. The event is A Benefit for The Food
Bank of Western Massachusetts and to celebrate the 45th Anniversary of The
Odyssey Bookshop. Additional
details about the event.
King is Suspense Magazine's author of the month for October. He conducted a
short interview
with the site.
CU-Boulder film student Luke Cheney is making a student film of "In the
Death Room," shooting on Nov. 15 and 16 in Boulder and a Denver studio.
Stay tuned for photos from the set as they become available.
In this interview
with Patrick McGrath, the author talks about how King helped him get his
green card!
Here's a link to the recent SportsCenter
Commercial featuring King.
Barnes & Noble Review, an online
literary destination for readers, featuring industry-heralded book reviews,
columns, features, and interviews from a wide range of established critics,
reviewers, and authors, is celebrating its first anniversary. Regular weekly
features on the Review continue to offer readers book news that's both
entertaining and enlightening. In November, King will bring his three favorite
reads to Guest Books, where he will join Jamie Lee Curtis, George Pelecanos, and
Sandra Tsing Loh in our growing group of notables.
Recent articles in Entertainment Weekly:
September
8, 2008: King conducted another self-interview last week. He says this about the nearly completed novel, Under the Dome:
"It's twice the length of Duma Key. Over 1500 pages in manuscript.
The first draft weighs 19 pounds."
This week, Marvel starts shipping out the first issues of The Stand and Treachery, the third cycle in the Dark Tower series. UGO has a six-page
preview of The Stand at their web site. Here is an
interview with artist Mike Perkins.
King reviews Suzanne
Collins' The Hunger Games in the current issue of Entertainment
Weekly.
The October issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine containing
the new King story "The New York Times at Bargain Prices" is on news
stands now.
Filming is now under way in Tipton and Wilton, Iowa and other locations in
the Quad-City area for the remake of Children of the Corn. Among the
cast: David Anders (Heroes), Kandyse McClure (Battlestar Galactica)
and Daniel Newman as Malachai. The film is scheduled to wrap at the end of
September and will premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel next year.
Two newish books that might be of interest to you. The Films Of Stephen
King, edited by Tony Magistrale is the first collection of essays
assembled on the cinematic adaptations of King's work. Chapters are written by
cinema, television, and cultural studies scholars. Haunted
Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King an unauthorized biography by Lisa
Rogak will be published in January 2009.
Here is JJ Abrams' most recent comment on a Dark Tower movie: "The Dark
Tower is to me every bit as daunting an adaptation as the Lord of the Rings trilogy must have been for Peter Jackson, except we've got seven books we're
looking at. And the idea of doing that at the same time Carlton and I are
bringing Lost to a close is simply not viable. There are always Dark
Tower conversations, but the figuring out of what this will look like as a movie
has not begun. If The Dark Tower were in the right hands, I would love to see
seven movies executed just right. But you have to get people to see the first
one to get them to come and see the second one."
Here is the Publishers Weekly review of Just After Sunset:
In the introduction to his first collection of short fiction since Everything's
Eventual (2002), King credits editing Best American Short Stories (2007) with reigniting his interest in the short form and inducing some of this
volume's contents. Most of these 13 tales show him at the top of his game,
molding the themes and set pieces of horror and suspense fiction into richly
nuanced blends of fantasy and psychological realism. "The Things They Left
Behind," a powerful study of survivor guilt, is one of several supernatural
disaster stories that evoke the horrors of 9/11. Like the crime thrillers "The
Gingerbread Girl" and "A Very Tight Place," both of which feature
protagonists struggling with apparently insuperable threats to life, it is laced
with moving ruminations on mortality that King attributes to his own
well-publicized near-death experience. Even the smattering of genre-oriented
works shows King trying out provocative new vehicles for his trademark thrills,
notably "N.," a creepy character study of an obsessive-compulsive that
subtly blossoms into a tale of cosmic terror in the tradition of Arthur Machen
and H.P. Lovecraft. Culled almost entirely from leading mainstream periodicals,
these stories are a testament to the literary merits of the well-told macabre
tale.
(Click
here to visit our archive of old News from the Dead Zone updates dating back
to December 05, 2005!)
Important Dates For Stephen
King Fans
|
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|  Bev
Vincent is the author of The
Road to the Dark Tower, the Bram Stoker nominated, authorized
companion to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and has been writing News
From the Dead Zone for Cemetery
Dance magazine since March 2001. His essays, interviews and book
reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including Accent Literary
Review, Hellnotes, Storytellers Unplugged, and the Conroe Courier.
His three dozen short fiction appearances include From the Borderlands,
Best of Borderlands 1-5, Cemetery Dance, Red Scream, Corpse Blossoms,
Thou Shalt Not, Damned Nation, Shivers
II, Shivers
IV and Who Died in Here? He is co-editor of The
Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book and co-screenwriter of Stephen
King's Gotham Café, a short film that has garnered several
awards at film festivals nationwide.
In the real world, he lives in Texas. His home on the web
is http://www.bevvincent.com |
Have news, information, or corrections? E-mail
Bev Vincent!
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