 Good evening and welcome to the Songas Center here at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. It's great to have you here This is part of our speaker series that we're sponsoring here at the university One of the reasons we wanted to have this Songas Center was to make it a student convocation center Where we had events just like this and we are delighted to have Arthur Stephen King here this evening Think about it for 35 years Stephen King has been at the top of his profession What a tremendous career and he's here tonight 50 books 350 million copies printed 50 of his works have become either movies or television programs He is clearly one of the incredible literary giants of our time and we're delighted to have him here an amazing thing about him Being here tonight as he has decided and his wife Tabitha have decided That he is not going to accept any money tonight and he's going to donate a hundred percent of his fee to scholarships for UMass Lowell students So that means a hundred percent of the proceeds for tonight are going to go to scholarships for students in our English Department and I have to tell you We have a fabulous English department at UMass Lowell led by Tony Seschel. I don't where is Tony? Right here They're a fabulous department without standing faculty and they have been on a roll this year We celebrated a collaboration with the National Park here in Lowell Dickens in Lowell, which is a celebration of Charles Dickens 200th birthday, but also his visit to the city of Lowell in 1842 It was a great event and then we also collaborated with the Merrimack Repertory Theater because Jack Kerouac is from Lowell and His his only play full play that he wrote was a collaboration with our English department beat generation and That got worldwide attention and that's our English department They are co-sponsors of tonight's event as well and again all the proceeds go to the English department now These are two very nice chairs. I like to I like to market Now Stephen King is going to sign both of these chairs and there's an auction may many of you may have seen it It's $10 a ticket and a hundred percent of the proceeds will go to scholarships for our students who are English mages So I would urge any of you they're all going to be on sale in the concourse throughout This event so if you haven't bought one or you want to up your chances of winning Feel free to buy a raffle for this I'm going to call actually we're going to we call this a Conversation with I also by the way want to thank our sponsors tonight They have all contributed to make this event a success and thank you to all of the sponsors We call this a conversation with Stephen King and that conversation is going to be held With one of our fabulous fabulous faculty members in the English department Andre debuts the third now I Would never call somebody my favorite faculty member. However He is a fabulous author. He's already written of five books Two of them the New York Times bestseller. In fact the book Townie if you haven't read it yet It's on sale tonight and I didn't ask me to do this, but it's on sale tonight. It's a fabulous book It's a memoir and any of you who have grown up either in the Merrimack Valley or in any urban area anywhere in the world This is a fabulous read and I would encourage you to read it, but we are so Pleased to have under debuts the third on our faculty. He grew up in the Merrimack Valley. He identifies with students he's a fabulous faculty member and Andre is going to be sort of having this conversation with Stephen King. Please welcome under debuts the third and Stephen King I think we ought to stop right here. This is the high point. This is it brother and good night So nice nice to see you all glad you came out try a little soiree It's scary as shit to see so many people This is this is my first stadium show Yeah So here's what I want to do We're gonna kind of divide the night up into three parts Mr. King and I are gonna shoot the breeze for about half an hour about various subjects And then we have a real special treat He's gonna debut a brand new short story that no one's heard laid eyes on or read It's world premiere is right here at the strongest arena Andre thinks it's special because he hasn't read it And so and then after he reads we're going to turn it over to you guys and do some just a conversation Q&A with mr. King Let me just jump in for a second on a little Intro about my friend when did I become mr. King to you? All right. Well, I'm I Call him Stevie. He calls me Andre Dubas So I'll call we'll do that Look, it's you call me anything you want as long as the check doesn't bounce Did Marty mention that by the way Okay, look The truth is this man needs no introduction, but I do want to say just a couple of things about about Steve Never mind the 350 million books sold worldwide By the way You probably don't know that you've outsold Charles Dickens times two It's incredible Didn't have ebooks never mind yeah ebooks never mind the 50 some odd film adept adaptations Some of which were good Never mind his wicked good American Express commercial We'll talk about that You're dating yourself. Yeah, I am dating myself Ray And also Steve's won dozens and dozens of prestigious awards including the National Book Foundations Distinguished honor for American letters