When my English publishers put out my first stories, The Books of Blood, they were greeted with a very English silence. Polite and devastating. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this smothering shrug. And then, a voice. Not just any voice. The voice of Stephen King, who had made people all around the world fall in love with having the shit scared out of them. He said, God bless him, that I was the future of horror. Me! An unknown author of some books of short stories that nobody was buying. Suddenly, there is a phantom present in that chair. Stephen had no reason to say what he said, except pure generosity of spirit. The same generosity he has shown over the years to many authors. A few words from Stephen, and lives are changed forever. Mine was. I felt a wonderful burden laid upon my shoulders; I had been seen, and called by name, and my life would never be the same again. So, may I take opportunity to thank Stephen King; on my own behalf, certainly, and behalf of all the other authors whose futures have been transformed by him. I have a chair here because of Stephen, and an audience whose first introduction to my works was brought about because Stephen had recommended me to his immense audience. Now I do my best to be a voice for others. To pass the parcel along. As a writer, Stephen has taught me countless lessons in storytelling. But it is the lesson of how to give that echoes most powerfully through my life. And will, I hope, echo on through the lives of others as I support the next generation of writers with my own sincere enthusiasm.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 17:15:17 +0000
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