 Please join me in welcoming my colleague Andre Dabuse and Mr. Stephen King. This is Stevie King. He's wicked smart. How does that make you feel knowing to scare so many people and what scares you? I love it to scare people. Obviously because I've done a lot and I never set out to do that per se. People will say, do you mind if I call you a horror writer? And my response is you can call me whatever you want as long as I can do whatever it is that I'm doing and continue to feed my family and pay for the heating oil and that sort of thing. That's great. People will say, do you keep a notebook? And the answer is I think a writer's notebook is the best way in the world to immortalize bad ideas. My idea about a good idea is one that sticks around and sticks around and sticks around. To me it's like if you were to put breadcrumbs in a strainer and shake it, which is what the passage of time is for me. It's like shaking a strainer. All this stuff that's not very big and not very important just kind of dissolves and falls out. But the good stuff stays. The big pieces stay. I had the idea for Under the Dome when I was teaching high school back in 1973. And it was just too big for me. And I was too young for it. And I wrote about 25, 26 pages and put it away. My method for starting anything is I tell myself the story when I'm laying in bed at night before I go to sleep. I'll tell myself this story. And so at some point probably nine months after this. Because this is what it's like, you know, a little piece of grit and it makes a pearl after a while. You just have to give it time. And if it doesn't happen, it doesn't. But a lot of times it does. Having seen King of UMass Lowell is the coolest thing ever. Because I am actually a huge fan of his work. It's just fantastic to see him in person and see what he's like. To listen to him speak and learn how much of a guy he is, which is really interesting to see. The fact that I would have this opportunity as an English major, especially to hear about his take on writing and his process and his point of view on his books is something that is incredible. We really appreciate Mr. King's generosity that what would be his normal speaker fee, which is sizable, he donated back to the university to endow a scholarship in his and his wife's name. I've been so fortunate in terms of my work and the return that when I do something like this, I always try to turn it back over to the institution that asked me to come. It works two ways. One is it gains me some goodwill. And two is it means that I don't do it a lot because I like to spend my energy on the writing. But it's great when it gets reused like that. Great job. This is wonderful. You know, I mean, I make all these things up and you know, people who do that, like go to psychiatrist. What you always want is for reader identification so that the people, the guys who read that book will say, I would love to have a girlfriend like that. I would love to be in love that way and have the women say, I'd love to meet a man like that. And if you succeed on that level, I think that it's really good because I'm as much of a sucker for a love story, particularly if it's a little bit of a star-cross love story as anybody else. I got this reputation as a horror writer and everything, but I've really got a marshmallow for a heart. So often when you get out there in life, people say, you want to be a writer, there's no money in that. Jesus, unless you want to write green cards, that might work. So I think that college is an important place because it gives you a chance to grow. And people take seriously what you want to do. College is great because, you know, maybe there's a tuition cost, but the dreams are free and that's a good thing. But yes, I have scared myself. I wrote a book called Pet Cemetery and I got pretty scared toward the end of that book kind of, you know, oh boy, just some of the things. It was very black. And when I finished the book, I actually put it in a drawer because I didn't think anybody would want to read anything like that. I know it's colder up in Maine than it is in Lowell, so we wanted to present you with a token of our appreciation. Listen, you guys have been great to me and I really appreciate it. It's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.