Stephen King, Part 1
Posted: September 10, 2016 Filed under: News, Reading Comments Off on Stephen King, Part 1Through the miracle of the internet, and Twitter, in particular, I recently had the opportunity to get a chance to see Stephen King at a reading in Reno.
Really. That’s what it was like. There was an announcement that Stephen King would be at the local Barnes & Noble, and, on a certain date, at a certain time, you had to send an e-mail to get into a drawing to get an invitation to get in line with 200-400 other yahoos.
So I sent off my e-mail and got my invitation (which I had to bring with me to the store).
Now, bear in mind that I’m not a crazy Stephen King fan. I’m just your run-of-the mill Stephen King fan. I’ve read, and enjoyed, some of his work. There’s a whole lot I haven’t read, but “On Writing” I’ve read and re-read multiple times. It’s in that book that I think his personality comes through most strongly, and as a person, I find him funny and entertaining.
So I decided that though I had gotten the opportunity with fairly half-assed enthusiasm, I would at least follow through like a bigger fan than I was.
I was at Barnes & Noble well before the doors opened at 8:00, lined up with the other fans, rabid and otherwise. And rabid there was. There was a woman with her nails done with Stephen King cover art, to include a portrait of the great man. The woman first in line had gotten there at 3:00 a.m. People had driven hours to get there, as opposed to my measly 20 minutes. Everyone around me was from out-of-state, some as far as Utah and Washington. And I only saw one person I knew, which was strange. Reno’s not that big.
So there was the first line. I was 102nd in line. We got through the door and there was another line, this time to buy the book. I didn’t actually GET the book – I just bought the opportunity to get an autographed copy. And then we were free to leave until we had to come back and line up again at 11:00. For a talk that started at 1:00.
To be continued…