The funny thing is - while King truly is a connoisseur of literature - most people think of him simply as Stephen-King-the-guy-who-writes-all-them-scary-stories.
Did you know that King was awarded the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2003? (This award is one of literature's most prestigious "lifetime achievement" awards; others to win the award include Toni Morrison, John Updike, Ray Bradbury, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, and Tom Wolfe.)
King claims he has only blurbed perhaps a hundred books, so...I don't know, maybe I just have a lot of those hundred books scattered around my room.
Here are some of the books on my bookshelf that wear King's stamp of approval:
John Irving's "A Prayer For Owen Meany"
A.M. Homes's "This Book Will Save Your Life"
Scott Smith's "A Simple Plan"
Reif Larsen's "The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet"
Neil Gaiman's "American Gods"
The reason why I noticed is...most of these books have nothing in common with Stephen King. I mean, if someone knew nothing about John Irving and picked up A Prayer for Owen Meany solely because King blurbed it, I bet they'd be bummed. Great book, sure. But probably not what the reader expected.
I guess chances are slim that I could get a copy of my book into King's hands before it goes to print, huh? Hey, maybe I'll start trying. You never know. (We are both New England natives. We are both lifelong Red Sox fans. The guy designing my book cover has designed several of Stephen King's books. Maybe that would be enough.)
"The Great Lenore made me feel alive."
~Stephen King
Yeah, I could go for that. Can we figure out a way to make this happen?
Someone out there knows someone (who knows someone who knows someone, etc.) who knows Stephen King. If you're feeling generous, copy and paste (and post) this on your Twitter:
Someone out there knows Stephen King. If you retweet this, maybe we can figure out who that someone is - http://bit.ly/b1Ho8g
Hey, maybe we'll hit the jackpot with this! We'll never know unless we try...
Other Places Where I Hang Out:
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(Download A Delicious Sample Of The Great Lenore,
Available From Atticus Books Summer 2011)
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Go for it! Can't wait for The Great Lenore.
ReplyDeleteJennifer - Thanks! This one seems like an unlikely dream to chase, but I'm trying to chase a ton of unlikely dreams in the months leading up to the book's release, in the hopes that at least one will pan out. Like I said, we'll never know unless we try!
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