I'm so excited, I got tickets to see Stephen King at the Fall for the Book Festival at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia :D I'm so thrilled!! He's to be presented an award, and I got tickets for that. (No charge). But I felt a little disappointed, the announcement I had received said tickets would be available for a presentation/book signing for Stephen King but then after I got the tickets, then they say that there will be a raffle held from all ticket holders for only certain ones to attend the book signing :(

Even more frustrating, they will snail mail the tickets to the presentation, and then IF you are one of the winners of the raffle, they will snail mail you that ticket. No notifications or anything. No timeline given as to when they will do all of this. Has anybody ever attended a function like this? This is my first time and I don't know what to expect. This is a 6 hour trip for me and I'm not real sure I want to go if I don't get to attend the book signing :blink:

Anybody have any experience with anything like this?

Tell him we all said "hey!" ;)

I've never gone to see any of my favorite authors in person. I try to be as dumb about their "real life" personas as I possibly can. I don't want to take a chance on spoiling any of their future books by finding out they might be a-holes that I wouldn't give the time of day to on the street. :(

I'm pretty sure that King wouldn't fall into that category but I'm too paranoid to take that chance. Take for instance, Neal Stephenson. I've heard he can be pretty snarky under the very best of circumstances. If he got crappy with me (or anyone around me) I'd take it out on his future books... I'm shallow like that. :o

Anyway... cool if that's your thing, hope you have a blast! :)

LOL never thought of that aspect of it! I hope he's not snarky, that would ruin the persona for me too.

Tell him we all said "hey!" ;)

I've never gone to see any of my favorite authors in person. I try to be as dumb about their "real life" personas as I possibly can. I don't want to take a chance on spoiling any of their future books by finding out they might be a-holes that I wouldn't give the time of day to on the street. :(

I'm pretty sure that King wouldn't fall into that category but I'm too paranoid to take that chance. Take for instance, Neal Stephenson. I've heard he can be pretty snarky under the very best of circumstances. If he got crappy with me (or anyone around me) I'd take it out on his future books... I'm shallow like that. :o

Anyway... cool if that's your thing, hope you have a blast! :)

I fall along this line, too. I was really distressed when I learned certain things about Orson Scott Card. And as much as I worship Margaret Atwood, I disagree with her on at least one major point of literary deconstruction.

I won't elaborate any further on either lest this thread derail even sooner than usual. Except this post is, in of itself, probably a derail. Crud. :p

King used to go to pick-up basketball games and let students come over near the university where he lived to hang out at his house. But one day his new wife came out of the shower to find a stranger in their house and it kind of freaked her out. (If Ms King is freaked - run).

So he had to increase his personal security a bit. But to all accounts he is a pretty lay-back guy.

King used to go to pick-up basketball games and let students come over near the university where he lived to hang out at his house. But one day his new wife came out of the shower to find a stranger in their house and it kind of freaked her out. (If Ms King is freaked - run).

So he had to increase his personal security a bit. But to all accounts he is a pretty lay-back guy.

That must have been a long time ago, he's been married to the same woman for years (as far as I know). I would think he has to be pretty careful about security these days.

King used to go to pick-up basketball games and let students come over near the university where he lived to hang out at his house. But one day his new wife came out of the shower to find a stranger in their house and it kind of freaked her out. (If Ms King is freaked - run).

So he had to increase his personal security a bit. But to all accounts he is a pretty lay-back guy.
I think I remember either reading or hearing about it. The guy had a box he claimed was a bomb and was going to blow Mr. King up for stealing his story ideas. It turned out the man was mentally unbalanced and the 'bomb' was paperclips and erasers. He addresses the idea of the author not being what people expect in his novel "The Dark Half." We tend to put certain people up on pedestals because of what they do and forget that they are real people just like us. I've only met one published author myself though she seemed nice enough. Nancy Kopp is her name & she writes legal thrillers. At least I think that's the genre she writes in. I have autographed copies of all 5 of her books. :)

Dear PG4003 (Patricia) I am new to this, so please forgive my lack of protocol if I am doing this incorrectly. I would be interested in buying a ticket to see Stephen King at George Mason if you decide not to attend. I live in NY and would make the drive to attend. I missed the opportunity to obtain a ticket online this morning. Thank you.
Sincerely,
L. Rera

