— Stephen King: 2016 National Book Festival —

Stephen King: Thank you. Ah. Woo. There's a lot of you people out there. [ Laughter ]

And I was thinking about, I was actually talking about the first time that I ever did a book signing. I published my first novel, Carrie. And a bookstore chain in Maine asked me if I would come sign books, so I said yes, I would. And they had a little table at the front of the room with some copies on it. And five people showed up. Three of them were college friends of mine who had clubbed together to buy one copy of the book. And the other one was a, a fat little child who wanted the kung fu books. So I helped him find those books, and I guess he became a satisfied customer.

But it's strange to see so many people. Writers are supposed to be secret agents. We're supposed to observe you. You're not supposed to observe us. It's very strange to have that happen. Man, I was in -- I had published a book -- you know, it's funny. I foresaw Donald Trump. I wrote a book called The Dead Zone. [ Laughter ] Is this thing on? Can you hear me? I, I guess you can. So I wrote this book called The Dead Zone, and the publisher sent me out on tour, and I was in New York. And I had a free day, and so I went into Nathan's Hot Dogs.

I heard about them my whole life. So I went into Nathan's, and I ordered a couple of hot dogs. You know, I go everywhere with a book. So I was reading a book, and I was sitting at the counter and munching my hot dogs. This was 1979, 1980. My hair was still black. I had this big writerly beard, you know, and horn-rimmed glasses. I thought I looked really serious. The sad thing is I thought I looked cool. So I'm sitting there in Nathan's reading my book, and I look up, and there's a pass through between the kitchen and serving area. And the short order cook is looking at me. And as soon as he sees me looking at him, he's back. He's cooking, he's cooking. So then I read my book a little bit more, and I look up and he's looking at me. And I think to myself, "I have been recognized. I am on my way to becoming a famous writer. I've been recognized."

So after a while, I'm getting ready to get done, and the cook comes around to the front, and he approaches me, and he says, "Are you somebody?" [ Laughter ] And I said, "Well, everybody's somebody." He said, "Yeah, but are you somebody famous?" And I went kind of like, "Well, you know, sort of." He said, "Are you Francis Ford Coppola?" [ Laughter ] And I said, "Yes, I am!" Because you know, writers are freaking liars. That's what we do. I signed a menu for that guy and the whole thing, you know? Walked out of there a happy man.

That Nathan's story always makes me think of a conversation that I had with my friend John Grisham who's a great storyteller and all-around cool guy. And he and I did a joint appearance at the Bradenham Public Library, and as I was driving him back to the airport, he said, "You know what? We're famous writers in a country that doesn't read much." And that was a bit of an overstatement, but it was truth to its core.

That day at Nathan's was the only day that I was ever mistaken for Francis Ford Coppola, but I can't tell you how many times people have walked up to me and said, "Aren't you Steven Spielberg?" [ Laughter ] They get this guy crossed circuit in their mind or something like that. And so my response is "You've got your wires crossed because he scared people with a shark, and I scared people with a clown."

And there are a lot of folks that come up to me and say, "I haven't read any of your books, but I've seen all of your movies." And if they say they've seen all of my movies, I think, "Oh, you poor sap. You actually saw The Mangler?" [ Laughter ] "You saw all those Children of the Corn sequels?" I mean, those are the most embarrassing things in the whole world. There are, like, seven Children of the Corn movies. And the one that I really always wanted to see was the Children of the Corn Meet Leprechaun, you know? That would have been a, that would have been a good crossover thing.

I was in a supermarket. This was in Florida. My wife and I have a place in Florida. We didn't really want to go, but we turned 65, and it's the law. Kind of have to go down there to Florida. And my wife does the regular shopping, but in the middle of the week, if there's stuff we need, she will send me because she feels like I can't [bleep] it up too bad.

And so I was in there one day, and I was in the housewares aisle. And this woman came around the corner. She was in one of the, you know, the things, you know they have these electric carts for people that don't have really good mobility? I'm always afraid one's going to stroke out, and the thing's going go all maximum overdrive, crash into everything. But she was a, you know, almost a Florida stereotype.