contribution to American letters and there's another award a lot people don't know about that I think is is really germane here Poets and writers magazine gave him the writers for writers award Because the man is really generous with writers who will never have his readership or even a fraction of it I just I want to tell a quick story that we're gonna start We met 25 years ago. Do you believe that 25 years ago? I was told He was six if a lot of you may know that my father was the great short story writer on Dread Abuse We were younger and hornier in those days. Yeah, that's right. We were I speak for yourself by the being We'll be here all week folks really my father my father was a run-over and crippled in a car accident in 1986 and Steve King John Irving eel doctoral about six or seven other real prominent writers Chipped in their talents to raise money from my father's astronomical medical bills. He couldn't pay and so the first time I met Steve was in 1987 the Charles Hotel When he was reading from a story that I still remember about a woman who was cleaning the closet and accidentally shoots herself And doesn't realize it till the end of the day revelations of Beckham Paulson later became a part of a book called the Tommy knockers the Tommy knockers So I we're gonna get to it, but Truly what I love about this man even more than his profound work and contribution to American letters is He's a good man, and he's a giving man, and he's a generous man, and it shows by Jesus You made me sound like I died you ain't dead yet So it's generosity now. I'm gonna throw out a few softballs, and he's just gonna win. He's gonna hit them. I Need my glasses though hold on Steve tell the joker. I'm looking for my glasses. Okay. You're looking for your glasses. Yeah, I'm looking for my glasses All right, I'm gonna read a quote from by the way for all of you writers out there If you have not read Steven's on writing a memoir of the craft you must it's a beautiful book This is like Steve King's greatest hits Oh way three bird Like you light your lighters later You know, I don't know what these questions are and we have not rehearsed. I'm just gonna say fuck. Yeah Okay, in the in the green room. We just told dirty jokes. So here we go You told dirty jokes Yeah, but you let I talked about literature All right, I'm gonna get serious now. He says they're gonna be softball questions. So here we go This is a quote from on writing and I love it for very many reasons Primarily because not enough writers talk about it in this way talk about the the craft of writing Stories are found relics part of an undiscovered Pre-existing world Stephen King says he also says he's against plotting and The spot because plotting and the spontaneity of real creation are not compatible Expouns her Like taking the SATs I Think myself That you know, I don't start with a story That's I was telling a writing class today that the Kind of the scariest thing I ever heard I was doing a writing thing with John Irving who put that thing together for your dad By the way, and it's worth mentioning that when Andre's dad was hurt. He had stopped to help another pedestrian and that's how that happened But in any case John Irving when he was talking to a bunch of would-be writers one time said that the first thing He does with a book is write the last line of that book and I heard that and I just went You know like that because to me That's kind of like spoiling the fun. I like to start with a little bit of an idea You know they come from different places Sometimes they stick around and you want to do something sometimes they don't but the idea is to start with something and just start to go with it, you know and that's the joy of finding things out of having characters that just sort of Walk on and become a big part of the story when I wrote the green mile. I had no idea where Thank you. Thank you. I had no idea where that was going I started with an idea about a guy who was in prison and he was the snack guy Who went around he was a trustee and he went around with a snack wagon and he had a little tame mouse That wrote on the on the cart and of course The mouse made it into the story, but the rest of it didn't but little by little It just sort of built itself up in the way that the pieces came together at the end was terrific I like that, but how did the guy in pushing the cart down the prison hallway come to you? It just came and that was where it started and those are the sort of the mysterious parts of it Sometimes there's no way to say where things come from. I know that Back around 1976 or 1977 I had a Honda 500 motorcycle and it started to miss and Jerk and and I didn't really know how to fix it. I messed around with a little bit and this guy said Well, there's a fellow about seven miles up out in the woods Who's really good with small engines and he's got this unique way of doing business? He says what a thing is going to cost and that that's what it ends up costing you So I thought that was a good idea So I got on my motorcycle and I drove out there to this guy's farm and it really was out in East GPP So I got out there and there was a little tiny farmhouse and there was this big barn And I could hear him inside working with stuff I got into the door yard and the motorcycle died on me and Out of this barn came the biggest