It was another chance to see one of my favorite authors, and I went ahead and took it.
Yes, when my friend, and mutual Stephen King fan, texted me months ago now about having tickets to see Stephen and Owen King near Kingston, NY, it did not take long to confirm my interest. In fact, I told him right away that I wanted to go.
This event was held on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-the-Hudson, in upstate New York. I had never been to this college campus before, but it is beautiful. It has distinctly old world kind of feel to it, a certain that becomes obvious as soon as you enter the grounds. There are old buildings that would not look out of place in historical corners of Europe, with lush green lawns around the entire campus, all with the backdrop of the relatively high peaks of the beautiful Catskills serving as the surrounding scenery.
We walked around and were impressed with the campus, and as we walked towards the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, which is an impressive looking structure. It reminded me right away of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain. There is a good reason for this. In fact, this building was designed by the exact same architect - Frank Gehry. It was completed in 2003, the exact same year that a more famous work of his, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, was also completed. This hall was immediately reminiscent of both the Guggenheim in Bilboa as well as the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, as it is done in very much the same modern style. Here are some quick pictures that I took:
Stephen King has long been one of my favorite authors and, in fact, it was this friend who actually got me into him. And like with so much else that I have gotten into, it has felt like a blessing, being a fan of Stephen King. Indeed, it feels like King rewards his fans with an extensive body of written works, as well as some movies inspired by his works, including "IT," which is extremely popular at the moment, and the movie that everyone seems to be talking about recently. It is kind of like being a fan of Pearl Jam in music, or the New York Giants in the NFL (although not this year, apparently), being a fan of King means that you will have plenty of opportunities to get excited about his newest projects and latest releases.
The latest work by King is actually a collaboration with his son, Owen King. It is called "Sleeping Beauties," and it is an interesting idea. All of the women of the world fall asleep, and never wake up. They remain in almost a coma state, and men have to figure out what is going on, and how to cope. It was the brainchild of Owen King, although both writers worked together in collaboration. Hoping to avoid a situation where it would be easy to identify which author wrote certain parts, they would each write roughly 25-30 pages or so, but would leave some parts within this clump of writing blank, and would leave instructions on what they saw happening, but leaving it to the other to write about it in their own words. Thus, as Stephen King put it, this work has both of their writing styles woven in throughout.
Owen King read a passage from the book first, followed by his father. They then asked each other questions, followed by a session of questions and answers by the audience. Owen had brought with him a Stephen King trivia book, which he joked that he kept around whenever he was around his father, just to test his mental skills in hopes that the fog of old age was not yet descending. The one question that I remember him asking specifically, his father actually got wrong. It was the name of the official Stephen King fan news magazine publication (Castle Rock is the correct answer).
One of the questions that Owen asked his father was whether or not he ever made last minute changes to any of his novels that he later regretted. Stephen at first answered no definitively, jokingly implying that his works were perfect as is, much to the amusement of the audience. However, he then mentioned that there was a gruesome scene in 'Salems Lot where a man falls from a broken set of stairs and gets impaled by many, many knives that have been set up below. The published felt that this was too gory, and so he changed it so that this man falls on the floor and can hardly move, and then huge rats get to him and essentially eat him alive, tearing him apart. He joked about how he found it bizarre that this was somehow more acceptable than the previous scene. Stephen also mentioned how, in his book version of Cujo, the little boy dies of dehydration, and they changed this in the movie, as the little boy does not die (although he comes close). But, Stephen mused, he knew for a fact that what they did not show you in the movie was that the little boy died a horrible, agonizing death by the rabies that Cujo had given him.
Among the questions from the audience during last night's event, one woman stood up and was clearly nervous. She said that she had chickened out and not asked the question the last time that she had seen him (presumably Stephen King), but she wanted to know if the writers kept what they had learned about writing in college in mind during the writing process, such as the importance of setting, the interaction between characters, and so on. Stephen King initially jumped in and seemed willing to answer with enthusiasm, complimenting the woman for a good question. But he then quickly turned it on his son, suggesting that he taught writing in college, and so was better equipped to answer the question. Owen did his best, mentioning that it was difficult to keep all of those things in mind while actually writing, but that in the end, while he had seen some aspiring writers who were strong at developing characters, it had to be more than just that. There had to be scenes, there had to be things to make the story develop.
The night was surprisingly short, although any evening with one's favorite authors is bound to be both illuminating and pleasant, right?
Each ticket stub was good for one copy of "Sleeping Beauties," and there were a limited number of signed copies of the book that were randomly distributed. I ended up being extremely fortunate and obtaining one of them, which really cemented just how special a night it was!
We were discouraged from taking any pictures of the event, but nevertheless, I was able to snap a quick picture. Using my skills and training, I managed to capture this high quality image of father and son during last evening's discussion. Note the incredible detail, the colors which seem to jump out at you (especially the white glare!). Really, it makes you feel almost like you are right there in real time!
Here are some larger pictures of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-the-Hudson, in upstate New York. It was a beautiful evening, to boot, which made our little stroll of the college campus, and our chance to see this unique looking structure, all the more accommodating and pleasurable.
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