She had the golf tan, you know. She's about 140 years old. The golf shirt. And she looked at me, and then she looked away. And then she looked back and she said, "I know who you are. You're Stephen King. You make all those scary movies. Well some people like those, but I don't care for movies like that. I like uplifting things like that Shawshank Redemption." [ Laughter ] And I was flabbergasted, man! And I said, "I wrote that!" And she said, "No, you didn't!"

So anyway. All of which shouldn't bring me to the subject of literacy, but does. And I don't ordinarily speak from a prepared script which I have here on my trusty iPad. I prefer to wander around and sort of free associate, but on a subject like this, I thought a few more foolish, smart remarks might be in order. And a chance to prove that even at my advanced age -- I turned 69 two days ago. [ Applause ] You're applauding because I'm still alive, probably. [ Laughter ] You know, the one thing that I don't want is -- and this will happen. It won't happen this year, but once you turn 70, you're an authentic geezer. And then you know somebody's going to say, "Stephen King today turned 70 years young." [ Laughter ] I'm not going to turn years young. It's still years old.

Anyway, okay. I'm sorry about that I got a little carried away. Anyway, literacy. I taught English for two year before becoming a full-time writer. And half-way through the second year, I told my wife I was going to go back to school and get enough credits to teach at the elementary level.

It took me just three semesters' worth of experience at high school to realize I had very little purpose there. My students fell into two groups: one was self-propelled when it came to reading. You know, that's you guys. I'm with my peeps today. They were inner-directed, the sociologist say, and eager to discuss what they had read. The other group consisted of kids who were never going to read for pleasure and who regarded each assignment, whether it James Thurber or James Dickey as a valueless trudge.

These were the kids who were going to grow up watching TV and who would write as seldom as possible. Their adventures in writing, once they became adults in this computer age would mostly consist of text messages, emails assisted by Spellcheck. And updating their Facebook pages in which, in many cases would consist mostly of photos.

Don't get me wrong. A lot of them were damn good kids. Fine sons, willing workers, wonderful daughters, exceptional school citizens, each with his or her own talent. Whether it was hitting a baseball or sewing costumes for a class play. It was just that when some of these kids, many even, came into my Living with English class, the light went out of their eyes.

And no matter what I did, that light did not come back on until the bell rang. These are the ones I began to understand who lived in homes where there were few books and who would have few in their own homes when they grew up. And while some might occasionally bring home a supermarket paper like the National Enquirer, few or none of them were going to be subscribers to The Atlantic or The New Yorker. Their knowledge of world events would come from the Today Show, Fox News, or possibly Rush Limbaugh. The poetry they read would come mostly on greeting cards. This was the world of non-readers I saw when I was 23.

Many of the kids in my classrooms back then had considered reading, tried it, found it wholly dispensable, hard work with no reward. I wanted to get them when they were six or seven. And new to the whole deal, you know, the old "tabula rasa" thing? My wife was in favor. She was raised Catholic and quoted a line that she said was part of the dogma, "Give them to me," meaning Mother Church, "when they are young, and they're mine forever." I wanted to get them when I still had a chance to convince them that reading is more than a door opener to a better job. It's cool, it's a kick, it's a buzz. Plain old fun.

Non-readers lived just one single life. It may be a good one. It may be a great one. But a reader can live thousands. I wanted kids that were still open to that idea. Sometimes when the right book falls into the right pair of hands, it lights a fire and leads to others. I'm always thrilled when someone tells me in person or a letter that something that I wrote pleased them and led them onward from there. And in some cases upward.

God knows I never made the mistake of thinking that I was Herman Melville. I chickened out today. I was going to wear a t-shirt. I've got it in my suitcase. And finally I decided not to. And I wore this red one again. Red is supposed to be a power color. My shirt is the color of Donald Trump's tie. [ Laughter ] Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Anyway, I've got a shirt that says, "Real men read," and I wear it every chance that I get because I remember being sneered at as a kid sometimes. "There's Stevie," a farmer up the road sometimes said. "He's always got his nose in a book."

