When Stephen King tells you to have a guest on your podcast – you listen!

That’s how I came to meet Caroline Bicks, the inaugural Stephen E. King Chair at the University of Maine, and author of the Monsters in the Archive – the first full-length study of the King literary collection.

It’s part memoir, part literary biography, part granular exploration of King’s editorial process – but ALL fun. I’m a nerd on this subject, and I found out plenty that I didn’t know.

As well as discussing our own relationship with King’s early work, we also talk about the stuff that never made it to print. The exploding vampire babies, the Kaiju-sized Carrie and the original ending of The Shining that is so much darker than you could bear.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

Carrie (1974), by Stephen King
‘Salem’s Lot (1975), by Stephen King
The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
Night Shift (1978), by Stephen King
Pet Semetary (1983), by Stephen King
On Writing (2000), by Stephen King
North Woods (2023), by Daniel Mason
Ulverton (1992), by Adam Thorpe

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