Even more reason to love Stephen King:

AP

FILE - In this Feb. 9, 2009 file photo, author Stephen King reads from his latest book "Ur" at a news conference in New York. King and his wife are donating money so 150 Maine Army National Guard soldiers can come home for the holidays. King and his wife, Tabitha, who live in Bangor, are paying $13,000 toward the cost of two bus trips so that members of the 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Unit can travel from Camp Atterbury, Ind., to Maine for Christmas. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

BANGOR, Maine – Author Stephen King and his wife are donating money so 150 soldiers from the Maine Army National Guard can come home for the holidays.

King and his wife, Tabitha, who live in Bangor, are paying $13,000 toward the cost of two bus trips so that members of the 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Unit can travel from Camp Atterbury in Indiana to Maine for Christmas. The soldiers left Maine last week for training at Camp Atterbury. They are scheduled to depart for Afghanistan in January.

Julie Eugley, one of King’s personal assistants, told the Bangor Daily News that the Kings were approached about giving $13,000.

But Stephen King thought the number 13 was a bit unlucky, so the couple pitched in $12,999 instead. Eugley chipped in $1 to make for an even $13,000.
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Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com

King: I’m Working On The Shining II

Via: IO9

This may be the sequel no-one has been anticipating, but Stephen King has announced that he’s working on a sequel to The Shining, tentatively titled Doctor Sleep. We would’ve preferred Son of Shining, but we’ll take it nonetheless. [Filmofilia]

Stephen King Writing “The Shining” Sequel

Allan Ford/Filmofilia

Stephen King is writing a sequel to his cult classic “The Shining.”

“The Shining” was released in 1977 and was adapted into a Stanley Kubrick film in 1980, starring Jack Nicholson, Danny Lloyd, and Shelley Duvall.

According to the Torontoist, the 62-year-old novelist was at the Canon Theater in Toronto last week, treating fans to a 15-minute reading from his new book, “Under the Dome.” While there, King casually remarked about an idea that he began working on.

The second novel would center on Danny Torrance, the young boy from the original story with the gift of being able to communicate clairvoyantly with ghosts, and who is now an appropriately aged 40-year-old. All these years after being tormented by the spiritual inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel and his father’s alcoholism/homicidal rage, Danny is now working at a hospice using his supernatural powers for palliative purposes. King even offered a tentative title: “Doctor Sleep“.

King also admitted that he is nervous about penning the sequel to one of his best known works, adding:

“Maybe if I keep talking about it I won’t have to write it.”

The Guardian | Alison Flood

The Bone Church, a narrative work about an ill-fated jungle expedition, appears in November edition

Marge Simpson’s appearance as its cover girl has attracted a frenzy of media attention, but this month’s edition of Playboy magazine contains another, almost equally unexpected celebrity appearance: from author Stephen King, making a very rare outing as a poet.

“When travelling to the heart of darkness, terror is not an emotion – it’s a destination,” writes King in the issue, out now, before launching into The Bone Church. Told by a man in a bar, the poem is the story of an ill-fated expedition into a jungle. “There were thirty-two of us went into that greensore / and only three who rose above it,” writes King. “We were thirty days in the green, and only one of us came out.”

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