I'm so excited, I got tickets to see Stephen King at the Fall for the Book Festival at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia :D I'm so thrilled!! He's to be presented an award, and I got tickets for that. (No charge). But I felt a little disappointed, the announcement I had received said tickets would be available for a presentation/book signing for Stephen King but then after I got the tickets, then they say that there will be a raffle held from all ticket holders for only certain ones to attend the book signing :(

Even more frustrating, they will snail mail the tickets to the presentation, and then IF you are one of the winners of the raffle, they will snail mail you that ticket. No notifications or anything. No timeline given as to when they will do all of this. Has anybody ever attended a function like this? This is my first time and I don't know what to expect. This is a 6 hour trip for me and I'm not real sure I want to go if I don't get to attend the book signing :blink:

Anybody have any experience with anything like this?

Good luck, I hope you win the raffle to see him. King is one of my favorite authors.

You're going to have a great time! I went to see Stephen King when he was in town several years ago, and it was fantastic. He read from Lisey's Story (his most recent work at the time), talked about how he comes up with story ideas, cracked jokes when he told the audience that his macabre imagination made raising teenagers more of a nightmare than it should have been, and was just generally an affable, interesting guy. He's the only author I've even gone to see, but it was well worth it. Wish he was coming back this way again.

At that event, there was a raffle/lottery sort of arrangement for the book signing, and for the actual signing they just had him sign books in the back and then the lottery "winners" received a signed book. They didn't get to see King in person and they were only able to receive a copy of Lisey's Story, not provide a different book to be signed. I thought he was going to be at the reception afterwards but he wasn't, which turned out to be fine--it would have been a zoo. Even so, I plunked down a good bit of money to see him then and I'd do it again without hesitation.

Just my opinion, of course...

Interesting, we seem to acknowledge our artists existence when it comes to compensating them monetarily for their work, but the thought of replacing our imagined personas for their "actual" personas gives us pause. What if our imagined personas for all artists includes the idea that copyright is obsolete?

Interesting, we seem to acknowledge our artists existence when it comes to compensating them monetarily for their work, but the thought of replacing our imagined personas for their "actual" personas gives us pause. What if our imagined personas for all artists includes the idea that copyright is obsolete?

What if you finally fixed that broken record?

I think if there's one author who is "safe" to meet in person, it's King. He seems like a regular, unpretentious guy

Of course he did imagine a fan who chops his foot off, so avoid sudden movement when you approach him.

... then they say that there will be a raffle held from all ticket holders for only certain ones to attend the book signing :(

From what I have heard there is no such thing [anymore] as Mr. King sitting behind the table in a book shop with a long queue of people bringing books to have them signed.
He sells pre-signed books (for significantly more than they cost un-signed). In your case it might be that he won't be selling those but a raffle would select who receives signed book.
If you think about it, when a relatively unknown author comes to a store to do a book signing, relatively few people would show up. If Stephen King announced that he would be signing books somewhere, the queue would be miles and miles long.

I might be wrong ...
I *hope* I am wrong ...

Some years ago my wife had a chance meeting with him in an airport. She's reading one of his books, and a guy walks past, asks if it's a good book. She replies, "It's Stephen King, he's always a good read." The guy thanks her, and keeps going.

About half an hour later she realized who it was.

I had somewhat the same encounter as @jkeene describes.

A few years back, we were walking out of the business class lounge in the ATL airport. My now ex-wife was carrying the latest Dean Koontz. A vaguely familiar looking guy looks at her large chest and the paperback she had pressed against it, asked her what she though of it to which she replied "It's a good airplane book, but we both think Koontz writes the same book over and over again."

About 30 seconds later, I realize why the guy looked familiar. Yep, Dean Koontz.

I like to meet authors. Both Cory Doctorow and Slavoj Zizek were pretty much what I'd thought they would be. Both seemed decent fellows, in their own ways. And I'll never forget Zizek walking past me, looking me in the eye, and saying "it's just so crazy" with his trademark lisp.

From what I have heard there is no such thing [anymore] as Mr. King sitting behind the table in a book shop with a long queue of people bringing books to have them signed.
He sells pre-signed books (for significantly more than they cost un-signed). In your case it might be that he won't be selling those but a raffle would select who receives signed book.
If you think about it, when a relatively unknown author comes to a store to do a book signing, relatively few people would show up. If Stephen King announced that he would be signing books somewhere, the queue would be miles and miles long.