I have days when I'd like to go back in time, collar that tractor jockey in his John Deere cap and say, "That's right, Al. Always with my nose in a book. And this day, these days with my ass in a Mercedes." [ Laughter ] So suck on that! [ Applause ] It's an old fantasy, I admit, but I never pretended to be Mahatma Gandhi. [Laughter]

When I'm asked, as I sometimes am, how you inculcate a love of reading in a child, I think first of Tabby, the mother of my three children. Like me, she always had her nose in a book. I met her when we were students at the University of Maine. We were both working at the Fogler Library. But I fell in love with her at a poetry seminar we shared. Her poems were lyrical, elusive, mysterious, and she wore silk stockings.

One of our rites of courtship was reading to each other from Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice. While lying on the college lawn down by the Civil War cannons. She had memories of the Old Town Public Library. I having grown up in a much smaller berg had my own of the big green bookmobile that lumbered down our dirt road once a week in the summertime and parked in front of the one-room school where Miss [inaudible] taught all eight grades. I was in the fifth grade class when the bookmobile started its visits. And was the best student in my class. There were three of us. [ Laughter ]

Tabby and I both had library cards at the Bangor Public Library. When we said our I do's, and because one of our vows was what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine, we merged those cards in what we called a joint book account. We had a baby girl when we were married. Had another on the way. Call us crazy if you want, but we did. And at first the only job I could get was washing motel sheets and restaurant tablecloths in an industrial laundry.

Tab worked part-time at Dunkin' Donuts. She had the cutest pink uniform you ever saw in your life. I hardly need to say we didn't have much money. Our car was an old Buick constantly in danger of vomiting up its transmission. Our TV was a black and white portable that only got one station, and for a while we had no phone. Credit cards? Forget about it. But all through that period, we held onto our memberships in the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Literary Guild for dear life.

And I can still remember sitting on the rickety porch of the tenement apartment building in Bangor, our little girl playing in the dirt below us, Tabby reading some arduous American history tome, and me reading Larry McMutry's Moving On. That month's Literary Guild selection. I hold no nostalgic affection for the apartment which was a pit, but great affection for the books. And I want to point out that years later, our eldest son named his dog McMurtry. Most of our pets have names from writers, and the exception is our current corgi, Molly, who is a thing of evil. The less said about her, the better. [ Laughter ]

Anyway, the kids, the kids. We never kept them away from the television. We never did. We used it unashamedly as a babysitter between four in the afternoon and six in the evening which was the time of day that Tabby's mother, who raised eight kids, used to call "the hours God never should have made."

We never told them they must read, but they saw that the shelves were filled with books. And Mom and Dad never went any place without one in hand or tucked under an arm. We read to them every day of course, but not to improve their minds, but to amuse them, to stop the constant squabbling, and to keep them from ripping the [bleep] house apart on rainy days.

I became a connoisseur of kiddy lit. Enjoyed Dr. Seuss. Loved Maurice Sendak. Got a kick out of Curious George who was always up to crazy [bleep]. I could take the Berenstain Bears or leave them. The absolute bane of my existence was Richard Scarry. [ Laughter ] With these crowded and somehow unsettling pages of turtles, dogs, trucks, cats driving red racing cars. Bulldozers, serial killers, monsters from beyond the rim of time. I have PTSD flashbacks to those days. Two kids sitting on my lap, one with a leaky diaper, both of them wanting to know where's the rabbit in THIS one, Daddy?

Sometimes -- [ Laughter ] Sometimes, sometimes I felt like saying, "Let me take a nap. I'll think about it." One rainy day, desperate to entertain them before they drove us out of their minds, I bought two Marvel comics at the local drugstore, not knowing if the kids would like them. They seemed very wordy and more than a little violent for children of four and two. [ Laughter ] But my daughter enjoyed them, and my son went absolutely bug-[bleep] for them.

After that, thank god, Richard Scarry was gone. It was all Spiderman and The Avengers, the X-Men, The Fantastic Four. I hardly need to tell you, although I will with some pride that our son Joe, under the name of Joe Hill, has gone on to write three bestselling novels and 37 issues of his own comic book series, Lock & Key. [ Applause ] Yeah, he broke into the comic biz writing a Spiderman story for Marvel Comic Books. And he's very proud of that, but I consider it one of his lesser works.

