The movie adaptation of Secret Window will now be released on March 12th.

The movie adaptation of Secret Window starring Johnny Depp is currently scheduled for release by Columbia on April 28th at a theater near you.

• The air date for Kingdom Hospital has been changed. The official series premiere is now Wednesday, March 3, 9:00-11:00 PM (ET) on ABC. The subsequent episodes will air Wednesdays from 10:00-11:00 PM (ET). Click Here for more information from ABC.com
• Hyperion has released "The Journals of Eleanor Druse" in advance of the series. Read the "journals" that character Eleanor Druse kept while she investigated the terrifying supernatural events at Kingdom Hospital.

Stephen is now at home and continuing to recuperate from his recent bout with pneumonia. He's happy to be home for the holidays and thanks you for your concern and well wishes for his recovery.

Stephen King
Recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for
DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LETTERS AWARD, 2003

Copyright © 2003 Stephen King and the National Book Foundation. All rights reserved.
This speech may not be reproduced in any form without written permission.

Thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you for the applause and thank you for coming. I'm delighted to be here but, as I've said before in the last five years, I'm delighted to be anywhere.

This isn't in my speech so don't take it out of my allotted time. There are some people who have spoken out passionately about giving me this medal. There are some people who think it's an extraordinarily bad idea. There have been some people who have spoken out who think it's an extraordinarily good idea. You know who you are and where you stand and most of you who are here tonight are on my side. I'm glad for that. But I want to say it doesn't matter in a sense which side you were on. The people who speak out, speak out because they are passionate about the book, about the word, about the page and, in that sense, we're all brothers and sisters. Give yourself a hand.

Now as for my remarks. The only person who understands how much this award means to me is my wife, Tabitha. I was a writer when I met her in 1967 but my only venue was the campus newspaper where I published a rude weekly column. It turned me into a bit of a celebrity but I was a poor one, scraping through college thanks to a jury-rigged package of loans and scholarships.

A friend of Tabitha Spruce pointed me out to her one winter day as I crossed the mall in my jeans and cut-down green rubber boots. I had a bushy black beard. I hadn't had my hair cut in two years and I looked like Charlie Manson. My wife-to-be clasped her hands between her breasts and said, "I think I'm in love" in a tone dripping with sarcasm.

Tabby Spruce had no more money than I did but with sarcasm she was loaded. When we married in 1971, we already had one child. By the middle of 1972, we had a pair. I taught school and worked in a laundry during the summer. Tabby worked for Dunkin' Donuts. When she was working, I took care of the kids. When I was working, it was vice versa. And writing was always an undisputed part of that work. Tabby finished the first book of our marriage, a slim but wonderful book of poetry called Grimoire.

This is a very atypical audience, one passionately dedicated to books and to the word. Most of the world, however, sees writing as a fairly useless occupation. I've even heard it called mental masturbation, once or twice by people in my family. I never heard that from my wife. She'd read my stuff and felt certain I'd some day support us by writing full time, instead of standing in front of a blackboard and spouting on about Jack London and Ogden Nash. She never made a big deal of this. It was just a fact of our lives. We lived in a trailer and she made a writing space for me in the tiny laundry room with a desk and her Olivetti portable between the washer and dryer. She still tells people I married her for that typewriter but that's only partly true. I married her because I loved her and because we got on as well out of bed as in it. The typewriter was a factor, though.

When I gave up on Carrie, it was Tabby who rescued the first few pages of single spaced manuscript from the wastebasket, told me it was good, said I ought to go on. When I told her I didn't know how to go on, she helped me out with the girls' locker room stuff. There were no inspiring speeches. Tabby does sarcasm, Tabby doesn't do inspiration, never has. It was just "this is pretty good, you ought to keep it going." That was all I needed and she knew it.

There were some hard, dark years before Carrie. We had two kids and no money. We rotated the bills, paying on different ones each month. I kept our car, an old Buick, going with duct tape and bailing wire. It was a time when my wife might have been expected to say, "Why don't you quit spending three hours a night in the laundry room, Steve, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer we can't afford? Why don't you get an actual job?"

Okay, this is the real stuff. If she'd asked, I almost certainly would have done it. And then am I standing up here tonight, making a speech, accepting the award, wearing a radar dish around my neck? Maybe. More likely not. In fact, the subject of moonlighting did come up once. The head of the English department where I taught told me that the debate club was going to need a new faculty advisor and he put me up for the job if I wanted. It would pay $300 per school year which doesn't sound like much but my yearly take in 1973 was only $6,600 and $300 equaled ten weeks worth of groceries.