goddamn Saint Bernard dog you ever saw in your life and He started to walk toward me and I hear And you know their eyes are sort of pussy. Have you ever noticed that about Saint Bernard's particularly when it's warm They kind of get this look coming out of him and the guy who ran the place came out He was wearing overalls and he had a he had an adjustable Socket wrench on a you know on a ball thing and he said oh, that's Buster He does that to everyone, but he loves people. He won't hurt you so I Reached down which you should never do to a dog to Buster to show him what a good guy I was and Buster just went down on his haunches I mean this was dog was a hundred and fifty hundred and sixty pounds He just went down and he started to come up and that guy brought that socket wrench down on him It was like a rug beater heating a rug and the dog just shrank down and there wasn't a word of apology He just said Buster must not like your looks And I'm like Well, I don't like his looks very much either But that kind of stuck in my mind and I thought to myself well I was on my motorcycle and unprotected, but what if because it's always a what if that's kind of like the magic thing What if the guy hadn't been here and what if I was in a little car that stopped and it was hot And that was sort of the genesis for Kujo, you know Yeah And actually John Irving I think is unusual in in I don't think a lot of novice outline their stories It's very smart and good at it, but So you begin with a situation first and characters second the characters come as you're exploring the situation That's fueled by the question. What if yeah, I mean I could say About Kujo Okay, we're talking about a woman finally. I decided it was going to be a woman Who wants to protect her son and then little by little that character starts to develop like an old-fashioned film play in Developing fluid so you say to yourself. Well, okay, this is how old she is. This is what her background is This is what she does. She's cheating on her husband. That's another fact and a lot of the things just sort of Come together work together and you let them that's the thing you don't try to manage these people or push them Around you just sort of let them be what they're going to be. It's good It's 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 psychiatrists And they pay like 70 bucks an hour and it's not a phone hour. It's like 50 minutes I Make all this shit up and people pay me Thank you All right, so you guys put my kids through college and I scared the shit out of you while I was doing it It's terrific It's a win-win All right Pete speaking of people paying you so I told Steve I did I did give him a little hand about what I might be Doing so I'm gonna ask a few craft questions and I'm gonna ask a few glitzy fame and fortune business questions And I'm gonna ask the big one up front About the fact is it is really rare for a writer to be as recognizable as this man is Maybe since him in ways days him you was a really recognizable writer But I have to give you a quick story from a few years ago about how famous this guy is So we did this remember that thing we did the four or six club at Fenway Park, right? And it was about baseball writing and uptack was there and Doris Kern. It's a good one It was a lovely night anyway The next day this guy you remember there was a big wasn't there a big thunderstorm that night. Yeah, it was raining. Yeah, and Why are you asking I just Making conversation Yes, see if it was raining wicked hats so what? So anyways the next thing thunderstorm it was scary was like the end of the world The next day the poor man's just walking across the street to get a cup of coffee The Verizon a Verizon truck drives by and the driver of the Verizon truck yells yo That's Boston, I mean that kind of thing does happen from time to time in Boston, you know, it's really all right So look no coffee you rock But that does not happen to any other writer maybe JK Rowling now, but they wouldn't be that they wouldn't say Yo JK love your baby won't happen my favorite story is like Probably maybe 25 years ago when my hair was actually dark and I had it. I had a black beard I had a big black beard and I was not I was a writer I mean, we're supposed to be the secret agents of the arts Okay, we cruise around and see what you guys are doing and end up putting it in books So this is a strange situation for me So about 25 years ago when I really was kind of a secret agent I'd published maybe six or seven books, but you know, it wasn't a big deal And I went in Nathan's the hot dog place in New York And I got up to the counter I sat down on the stool and I ordered a foot long, you know And you know one of those orange drinks or something. I'm sipping my drink and I'm waiting for my hot dog And I look through the pass-through into the kitchen and the cooks look at me and he sees me looking at him He's right away. He's cooking again cooking again. So I go back. I'm reading my book I read just about everywhere and I'm reading my book and I look up. Oh He's done So finally he comes out and I'm thinking of myself now remember I had the big beard and I had on the dark 70s type glasses. It's embarrassing now, but that's the way we rolled back then. That's always to it So he walks out and I think to myself This guy Recognize me. He knows who I