Comics, man! I must have read about a thousand of those suckers before Naomi and Joe started to read on their own! By then Owen had come along, and he wanted G.I. Joe, day in and day out.

Owen has gone on to write an acclaimed collection of stories, We're All in This Together, and a wonderful and very funny novel called Double Feature. And I just finished collaborating with him on a very long novel called Sleeping Beauties. Yeah. [ Applause ] It's going to be published next year. He came to me with this dynamite idea, and there was no way I could say no. He's, I think, 37 now, and has a beautiful little daughter, wonderful family, and I'm still finding his [bleep]ing G.I. Joes in the sandbox down below the house. Every now and then I find one of those suckers.

Our daughter, a Wonder Woman fan, became a Unitarian minister who's written many engaging sermons. She's interested in multicultural issues, racial relations, and transgender issues. But she still enjoys a good rip-roaring fantasy novel. And now I am a grandfather of four, and they also read. Not because anyone told them they must, but because they grew up with books. And when you do that, reading them is the most natural thing in the world. I'm bragging on my kids, yes. But I'm also trying to make a point.

You know what I like? I like when I go into somebody's house, and I ask to use the bathroom, and I see a bunch of books beside the commode. When I see that, I know I'm with my peeps, you know what I'm saying? And that's the truth at all my kids' house. People who read on the toilet, as far as I'm concerned, good people. Good people. If kids see you enjoying books, the chances are they will enjoy books. As they do, they will begin to develop a critical sense, as I did at ten or so, when I had an a-ha moment and realized that the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were full of [bleep].

The change, changeover happened when I began borrowing Ed McBain novels from the bookmobile. Ed McBain wrote about some detectives at the 87th precinct. And one of those books they were chasing a bad guy, and they broke into an apartment and there's a lady sitting there in a slip, smoking a cigarette. And she grabs one of her breasts and squeezes and goes, "Pow, cops! In your eye!" I thought to myself, "Nancy Drew never did that." Know what I'm saying? It was an a-ha moment. I said, "This might actually be the real world."

This takes me back to what John Grisham said on that drive to the airport about how we're famous writers in a country that doesn't read much. That haunts me. Like me, John had no interest in being famous. What he wanted and what I wanted was only to be able to support my family, what we wanted to do, what we love, which was writing stories. Basically John and I are a couple of country boys who walked out, you know. Comes down to about that. We're lucky enough to know it.

The peculiar sort of thing that came along with our success was a troublesome side effect. And one most writers don't have to deal with. In many countries in Europe and Latin America, writers are ionized, even idolized. It's not the case here. The majority of Americans don't know who Richard Yates is or Margaret Atwood. Canadian, but still cool. Cindy [Inaudible], Michael Chabon. Nor do they care. Somebody recognized Jonathan Franzen. He was on Oprah, after all. Or maybe John Irving, but most writers slip by unnoticed. And maybe that's good. Maybe that's good.

As I said before when I started, writers are supposed to be secret agents. I do remember, you know, my book Carrie, I might have only gotten five people at that first signing. It turned out to be a pretty good seller in paperback. And I remember heading up to New York and getting on a Delta flight. And for the first time -- this is a magical moment for a writer. There are writers out there in the audience who know what I'm talking about. I saw a woman that I didn't know reading my book. She was reading Carrie. She was reading a paperback! Copy of Carrie! [Bleep]! So I said to myself, "Self, you're going to walk up to this lady, and say, 'How do you like that book?'" And when she says, "I love it!" I'm going to say, "I wrote it, and I'll sign it for you." Going to make her day.