The English department head told me he'd need my decision by the end of the week. When I told Tabby about the opening, she asked if I'd still have time to write. I told her not as much. Her response to that was unequivocal, "Well then, you can't take it."

One of the few times during the early years of our marriage I saw my wife cry really hard was when I told her that a paperback publisher, New American Library, had paid a ton of money for the book she'd rescued from the trash. I could quit teaching, she could quit pushing crullers at Dunkin' Donuts. She looked almost unbelieving for five seconds and then she put her hands over her face and she wept. When she finally stopped, we went into the living room and sat on our old couch, which Tabby had rescued from a yard sale, and talked into the early hours of the morning about what we were going to do with the money. I've never had a more pleasant conversation. I have never had one that felt more surreal.

My point is that Tabby always knew what I was supposed to be doing and she believed that I would succeed at it. There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way.

That vulnerable time for me came during 1971 to 1973. If my wife had suggested to me even with love and kindness and gentleness rather than her more common wit and good natured sarcasm that the time had come to put my dreams away and support my family, I would have done that with no complaint. I believe that on some level of thought I was expecting to have that conversation. If she had suggested that you can't buy a loaf of bread or a tube of toothpaste with rejection slips, I would have gone out and found a part time job.

Tabby has told me since that it never crossed her mind to have such a conversation. You had a second job, she said, in the laundry room with my typewriter. I hope you know, Tabby, that they are clapping for you and not for me. Stand up so they can see you, please. Thank you. Thank you. I did not let her see this speech, and I will hear about this later.

Now, there are lots of people who will tell you that anyone who writes genre fiction or any kind of fiction that tells a story is in it for the money and nothing else. It's a lie. The idea that all storytellers are in it for the money is untrue but it is still hurtful, it's infuriating and it's demeaning. I never in my life wrote a single word for money. As badly as we needed money, I never wrote for money. From those early days to this gala black tie night, I never once sat down at my desk thinking today I'm going to make a hundred grand. Or this story will make a great movie. If I had tried to write with those things in mind, I believe I would have sold my birthright for a plot of message, as the old pun has it. Either way, Tabby and I would still be living in a trailer or an equivalent, a boat. My wife knows the importance of this award isn't the recognition of being a great writer or even a good writer but the recognition of being an honest writer.

Frank Norris, the author of McTeague, said something like this: "What should I care if they, i.e., the critics, single me out for sneers and laughter? I never truckled, I never lied. I told the truth." And that's always been the bottom line for me. The story and the people in it may be make believe but I need to ask myself over and over if I've told the truth about the way real people would behave in a similar situation.

Of course, I only have my own senses, experiences and reading to draw on but that usually - not always but usually - usually it's enough. It gets the job done. For instance, if an elevator full of people, one of the ones in this very building - I want you to think about this later, I want you to think about it - if it starts to vibrate and you hear those clanks - this probably won't happen but we all know it has happened, it could happen. It could happen to me or it could happen to you. Someone always wins the lottery. Just put it away for now until you go up to your rooms later. Anyway, if an elevator full of people starts free-falling from the 35th floor of the skyscraper all the way to the bottom, one of those view elevators, perhaps, where you can watch it happening, in my opinion, no one is going to say, "Goodbye, Neil, I will see you in heaven." In my book or my short story, they're far more apt to bellow, "Oh shit" at the top of their lungs because what I've read and heard tends to confirm the "Oh shit" choice. If that makes me a cynic, so be it.

I remember a story on the nightly news about an airliner that crashed killing all aboard. The so-called black box was recovered and we have the pilot's immortal last four words: "Son of a bitch". Of course, there was another plane that crashed and the black box recorder said, "Goodbye, Mother," which is a nicer way to go out, I think.

Folks are far more apt to go out with a surprised ejaculation, however, then an expiring abjuration like, "Marry her, Jake. Bible says it ain't good for a man to be alone." If I happen to be the writer of such a death bed scene, I'd choose "Son of a bitch" over "Marry her, Jake" every time. We understand that fiction is a lie to begin with. To ignore the truth inside the lie is to sin against the craft, in general, and one's own work in particular.

I'm sure I've made the wrong choices from time to time. Doesn't the Bible say something like, "for all have sinned and come short of the glory of Chaucer?" But every time I did it, I was sorry. Sorry is cheap, though. I have revised the lie out if I could and that's far more important. When readers are deeply entranced by a story, they forget the storyteller completely. The tale is all they care about.

