King Disses Meyer

Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. ... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good. ... Somebody who’s a terrific writer who’s been very, very successful is Jodi Picoult. You’ve got Dean Koontz, who can write like hell. And then sometimes he’s just awful. It varies. James Patterson is a terrible writer but he’s very very successful. People are attracted by the stories, by the pace and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it’s very clear that she’s writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It’s exciting and it’s thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because they’re not overtly sexual. A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that’s a shorthand for all the feelings that they’re not ready to deal with yet.

Stephen King on other writers in an interview for USA Weekend. [Via]

What do you think - those who've read Meyer and/or some of the others on the list?

Postscript :

For another interesting take on Meyer's book, read Why I Hate Twilight on the Vulpes Libis blog :

The girls reading this stuff are as young as eight or nine years old, I know, I’ve seen them buy it and I’ve seen their parents buying it for them… and their parents have never read the book themselves. At that young age girls have not yet formed opinions or attitudes and they’re ripe for influence. ... I won’t go into the fact that the author is a Mormon and has admitted that she has used her real-life attitudes in her writing ... but I will stress that there are some questionable motivations and opinions in this book which could be influencing a generation.

All Work and No Play

Remember this scene from The Shining?

Now a fan of Stanley Kubrick's film and Stephen King's has completed Jack Torrance's book for him, and self-published it. Do go and preview it at blurb.com!

Signed in Blood

There's been a fair bit of discussion over the last week or so about book signings and how onorous authors feel they are, Abebooks Reading Copy blog has turns up some amusing anecdotes :

From those who are incredibly successful…

There’s a shocking story about Stephen King signing books in a Seattle shop. He signed for hours until his shoulder ached and a publicist had to apply an ice-pack. Then his fingers dried up; they cracked and began to bleed, and he asked for a bandage. Hearing this, a fan in the queue demanded to have some authentic Stephen King blood on his book. Others joined in and he signed in his own blood for hours. Chuck Palahniuk, the modern gross-out novelist, author of Fight Club, recalls a visit to a store in Austin, Texas, where the staff dished out free beer to the signing queue, and where an aggressive queuer, possibly not Chuck’s greatest fan, demanded of a quaking employee: “Why should I wait in this long line to get my books signed by that dickwad?”

and those who are not…

Jonathan Coe, author of What a Carve Up! and The Rain Before It Falls, recalls two encounters at a signing in Brighton: one woman picked up his new novel, read the author’s biog on the back flap and sniffed, “Is that your only claim to fame?” When he said, “Yes,” she replaced the book without another word. The other was a girl student who said brightly, “Can I ask you a question? Why are all your women characters so crap?”

Humourist David sedaries, author of the bestselling When You Are Engulfed In Flames has a pretty unique way of handling signings he expalins in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Two years ago, he offered priority signing for smokers and was unsuccessfully sued by one disgruntled fan for discriminating against non-smokers. "My main thought was 'What are you doing in my audience? Who let you in?"', he told SiT's bookworm, Kelsey Munro. "So next time I offered priority signing to men under 5 foot 6."

... With popularity has come protracted book signings. "Something happens around seven hours and you become silly. In this one woman's book, I drew a plank. Then it looked like it would be a sign, like you'd have in a yard. So I wrote 'Abortions, $3'. She was upset, so I changed it to $13. It was already drawn. What else could I do?"

Author "Vandalizes" Own Books

Midnight Lily picked this lovely story up on news.com.au:

One of the world's most successful authors was mistaken for a vandal in an Alice Springs book shop yesterday.

Stephen King was seen signing several of his own books at Dymocks in Alice Springs.

Store manager Bev Ellis said other customers thought he was vandalising the books.

But the horror novelist was soon recognised. Ms Ellis followed him to a nearby supermarket - where the multi-millionaire was buying fruit and veg - and thanked him for autographing seven copies of his latest work, Lisey's Story.

A customer immediately bought one of the books and the shop plans to donate the rest to be auctioned for charity.

King is believed to have left Alice yesterday afternoon.

Ms Ellis said the author's surprise visit and private signing session was not particularly eccentric. 'Lots of authors do it,' she said. 'They'll come into the shop and check if their works are on the shelves. 'If they are, they'll often sign a few copies. If they're not, they'll ask about them. 'It's embarrassing if we haven't got their work on the shelves.'

Ms Ellis said King was on a private visit to the Territory and wanted to keep a low profile. 'His Australian distributor rang me and he didn't even know King was in the country.'

That Monster The Writer

Stephen King has written about zombies, vampires and the end of the world. He has imagined a killer car, a killer dog, a killer clown and killer cellphones. But when he really wants to put a scare into you, he brings on his most fearsome monster of all, that quivering mass of ego and insecurity known as ... the writer.

Very nice article about King's latest novel Lisey's Story ("about marriage, mourning and living a life of the imagination") in the New York Times, and you can also read the first chapter here.

And if you're too lazy to read it yourself, at the Times Online you can hear the man himself reading the first chapter and listen to a podcast interview. Several articles here pay tribute to the force of nature that's Stephen King.

As for the latest novel, John Sutherland writes in his appraisal of King's craft that Lisey's Story:

... looks as if it’s going to join that set of novels in which King allegorises the woes of his craft. In The Dark Half, a writer is stalked by his pseudonym. In Misery, a writer is imprisoned and made to write crap by his No 1 Fan. In Bag of Bones, a writer hits a block so solid that only a Faustian pact with the Devil can help. And Lisey’s Story — what woes of authorship will be dealt with there? I already have my first day delivery order in with Amazon.

I want to read it too.