Should never do that. [ Laughter ] You should never do that! So I walked up to the lady, and I said, "How do you like that book?" And she said, "I think it's [bleep]." [ Laughter ] And I said, "Okay. Thank you very much for your opinion." I said, "I won't be buying that one," which was true because I had, like, 50 copies sitting at home. This is not by and large a country where finding, seeing writers on the street and running after them, paparazzi, it doesn't -- it's not really a problem. Americans don't argue about books. We argue about TV shows, football scores and whether or not Tom Brady should have been suspended for four games. The answer is no! [ Laughter ]

There are, there are few book shows left on TV. We have Entertainment Tonight, and Inside Edition instead. Americans are so familiar with Miley Cyrus, Tom Cruise, and Kim Kardashian, -- dashian. I don't know. The tabloids don't even need to use their last names! See, that's it! They're just Miley, Tom, and Kim! They're like neighbors from down the street from whom we could borrow a cup of sugar just any old time.

I don't believe in the so-called dumbing down of America, but as everyday reading declines, and it has, analytical thought also declines. Reading is for fun. For me that's a big deal. But it also sharpens the nose for the unmistakable odor of [bleep].

My wife and I do what we can to support reading on our little patch by trying to support literacy on a local level. I'm conflicted about discussing that stuff in front of an audience Because on one hand, I grew up believing that giving was supposed to be a private thing and not a matter for self-aggrandizement. Or saying, "Look at what a great and generous guy I am." Which would be ridiculous anyway because I've been given a great deal, and I can afford to give back. And really, what's the downside? I'm not going to take it with me. There are no pockets in a shroud. On the other hand, it's a way of setting an example of saying, "Go and do thou likewise."

For my wife and me, libraries were a lifeline at a time when we could rarely afford books or even quarterback paperbacks. And the same is true for others today. We live in a rural state where many, most even, small town libraries are flat broke. It's because the small towns can't afford to support them, and the reason they can't is because the people in those towns vote for the dough to go to other places. Libraries are not seen as a priority when there are potholes in the road.

Sure, cash is tight, but it always is. The other part of the problem is this. We live in a society where many believe that libraries and other cultural endeavors, everything from Shakespeare in the Park to poetry slams and free concerts are of minor importance. As if learning to think is a thing that just happens naturally, like learning to walk. Believe me, it's not.

Learning to think is the result of hard work and steady effort. The result of this disregard is too much illiteracy or semi-illiteracy in a national population where large numbers of people are lazy thinkers without any of that nose for [bleep].

Politicians are allowed to slide by with generalities rather than specific. Note the way Donald Trump falls back on saying this and such is going to be HUGE! Or this and such is BEAUTIFUL. You know, any writer or reader worth his salt can only roll his eyes and say, "Those words by themselves mean absolutely nothing." Trump makes me wince not as a Democrat, which I am, but as a writer and reader. Listening to his speeches -- [ Applause ] Listening to his speeches is like listening to a piano fall downstairs. It's all dissonance and no music.

God, I'm going to miss Obama. I mean, the man could talk. Say whatever you want to. [ Applause ] The guy knew how to talk. It was poetry. There's always been music in the stuff that he says.

We're not dealing in generalities elected officials who are supposed to be the best, the smartest, often resort to outright misinformation as when the governor of my own state, Paul LePage, I love this. I love this. He told a town hall audience that asylum seekers were bringing the Zeke fly to Maine. The statement is mindboggling in its own right. That Governor Le Page might have believed it is more so. That many accept it as a fact is the most mind-boggling thing of all. It's like watching a grownup nod and say, "Yes, Santa, small sleigh, that makes sense, yeah."

The ability to think clearly and logically leads to good decision making, and I believe the ability to think clearly goes along with the ability to read. [ Applause ] The question, the question becomes how to grow literacy in America. Supporting those small town libraries is the way my wife and I chose to do it. Tip O'Neil once said, "All politics is local." And while he may have chosen the wrong verb, it's still an acute, an acute observation.

Literacy is local, too. It's why I tell people to support their local library, not just by going there, but kicking into the general fund when the place needs a new roof, new bathroom plumbing, or computers in the children's room. Don't expect local governments to do it, because in most cases they can't or they won't. The local thing is well, I patronize independent bookstores in my part of the world and urge others to do the same. It's why I visit schools. I tell them to turn off their [bleep] TV and put Facebook on hold two or three evenings a week and rediscover the joys of Treasure Island or Lord of the Flies or an article about the presidential campaign.

