Stephen King

In her last post, SuperStarLibby talked about the publishing industry being all about profit. I've been thinking the same thing, but I've been contemplating one author--Stephen King. His name really sells books...and short stories....

In our recent "Halloween Reading" promotion, Stephen King was the most popular author....with faculty. I knew students really liked him, but I was a bit surprised that several adults picked him. Could it be that they are thinking back to their experience reading him and find it really memorable? Or did they read him recently? I guess it doesn't really matter. He is definitely a bestselling writer. It will be interesting to see circulation statistics after this display comes down.
I haven't read King's horror novels in over 20 years, but I do read his columns. I try to catch his Entertainment Weekly column, and I really enjoyed this essay in the New York Times Book Review: "What Ails the Short Story" (Sept. 30). He jokes about his experience editing the Best American Short Stories anthology and says that he found himself crawling on the floor in bookstores' periodical sections for the latest literary magazines. He explains that short stories do not get the prime shelf space, and reflects upon why. (The next time you are in a bookstore, check it out---do you have to crawl on the floor to browse lit magazines while the knitting 'zines, Cosmo, and Time are all at eye level?) Maybe with King's influence, the short story's status will change. There are already signs that it has. A couple of weeks after his essay was published, the Best American Short Stories made the NYTimes paperback bestseller list! Last week, it was #20; this past week, it was at #15, right in between two Jodi Picoult books. The NYTimes has more categories than ever for these lists, and they now list the top 20 instead of 10, so maybe the anthology's appearance isn't because of Stephen King, but he probably helped. After all, in his essay, he says "There isn’t a single one in this book that didn’t delight me, that didn’t make me want to crow, 'Oh, man, you gotta read this!'” He was probably picked to BE the editor because he would be an effective bridge between the hoity-toity short story reader and the popular culture reader. It worked for me. I'll be reading this collection.