But the storyteller cannot afford to forget and must always be ready to hold himself or herself to account. He or she needs to remember that the truth lends verisimilitude to the lies that surround it. If you tell your reader, "Sometimes chickens will pick out the weakest one in the flock and peck it to death," the truth, the reader is much more likely to go along with you than if you then add something like, "Such chickens often meld into the earth after their deaths."

How stringently the writer holds to the truth inside the lie is one of the ways that he can judge how seriously he takes his craft. My wife, who doesn't seem to know how to a lie even in a social context where people routinely say things like, "You look wonderful, have you lost weight?" has always understood these things without needing to have them spelled out. She's what the Bible calls a pearl beyond price. She also understands why I was in those early days so often bitterly angry at writers who were considered "literary." I knew I didn't have quite enough talent or polish to be one of them so there was an element of jealousy, but I was also infuriated by how these writers always seemed to have the inside track in my view at that time.

Even a note in the acknowledgments page of a novel thanking the this or that foundation for its generous assistance was enough to set me off. I knew what it meant, I told my wife. It was the Old Boy Network at work. It was this, it was that, on and on and blah, blah, blah. It is only in retrospect that I realize how much I sounded like my least favorite uncle who believed there really was an international Jewish cabal running everything from the Ford Motor Company to the Federal Reserve.

Tabitha listened to a fair amount of this pissing and moaning and finally told me to stop with the breast beating. She said to save my self-pity and turn my energy to the typewriter. She paused and then added, my typewriter. I did because she was right and my anger played much better when channeled into about a dozen stories which I wrote in 1973 and early 1974. Not all of them were good but most of them were honest and I realized an amazing thing: Readers of the men's magazines where I was published were remembering my name and starting to look for it. I could hardly believe it but it appeared that people wanted to read what I was writing. There's never been a thrill in my life to equal that one. With Tabby's help, I was able to put aside my useless jealousy and get writing again. I sold more of my short stories. I sold Carrie and the rest, as they say, is history.

There's been a certain amount of grumbling about the decision to give the award to me and since so much of this speech has been about my wife, I wanted to give you her opinion on the subject. She's read everything I've written, making her something of an expert, and her view of my work is loving but unsentimental. Tabby says I deserve the medal not just because some good movies were made from my stories or because I've provided high motivational reading material for slow learners, she says I deserve the medal because I am a, quote, "Damn good writer".

I've tried to improve myself with every book and find the truth inside the lie. Sometimes I have succeeded. I salute the National Book Foundation Board, who took a huge risk in giving this award to a man many people see as a rich hack. For far too long the so-called popular writers of this country and the so-called literary writers have stared at each other with animosity and a willful lack of understanding. This is the way it has always been. Witness my childish resentment of anyone who ever got a Guggenheim.

But giving an award like this to a guy like me suggests that in the future things don't have to be the way they've always been. Bridges can be built between the so-called popular fiction and the so-called literary fiction. The first gainers in such a widening of interest would be the readers, of course, which is us because writers are almost always readers and listeners first. You have been very good and patient listeners and I'm going to let you go soon but I'd like to say one more thing before I do.

Tokenism is not allowed. You can't sit back, give a self satisfied sigh and say, "Ah, that takes care of the troublesome pop lit question. In another twenty years or perhaps thirty, we'll give this award to another writer who sells enough books to make the best seller lists." It's not good enough. Nor do I have any patience with or use for those who make a point of pride in saying they've never read anything by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Mary Higgins Clark or any other popular writer.

What do you think? You get social or academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture? Never in life, as Capt. Lucky Jack Aubrey would say. And if your only point of reference for Jack Aubrey is the Australian actor, Russell Crowe, shame on you.
There's a writer here tonight, my old friend and some time collaborator, Peter Straub. He's just published what may be the best book of his career. Lost Boy Lost Girl surely deserves your consideration for the NBA short list next year, if not the award itself. Have you read it? Have any of the judges read it?

There's another writer here tonight who writes under the name of Jack Ketchum and he has also written what may be the best book of his career, a long novella called The Crossings. Have you read it? Have any of the judges read it? And yet Jack Ketchum's first novel, Off Season published in 1980, set off a furor in my supposed field, that of horror, that was unequaled until the advent of Clive Barker. It is not too much to say that these two gentlemen remade the face of American popular fiction and yet very few people here will have an idea of who I'm talking about or have read the work.