And of course, the most local literary endeavors of all involve reading to your own family. As I said, kids who see family members reading books are more apt to read books themselves.

I wanted to -- I don't want to keep you too long. Fanny fatigue and all that. You know, I was talking about being a secret agent and all that stuff. And how writers kind of slide by in this society and sometimes that's really a pretty great thing. My wife and I were down in Florida. This was before the law insisted that we had to move there. You know. We were down there for a vacation, and it was -- I think, I think it was in the '80s because I think by that time I had switched publishers to Scribners, Simon & Schuster.

But my wife and I were going to a movie, and you know, we were just headed there, walking down the street hand in hand. And there was this Lincoln Continental on the curb that was sitting on a flat tire. And this guy who was in a dinner jacket, you know, he was obviously going to a do. You know, he had a dinner jacket on. He looked really nice and everything. I'm walking along, my wife's in her jeans, I'm in my jeans. I'm wearing a t-shirt with some Red Sox guy on it or something.

And this guy looks at me, and he says, "Hey, bud! You want to make ten dollars?" [ Laughter ] And I said, "What?" And he said, "You change my tire, I'll give you ten dollars." Said, "If you change it in 15 minutes, my wife and I have got to go to this things. I can't get my dinner jacket dirty. If you can do it in 15 minutes, I'll give you 20." And I mean, the guy's got, like, the Rolex watch. He's got the, you know, the thing around his neck, the gold chain and everything. And the hair's all combed up.

And so I said, "Okay, I'll do that, I'll do that." Fifteen minutes, eh? And I say, "You got a jack and a spare and everything? "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he says. "I got all that stuff." So he opens the trunk. The car is running. His wife is sitting inside in the passenger seat. It's Naples, Florida. It's like 90 degrees. She's wearing a fur coat. That's why she's sitting in the car, the air conditioning is going. I said, "Well look, the flat's on this side. Maybe your wife would like to get out. It might be better while I jack it up." Looks in and speaks to her. She's going, "Umm-Umm. No way."

So I jacked up the car, and I got the tire off. My wife's rolling her eyes like [inaudible]. And this guy is like tapping me on the shoulder and going like this with his watch, you know? "Hurry it up, son." So I get the spare on, and I tighten the lug nuts, and put on the hub cap. And my wife asks me, and says, "You're not really going to take that money, are you?" And I said, "You're [bleep]ing right I am." [ Laughter ] I said, "This is the first honest work I've done in 20 years!" [ Laughter ] So that's one side of it.

Now, I rattled on longer than I meant. But I do, I've got to tell you this one more story. See, once I get started, I can't stop. But -- [ Cheers ] This is the other side of that coin, okay? I wrote a book called Christine, back in the day. And -- [ Applause ] It's like being in a Lynyrd Skynyrd movie. Playing Freebird. In a way. In a small way. So anyway, I wrote this book called Christine, had all these song lyrics at the beginning of it. And I knew this guy named Dave Marsh, and I wanted to use some lyrics from a songwriter and singer named Bruce Springsteen.

And so I got in touch with Dave. And you know, a lot of the people, song privileges, when you use them, the permissions that they want, they ask you for a lot of money. But Bruce and Bob Dylan have always been good about that. They ask for, like, fifty dollars because they control all their rights. And so I got the rights to the song, and Dave Marsh said, "The next time you're in New York, Bruce would like to have dinner with you. Would you like to have dinner with Bruce Springsteen?" I'm like, "Well, let me think about that a little bit. Gee, I don't know."

This was around the time of the Nebraska album, so he had, you know, come on the scene. I loved his work, man. I don't know how you can grow up in a working class community and not like Bruce. Anyway, so that happened, actually. So Dave gets in touch with me, and he says, "Well, it's this little supper place. It's like an Irish steam table kind of place on the Eastside."

So I went down there, and Bruce was sitting at the bar and having a white wine. And we went and sat in the back, and we ordered our food. And we're talking about books and music and movies and all this stuff. We're having a great time. And these three people came in, and you knew there was a story right there because it was a man and a woman, and they're middle-aged. And it was a girl of about 16 who was dressed to the nines in a nice dress with an empire waist and the hair was done, and she looked so happy. Her parents were happy, too. And they sat down somewhere and ordered, and there was a birthday cake. It was her birthday. She was like 16 or 17 years old.