I might be wrong ...
I *hope* I am wrong ...

I totally agree with you, there would be a mob if he had a book signing in a book store or somewhere! But my impression about this is they are having the raffle so the numer of people who are allowed in the signing area would be limited to only those with a ticket. He doesn't have a book that's just been released so don't know about it just being a signed book. This whole thing has a little too much "unknown" facts to me. I'm going to try calling the University next week, see if I can talk to someone who can tell me more.

Dear PG4003 (Patricia) I am new to this, so please forgive my lack of protocol if I am doing this incorrectly. I would be interested in buying a ticket to see Stephen King at George Mason if you decide not to attend. I live in NY and would make the drive to attend. I missed the opportunity to obtain a ticket online this morning. Thank you.
Sincerely,
L. Rera

Contact me as the time gets closer. I'm still not sure if I'm going.

Some years ago my wife had a chance meeting with him in an airport. She's reading one of his books, and a guy walks past, asks if it's a good book. She replies, "It's Stephen King, he's always a good read." The guy thanks her, and keeps going.

About half an hour later she realized who it was.
lol. I can't say I disagree with your wife. Mr. King always seems to come up with the most entertaining stories. I don't think there will ever be another like him either, just as there will never be another Edgar Allen Poe.

I had to come back and update this, guess what, I won one of the Golden Tickets to go to the actual book signing with Stephen King, got my ticket yesterday. Now I'm SO excited!!!


75683

Now you must sing the Golden Ticket song for us... :D

I had to come back and update this, guess what, I won one of the Golden Tickets to go to the actual book signing with Stephen King, got my ticket yesterday. Now I'm SO excited!!!


75683

Congratulations! I hope you have a good time. You should take a picture of him and you and post it here.

Congrats! That is sooo cool! :thumbsup:

I had to come back and update this, guess what, I won one of the Golden Tickets to go to the actual book signing with Stephen King, got my ticket yesterday. Now I'm SO excited!!!


75683

Now you must sing the Golden Ticket song for us... :D

Could you bring us back some Everlasting Gobstoppers?

Could you bring us back some Everlasting Gobstoppers?

Forget the gobstoppers--bring back Johnny Depp! :p

Now you must sing the Golden Ticket song for us... :D
"Oh..... I've got a golden ticket. I've got a a golden twinkle in my eye...." lol. Jack Albertson sang that song well. :)

Come visit up here. I can show you the local bookstore he goes to. We have run into him a number of times :)

Yup, we see him around town a bit; come to Bangor, Maine!

Forget the gobstoppers--bring back Johnny Depp! :p

Screw that, I want a swan that lays chocolate eggs.

Yup, we see him around town a bit; come to Bangor, Maine!

Been there, done that -- in my day, Orono transfer students were housed at Bangor Community College; his place was about halfway to downtown. King's probably U M Zero's most celebrated alum.

Forget the gobstoppers--bring back Johnny Depp! :p

Can't bring back Depp... Gene Wilder is the one and only Willy Wanka.

I liked the Depp Wonka more than the Wilder Wonka. There, I said it. :)

Forget the gobstoppers--bring back Johnny Depp! :p

Screw that, I want a swan that lays chocolate eggs.

Can't bring back Depp... Gene Wilder is the one and only Willy Wanka.

I liked the Depp Wonka more than the Wilder Wonka. There, I said it. :)

-aJROW6cuEM

So Patricia, how was the book signing? Did you get any pictures? Do you have any stories?

half a year ago a I got pulled into a discussion about how a person would be able stay at the library (where I work) after closing. It took a while to realise that it was a rather well-known local writer (Annika Sjögren) who was doing research for her next crime book. Well the book has been published now so I guess I'll have to read it to see what happens.. 8-)

I like Gene Wilder's Wonka much better than Johnny Depp's. Wonka is supposed to be eccentric, and Wilder's Wonka manages that. Depp's Wonka seems like a broken person.

I was rather put off at his announcement that there is no plans for an ebook release of his latest book for now.

applesauce

Please close this seriously going into the toilet resurrected from the dead where it should stay thread.