For those of you that are on Twitter, check out me being interviewed by Herbert West on Lilja’s Library’s Twitter page. This interview is being done in Twitter format and since you can only use 140 letters in each post each question and answer is quite short and they appear irregularly on the site. Still though, it should be an interesting way to do an interview.
The moderator of King's board sheed some light over the lengt of the stories in Full Dark, No Stars. Here is a list of the number of manuscript pages each story has. Remember though that this is manuscript pages and the page length in the finished book will not be the same but the relative size will remain the same.
1922: 96 manuscript pages A Good Marriage: 63 manuscript pages Big Driver: 82 manuscript pages Fair Extension: 25 manuscript pages
According this post on King's message board we'll hear everything about about his participation in the TV series Sons of Anarchy:
Following up on the report by ew.com that Steve will be doing a cameo for the FX series, Sons of Anarchy, he has asked me to let you know that he will give you a full report of his adventures. He will be filming his part later this month in California.
Here is the description of Full Dark, No Stars from Amazon.co.uk:
'I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger...' writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up '1922', the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerising tales from Stephen King, linked by the theme of retribution. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife Arlette proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness.
In 'Big Driver', a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger is along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book-club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face to face with another stranger: the one inside herself.
'Fair Extension', the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Harry Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.
When her husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips, Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It’s a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends 'A Good Marriage'.
Like DIFFERENT SEASONS and FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT, which generated such enduring hit films as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, FULL DARK, NO STARS proves Stephen King a master of the long story form.
Entertainment Weekly reports that King will make a cameo on Sons of Anarchy:
Stephen King will make a special appearance on Sons of Anarchy when the biker drama returns for a third season on FX this September. King, who is a columnist for Entertainment Weekly, will play a quiet loner who appears in Gemma’s (Katey Sagal) time of need. The producers learned that King was a fan of the drama, so they reached out to the author for a possible cameo. King will appear in the third episode.
This means you can either visit the site, follow what’s happening on facebook, by mail updates or on Twitter. Hopefully this gives each and every one of you a way to follow my updates on the site that you feel comfortable with. If so, please spread the word and wither way let me know your thoughts on this.
Here is an audio clip with King:
Today on Word of Mouth, Virginia's conversation with Stephen King, the "master of horror" and author of over 50 novels, including his most recent work, Under the Dome. He visited The Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH, for the "Writers on a New England Stage" series. He reads from his newest work and talks about his books, film adaptations, and his career.
When Cemetery Dance got the OK for Blockade Billy things had to happen fast. Because of this they did one galley of the book (the white galley) in a very low number (below 20). Of these 4 where sent out to reviewers who needed the book early. Here is what Richard Chizmar said about it in an interview I did with him:
Lilja: So the first edition is limited to just 10,000 copies. Were there any proofs for the book?
Richard Chizmar: Because of time constraints, we actually needed to produce two states of the ARC (Advanced Reading Copies). The first (with a plain white cover) was only sent to four trade reviewers from places like PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY, BOOKLIST, etc, because they needed the ARCs so far in advance. The rest of the reviewers were sent an ARC featuring the full color artwork 2-3 weeks later.
This galley will be very hard to find by here you can see what it looks like.
OK, a few days ago I killed of the email subscription list I ran in favor for the new facebook group. This I did because sending out the mails finally became too much work for me and I thought facebook would be a god alternative. Most of you agreed with me but quite a lot of you have also been disappointed with not getting the mails each day. Well, I have listened to you and as of now you can get mail updates again. My friend Herbert West told me about a way to send out mails automatically so I'll try it. After all, I want all of my readers to be happy.
So, click this link and follow the instructions. The first mail will probably go out tomorrow. Please know though that there will only be one mail sent out each day so if you want instant updates it’s still facebook or RSS feed you’ll have to use.
Oh, and please tell me what you think about the new list.
Dread Central caught up with Mick Garris when he attended the “Never Sleep Again” signing event held this weekend at Dark Delicacies in Burbank.
Garris told them he’ll be directing a four-hour miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s Bag of Bones which fans will be able to check out on network television sometime in 2011.