And you know how they do in a restaurant. There's the cake, there's the candles, and two or three of the wait staff sing Happy Birthday, and you know, people clap, and Bruce and I and Dave Marsh clapped. And they had their cake. So she happened to look over our way. And her eyes just widened, and she got up, and I'll never forget it because it was like she was in this dream, you know. And she just walked toward us. It was like she was walking on air.

And Bruce was wearing a denim jacket, and he reached inside to get his pen. She never [bleep]ing looked at him. [ Laughter ] Okay? She never did! [ Applause ] She said, she said, "Are you Stephen King?" I said, "Why, yeah." She said, "Did you write The Stand?" And Bruce Springsteen is just killing himself laughing. She said, "Can I have your autograph?" Best autograph that I ever gave. [ Laughter ] And you're the best audience that I've ever had.

This is great. [ Applause ] I got this wonderful medal, and I get to be here. And boy, I'll tell you what. I'm a cheap date, and this is really nice. We're going to be done. We've got about ten minutes. Do you have a question or two? Something you want to ask me? [ Laughter ] Nobody? Hello? Uh, hello? Hi! Hey!

>> Geez, that's loud! Crazy! Anyway, I was just wondering if you have any plans to, or can tell us a progress report on the third Jack Sawyer novel with Peter Straub?

>> Stephen King: Yeah, Peter and I wrote a book called The Talisman. Then we wrote another one called Black House, and with any luck, we will start the third one in February next year. [ Applause ] We know just what it's supposed to be, so. Anything else?

>> Being from New Jersey, and you're a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, what's your favorite Bruce Springsteen song?

>> Stephen King: That's crazy, that's like asking you know, what's the best movie that you ever saw? There are so many Bruce Springsteen songs that I like, that I love. I guess maybe Rosalita, Come Out Tonight.

>> Thank you.

>> We were going down to Florida with my teenage son. And of course, didn't have devices then and so on. And he said, "Well, how about a book? I've got some Stephen King books?" And he said, "No, I don't think I want to read that."

>> Stephen King: Yeah, you don't want to read that.

>> So what I gave him, I gave him the Bachman Books, and it was like a gateway drug to your books. [ Laughter ]

>> Stephen King: That's the first time anybody ever called me a gateway drug!

>> So I just wanted to ask the background, why you used that --

>> Stephen King: He started out on Bachman and then he was on heroin of Stephen King. [ Applause ]

>> No, I just wondered if you could give me a little background on why you decided to do the Bachman Books.

>> Stephen King: Well, the thing was there was a time when publishers thought that if you published more than one book a year or possibly every 18 months, you were overpublishing. And I had this period that I went through that was extremely productive, and this stuff just poured out of me. The new stuff that was being published year by year, Carrie, Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Stand, Nightshift, and all that. But I had these other books, some of which had been written on my teenage years. They all weren't good. And some never should see the light of day and never will. But there were a couple like Long Walk and -- [ Applause ] Road Work that I thought were pretty good. So they got, they were published as paperback originals. And the original name that I decided to publish those books under was my grandfather's name, Guy Pillsbury. And I got a panic call from the editor two or three days before the books went to press and said, "Oh, the copyright got out, and it's under your name. And people will find out this is -- that Guy Pillsbury is you. So you need another name, and you need it right away." And I was reading a paperback novel by Richard Stark, and Bachman Turner Overdrive was on the stereo. So I said, "Call me Richard Bachman," and that's what happened. [ Applause ]

>> Do you read books once or over and over?