This is not criticism, it's just me pointing out a blind spot in the winnowing process and in the very act of reading the fiction of one's own culture. Honoring me is a step in a different direction, a fruitful one, I think. I'm asking you, almost begging you, not to go back to the old way of doing things. There's a great deal of good stuff out there and not all of it is being done by writers whose work is regularly reviewed in the Sunday New York Times Book Review. I believe the time comes when you must be inclusive rather than exclusive.
That said, I accept this award on behalf of such disparate writers as Elmore Leonard, Peter Straub, Nora Lofts, Jack Ketchum, whose real name is Dallas Mayr, Jodi Picoult, Greg Iles, John Grisham, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connolly, Pete Hamill and a dozen more. I hope that the National Book Award judges, past, present and future, will read these writers and that the books will open their eyes to a whole new realm of American literature. You don't have to vote for them, just read them.

Okay, thanks for bearing with me. This is the last page? This is it. Parting is such sweet sorrow. My message is simple enough. We can build bridges between the popular and the literary if we keep our minds and hearts open. With my wife's help, I have tried to do that. Now I'm going to turn the actual medal over to her because she will make sure in all the excitement that it doesn't get lost.

In closing, I want to say that I hope you all find something good to read tonight or tomorrow. I want to salute all the nominees in the four categories that are up for consideration and I do, I hope you'll find something to read that will fill you up as this evening as filled me up. Thank you.

Copyright © 2003 Stephen King and the National Book Foundation. All rights reserved. This speech may not be reproduced in any form without written permission.

Read Walter Mosley's Introduction of Stephen King

Dear Friends of Frank:

On Friday, October 24, 2003, the family and a caregiver boarded a chartered plane in California and flew to their new home just outside Raleigh, NC. Frank will live at home for the first time since his accident, in a house that has been modified specifically for Frank's therapeutic and rehabilitative needs, and that provides a setting for the family to reestablish their life together.

The flight went very well. After Frank entered the small plane and sat down, he exclaimed "Sweet ride!" The aircraft included a couch for Frank to sleep on in case he needed it, but he spent most of the time enjoying the flight. They were warmly received at their new home by Erika's parents, Frank's sister Tanny and her daughter Rachel, Frank's brother Henry, and Frank's friend Scott Swimmer, who was also the contractor for the house renovations (and did an incredible job!).

Erica said Frank was so happy to be there. She told him, "Frank, you're HOME!!" Scott told me this morning, "I was elated to witness Frank's arrival home. It is so right and he knew it. He raised his arms up high and YELLED. Twice!"

New caregivers and rehab therapists have been engaged and are being trained to care for Frank and continue his recovery process. This will still be slow and difficult work. Frank's progress remains "variable," a term we have heard often the last few months. Some days he has extended periods of focus and lucidity and seems very present to others, especially Erika, the kids and the dogs. Other days are less so. In general, however, he seems to be increasing his capacity for short-term memory, his vision appears to be improving slightly, and his periods of lucidity are increasing.

Frank will still need help with many daily tasks of living, such as dressing, grooming, eating, etc. He needs constant cues for many tasks and body movements. However, he seems to be taking more initiative with various tasks. He has extended his walking distances, and makes transfers in and out of his wheel chair with more consistency. These small steps are encouraging and indicate that progress, however slow, is still being made.

It still appears that Frank will need long-term, full-time care, although we have not ruled out the possibility of recovery beyond that stage. The likelihood of Frank returning to his career as a narrator of recorded books, however, is very small. Frank's eyesight has a long way to go, and his speech patterns, although improving, are still quite limited. Moreover, the cognitive presence and ability that would be required to perform the complex skills required for narration at Frank's previous level appear to be well out of reach.

Erika is more committed than ever to Frank's success and the family's health and well-being. She is so happy to have Frank out of the hospital and in his own home. They are settling peacefully into their new environs, and have already had several outings in the community. The area there seems to be a very good place for them to be. Erika feels that this move will bring new levels of rehabilitation and recovery for Frank, renewed strength and support for her and a positive new beginning for their young family.

All the best,

Leo Muller

Stephen King was hospitalized on Sunday, November 23, 2003 at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine. He was diagnosed with pneumonia in the right lung before a recent trip to New York City and an appearance at the National Book Awards Ceremonies, where he received a medal for his contributions to American literature. His condition worsened on his return to Bangor and the pneumonia spread to the other lung. He was diagnosed with pleural effusion and underwent drainage procedures to remove fluid from the lung. Since fluid remained in the lung, he underwent a thoracotomy on Tuesday, November 25, 2003. This procedure, performed by a thoracic surgeon, succeeded in removing fluid and scar tissue from the right lung. Stephen is likely to remain hospitalized for several days. He is conscious and in good spirits, and happy to be able to breathe deeply again. He is expected to achieve a full recovery, has requested no visitors aside from family, and no flowers. Stephen and his family ask only for good wishes and prayers, and that at this time, when we celebrate the bounty of our country, that we remember those who are in need.