"Bag of Bones is something we tried to do as a feature for two or three years," Garris told them. "But the way features are now, if it's not about teenagers or a sequel or a remake, forget it. We wanted to do something much more adult and passionate than studios are making now. It's a ghost story for grown-ups. Television is the only place you can do that."
Production on Bag of Bones is set to begin in June in Alaska. Garris also added that they will hopefully be casting their lead this week so stay tuned.
King comments on The Dark Tower movie:
"It looks good. Things are happening and they are happening fast but any reports you see might be taken with a grain of salt for the next couple of weeks. You will know the news from the official source as soon as we are able to post it."
It looks like there is some conflicting info about what the format for The Dark Tower will be. THR says one feature film and then a TV series and Deadline a trilogy and then a TV series.
I'm still looking for confirmation about this but it would be so much easier if Ron Howard could just e-mail me :-)
Very interesting information surfaced recently. If it’s correct King’s Dark Tower books is set to be a screen trilogy and TV series. Exactly what this means isn’t all that clear. Is it three TV movies? That will be extremely hard to succeed with. Is it three TV series with say 12 episodes each? That would work. Can Akiva Goldsman (script), Ron Howard (directing) and Brian Grazer (producer) pull it off? I have no idea. And, what happened JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof? I have no idea.
I’m working on getting more info on this as we speak so stay tuned. In the meantime, check out the full news (as it was reported by Deadline below.
Here is an excerpt from the audio edition of Blockade Billy.
Hodder & Stoughton also told me today that they will be using the same cover for their edition as Scribner does. The UK edition is released on May 25th.
BlockadeBilly will be released as a limited edition by Lonely Road Books later this year. However, the book is already sold out so if you’re still looking to get one you need to get on the waiting list. And even that is not guarantee that you’ll get one…
Here are the information about the books: Limited Edition:
Just 350 hand-numbered copies printed on a high quality paper stock (different from any other edition) and featuring a fine leather binding, two color printing throughout the book, a color frontispiece by Glen Orbik, eleven interior illustrations by Alex McVey, a sewn-in ribbon page marker, a custom deluxe traycase with pullout ribbon, an illustrated signature sheet signed by the artists, and Stephen King's first-ever baseball card, SIGNED by King as his way of signing this special edition. Also includes a copy of the authentic William "Blockade Billy" Blakely baseball card Cemetery Dance printed for their 1st edition hardcover ($450) Lettered Edition:
52 hand-lettered copies with all of the special features of the Limited Edition plus a "THREE PIECE" binding featuring a special Japanese cloth and a fine leather, an exclusive artwork page in each book featuring an original piece of artwork to make EACH copy unique, a bonus art portfolio featuring Limited Edition prints of the artwork from the book, and a deluxe hand-made custom box ($1,250)
Bloody Discusting reported:
Adam Kane ("The Mentalist," "Heroes") will be directing the pilot for the Stephen King-created supernatural series "Haven" for the Syfy Channel. Production has started with Lunenburg, Nova Scotia standing in for the fictitious Maine town of Haven, where Emily Rose ("Damages") plays an FBI agent solving the murder of a local ex-con. The pilot's ensemble cast includes Lucas Bryant, Eric Balfour, Richard Donat and John Dunsworth. The project centers on a spooky town in Maine where cursed folk live normal lives in exile. When those curses start returning, FBI agent Audrey Parker is brought in to keep those supernatural forces at bay -- while trying to unravel the mysteries of Haven.
I just spoke to Mick Garris and he confirmed that discussions are being held with a major TV network to bring Bag of Bones to the small screen. He hopes to be able to share more news with us soon.
The facebook launch of Lilja’s Library yesterday is officially a success. In the last 24 hours more than 300 of you have joined and the numbers are growing as we speak. I also want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your nice comments and kind posts about Lilja’s Library since I haven’t had the chance to do it personally.
Today Lilja’s Library premiers on facebook. To be honest I didn’t think joining facebook would be a good idea for Lilja’s Library but since quite a few of you have told me that I need to get Lilja’s Library on facebook I have. Now we just have to wait and see if it was a good idea…