am. He walks up to me. He goes. Are you somebody famous? And I say Well a little bit He says, you know, like you do something artistic, right? I got well Not all critics agree I like to think so he says you're Francis Ford Coppola, aren't you? And I said yes, I am Because everybody who does this you me everybody else who does this we're fucking liars You know, how do you know we're lying our mouths are moving? So he asked me for an autograph and I gave him one And did I regret that? The hell I did I thought it was great, but the other thing is people do this cross Check thing in their brains and they'll come up to me and say Steven Spielberg And I'll say yes But I gotta tell you I gotta tell you one story and then we'll get back to this cuz cuz I love this I Knew a guy named Dave Marsh because he used to be in the critics course in this group called a rock bottom remainder sir I play a little rhythm guitar and One day this goes back Quite a ways, you know like 20 years and he says to me Bruce Springsteen would like to meet you would you like to have dinner with Bruce Springsteen? And I said, oh, yes, that would be nice So we did we went to this little cafe down in the village And it was you know a bar in front tables in the back and we were sitting in he's really nice guy and and we're having You know corned beef and cabbage sandwiches or whatever and beer because I was still drinking in those days and So This party came in there was a husband and a wife Their daughter who was about 16 years old and all you had to do is to look at her and know it was a special day for her Probably her birthday. Maybe your parents were taking her out for that But she had on this white blouse and a necklace a gold necklace in this nice Skirt it was multicolored and she was wearing her best Shoes and everything and her hair was done and they're sitting in there eating and all this other stuff And then she looks over like that And she just like flipped, you know, I mean it wasn't like she screamed or anything like that but she got up and She walked to our table and it was like her feet didn't touch the floor She was like a sleepwalker dream walker something this beautiful 16 year old girl and I could see Bruce getting his pen out of his pocket She never fucking looked at it. Yeah She said are you Stephen King? I've read almost all your books. I died for your autographs And that that was the apex of it, you know what? What's so great about that story is I think I think so many writers won't be rock-and-roll stars man So that's so sweet. I gotta and look if it's too personal and tell me to shut up I know you will but there's gotta be a downside to not be able to walk across the street without the Verizon truck The first time that I ever gave an autograph, you know You do this thing where and some of you heard this story before but I never get tired of telling it because it's like a trauma It's like one of those basic traumas of your life. I'm gonna make it real short I did a tour was the first book tour It was for the shining and I did it with Kitty Kelly who wrote at that time. She had a book about Frank Sinatra My mother used to call him Frankie the snot, but that's beside the point and Jersey Kuzinsky was with us too So we did this tour and we ended up in a lot of cities and the last one was Pittsburgh and in those days You did this thing where you did all the media that you could and the local paper put on a dinner at night and there's pictures and all that other stuff and This thing was way up in this fancy restaurant on what they call the incline in in Pittsburgh and I got sick I mean, I really got sick. It was Montezuma's revenge and I don't want to get all Clinical about it, but I'll just say that I rushed to the bathroom and the bathroom was Babylonian I mean it was this huge thing and everything and there was an attendant and the only thing was the stalls didn't have doors You just but I was beyond caring about that, you know I went in there and everything came out. They could possibly come out. This is just between us now Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute. I'm getting to the point. So I Mean this wave of depression came over me because I wasn't used to being away. I missed my wife I missed my kids The whole thing about the morning TV and everything I just wanted to get home And I'm thinking of myself things can't get any worse and I see the bathroom attendant 116 years old advancing on me with a pad and a pen And he says I think I saw you on a m Pittsburgh. Can I have your autograph? And it's the only one I ever gave in the shithouse So that's the downside that is a downside, yeah All right, I'm gonna go back to a substantial craft question You've spoken a lot about Your novels come together through two previously narrowing unrelated ideas that come together and they make something new under the sun You want to say your job isn't to find these ideas, but recognize them when they show up And I was wondering if you might want to give a concrete example Maybe with your first novel You mean you we're talking about Carrie. Yeah, the two of it. Well Yeah Yeah, you too Isn't this an amazing crowd give yourselves a hand while I think about that as a student I knew a couple of girls Who were at the very bottom of the social pecking order, you know high school is probably the