Click here for more information.

The Dark Tower V is now available in stores.

STEPHEN KING TO RECEIVE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION 2003 MEDAL FOR DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LETTERS
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Best-Selling Author Will Be 15th Recipient of Literary Honor At National Book Awards Ceremony on November 19

NEW YORK, NY (Monday, September 15, 2003) – The Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation (www.nationalbook.org) today announced that its 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters will be conferred upon Stephen King, one of the nation’s most popular, imaginative, and well-loved authors.

Mr. King has published more than 200 short stories (including the O. Henry Award-winning “The Man in the Black Suit”) and 40 books during a career spanning three decades. He has earned the reputation among readers and booklovers as a genre-defying stylist, vivid storyteller, and master of suspense. The Medal will be presented to Mr. King on Wednesday evening, November 19, at the 54th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square. Mr. King will deliver a keynote address to an audience of more than 1,000 authors, editors, publishers, friends, and supporters of books and book publishing. The evening benefits the National Book Foundation’s many educational outreach programs for readers and writers across the country.

The annual award was created in 1988 by the Foundation’s Board of Directors to celebrate an American author who has enriched the literary landscape through a lifetime of service or body of work.

The previous recipients are Jason Epstein, Daniel Boorstin, Saul Bellow, Eudora Welty, James Laughlin, Clifton Fadiman, Gwendolyn Brooks, David McCullough, Toni Morrison, Studs Terkel, John Updike, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Miller, and Philip Roth.

In making the announcement on behalf of the Board of Directors, Neil Baldwin, executive director of the Foundation, said, “Stephen King’s writing is securely rooted in the great American tradition that glorifies spirit-of-place and the abiding power of narrative. He crafts stylish, mind-bending page-turners that contain profound moral truths – some beautiful, some harrowing – about our inner lives. This Award commemorates Mr. King’s well-earned place of distinction in the wide world of readers and booklovers of all ages.”

Mr. King will receive $10,000 along with the Medal.

“This is probably the most exciting thing to happen to me in my career as a writer since the sale of my first book in 1973,” Mr. King said. “I'll return the cash award to the National Book Foundation for the support of their many educational and literary outreach programs for children and youth across the country; the Medal I will keep and treasure for the rest of my life.”

With the publication in 1974 of Carrie, his first novel, Stephen King quickly established a devout readership and cemented his reputation as America’s premier horror-writer. Since then and at a pace matched by few others, Mr. King, 55, has worn many hats and has set a number of sales records along the way. More than 300 million copies of his books are in print, including The Shining (1977), Pet Sematary (1983), and Misery (1987); a memoir, On Writing (2000); a six-part novel, The Green Mile (1996); and a fantasy/Western series, The Dark Tower. The fifth installment of that series, Wolves of the Calla, will be published on November 4.

Mr. King’s work has been translated into 33 languages, been published in 35 countries, and has been the basis for more than 70 films, television movies, and mini-series – a Guinness world record. Well known for his philanthropy, Mr. King provides scholarships for Maine high school students, in addition to making contributions to local and national charities through The Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation. He and his wife, novelist Tabitha King, have three children and three grandchildren, and divide their time between Maine and Florida.

In addition to Mr. King’s recognition, the November 19th ceremony will also feature the announcement of the four Winners of the 2003 National Book Awards in Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature. The highly anticipated list of 20 Finalists in these four categories will be announced at a press conference at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, October 15.

Updated information regarding the National Book Foundation’s 2003 Gala Awards Ceremony and Dinner, as well as events in conjunction with National Book Month (October), can be found on the Foundation’s website www.nationalbook.org.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION

The National Book Foundation is the sponsor of America’s most prestigious literary prize, the National Book Award. The organization promotes the reading and appreciation of great American literature among audiences across the country. The Foundation sponsors a host of programs involving author residencies in New York City public schools, settlement houses, major urban libraries, American Indian reservations, and other under-served communities. Its many educational programs – including the 10-year-old Summer Writing Camp for emerging authors – were recently honored by being designated as Semifinalists for the “Coming Up Taller Awards,” a project of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities celebrating exemplary programs fostering the creative and intellectual development of children and youth. The mission of the National Book Foundation is to promote the enduring tradition of National Book Award texts, and “literate literacy”: reading, writing and an understanding of “the writing life” for all audiences.