>> Stephen King: I read very few over and over. There are books like Lord of the Flies. There's a wonderful novel by Thomas Williams called Whipple's Castle. The Hannibal Lecter Trilogy by Thomas Harris. Those books I've read over and over again. But there are so many books that I have more of a tendency to -- you know, like anybody else, I have favorite writers that I like that I have a tendency to go back to again and again. People like John Sanford. I never miss a John Sanford book. There's a writer, Dutch writer named Herman Koch that I really enjoy. Of course, like everybody else in the world, I read those books about Lisbeth Salander. I didn't think the guy was much of a writer, but geez, could he ever narrate! So I like those. So I have a tendency to move along because you only get so many books. I'm haunted sometimes by the thought of all the great books that I've missed somewhere along the line. But it's like having misplaced socks, but only worse. Something else? I'm going as fast as I can because they're going to kick us all out of here.

>> I didn't have a single question. I just wanted you to stand still so I could get an unfettered picture. [ Cheers ]

>> Stephen King: Standing still is foreign to my nature. And listen, you know, being up here scares the [bleep] out of me! Okay? That's a lot of lot of people. I'm a guy who does my best work in a room all by myself. Of course I'm also a guy who does his best work in a room with somebody else. But -- ah. I'm just -- all I'm doing is stylin' a little bit wit cha. That's it. Let's do, like two more quickies, and then you can all go get lunch. We'll break for lunch. Anything?

>> Hi, Mr. King.

>> Stephen King: Hi.

>> I just want to say first as a writer, you've been a great inspiration, so thank you very much.

>> Stephen King: You're welcome, thank you.

>> I was just wondering, what scares you? [ Laughter ]

>> Stephen King: I'm looking at him. I mean. [ Laughter ] I mean, the little things like, there are little things like you say, "Okay, I'm standing in front of 1000, 2000 people. Did I zip my fly before I came out here?" And you know, to be absolutely dead serious, I'm scared to death of Alzheimer's Disease. Senility. I live by my wits, and I'm afraid of my wits slipping away. Otherwise, I'm afraid of -- geez, I guess just about everything! Spiders are a great big no-no with me. I hate the idea of spiders, and of course a lot of this stuff was inculcated in me at a very young age. My mother started us off on Bambi, and then moved directly onto Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And one of her favorite stories was she talked about -- she was one of, I think, eight or nine kids. Grew up in Scarborough, Maine. This was around the turn of the century. And once a week a guy came along, and he would trade stuff. And he had gum for the kids. And you had to chew that piece of gum all week. So my mother had this gum. You know, you chew it and put it on the bedpost at night. And it would harden up, and the next morning you'd have to pop it in, soften it up so it was good to go for another day. And one night after my mother put her gum on the bedpost, a moth came down and lit on it and got stuck. And when she woke up the next morning, she didn't look. She just popped her gum into her mouth. She said she bit it in half, and the two halves were fluttering inside her mouth. And I thought to myself, "Mom, at some point I'm going to use that." [ Laughter ] And that's just what I did. One more.

>> Alright, thank you very much real quick. Dark Tower is my favorite book series of all time. [ Cheers ] So I'm curious, as an author that's had so many movies written from their books, how nervous or worried do you get when someone like Roland, who you've spent so much time with, is going to be put up on the big screen?

>> Stephen King: Well, I'm more nervous about this than I am most of them. In most cases, my feeling is if somebody buys a book to make a movie out of or a TV series, it's like sending a kid off to college, okay? You hope that they're going to do a good job, and that they're not going to get into trouble, and they're not go to get expelled and they're not going to be arrested or anything like that. But every now and then, that happens. You just hope for the best. And man, I've had terrific luck, you know, between Shawshank, which I really did write, by the way. And the Green Mile and Misery and Stand by Me. There have been a bunch of stuff -- thank you. But remember, I didn't write those movies. I just wrote the source, although I think a lot of times the movies are better. This is just my personal opinion. But when they stick closer to the source, they tend to be a little better. But the fans of The Dark Tower are so, so loyal, so -- I started to say rabid, but that was the wrong word. Made me think of Cujo. But they care about those books, so I want the movies to be good. I'm a little bit nervous about it. But you know, it's a thrill. It's going to be a thrill. I've seen some of the dailies and some of the rushes from the movie, and it looks right. So I've got my fingers crossed. Listen, you guys have been great to me. Thank you so much! [ Applause ] Thank you.

>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at LOC.com.