most savage Social caste system that America has, you know, it's very divided in popularity becomes very important and it's very difficult for Adolescents because they're not emotionally grounded yet and these girls were the absolute bottom and one of them later committed suicide, but I had a chance to watch that ostriches, you know that ostracism in in Progress and then later as a teacher. I saw the same thing from the other side of the desk and Those two things came together for me along with a number of articles that I'd seen about the possibility that psychokinetic phenomena if it existed Probably existed in teenagers and probably existed in disturbed Teenage girls and I thought this would make a terrific book. So I wrote it. I threw it away and my wife picked it out of the trash Thank God and she's never let me forget it All right, look man, this you got to tell the story about If you have not read on writing what it's really a really wonderful book in many ways, but the first half's a little memoir of Steven's start in the world and like a lot of people he started out with nothing Single mom a brother and him living in real real real deep first world poverty And one of the things I love about your book is it's also a lovely homage to you and your wife and 40 years together That's not But We got it. We actually have to pretty soon move move to your reading which is gonna be great I just would you mind telling them that great story of when you got the call from your paperback editor? And you're in the place you were living and how you were living and where you were working It's a great story. They tore our our apartment down last year And I got a picture of the empty lot and it was it was really sort of great because that place was a real shithole It was awesome It was 22 Sanford Street in Bangor made and we were at the bottom. We had a couple of kids we had absolutely no money whatsoever and We didn't have a Really anything to speak of the cupboards were pretty well empty and and my wife had taken our Old car that needed a new transmission that day it was a Sunday and she'd gone up to Old Town to see her parents and I got a call From Bill Thompson who edited my first books and coincidentally he was also the guy who discovered John Grisham With a book called a time to kill so Bill called me on the phone. I was in the house by myself the apartment and and I Was standing in the doorway between our crappy kitchen our even crappier dining room and he said He said we sold the paperback rights to carry I'd gotten in advance, but it was for $2,500 and they're gone to fix the car and And to buy diapers and things like that And I said, oh my god, you sold the paperback. How much did you sell it for? And he said $250,000 No, that wasn't it because it was a 50-50 split he said we sold it for $400,000 I got 200 and I I couldn't believe it and I said Bill did you say $40,000? And he said no we sold your Paperback for $400,000 and I'm in this Crappy little apartment in Bangalore, Maine with two pairs of jeans and really not much else and all the strength went out of my Legs and I just sort of accordion down until I was sitting on the floor and we talked about it for a while and I finally got it through my head and The thought that came to my mind was I must buy a present for my wife who fished this book out of the trash And I have to get her something and I went out and It was Sunday and this was you have to realize that this was in the old days when malls were largely like Not there. It was just downtown Bangalore and the only place that was open was the Rexall station The Rexall drugstore, so I bought her a hairdryer So look we're gonna get to this world debut of this new story But I'm gonna read if you don't mind I'm gonna read you two paragraphs from your book Stephen you wrote it and I'm gonna Read it to you hit me And I'm actually reading this to you all because I think it says something beautiful about This man and his view of what he does that has enriched us all and will will last for hundreds and hundreds of years You may know or may not know that Stephen was in a horrible car accident not car accident some idiot ran him over in 1999 and he almost died and he can tell you that story if you want But you have to have the context because in this brief passage. I want to read to you before he reads us the new story He's coming back from Real painful convalescence from this horrible accident On some days that writing is a pretty grim slog on others More and more of them as my leg begins to heal and my mind re-accustoms itself to its old routine I feel that buzz of happiness that sense of having found the right words and put them in a line It's like lifting off in an airplane You're on the ground on the ground on the ground and then you're up Riding on a magical cushion of air and prints of all you survey That makes me happy because it's what I was made to do Writing isn't about making money getting famous getting dates getting laid or making friends in the end It's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work and enriching your own life as well It's about getting up getting well and getting over getting happy. Okay getting happy Writing is magic as much the water of life as any other creative art the water is free So drink drink and be filled up. Oh, thank you. Yeah, man