Hello and welcome back to the Constant Reader Podcast, with me Richard Sheppard. Thanks for your kind words about my last interview with James Michels, author of the Melody of Shattered Gold, which is now available on amazon. It’s well worth picking up, the ending is a real gut punch, and the journey is a wild ride. 

Speaking of wild rides, today we are going to be looking at the third volume in King’s Dark Tower Series, the Wastelands. If i complained last time that the Drawing of the Three didn’t really have Roland and ka-tet travelling very far, this volume more than makes up for it. It begins with Roland and Jake chambers fixing the psychic rupture caused by Roland abandoning Jake in the Gunslinger, and then going back to fix it by killing Jake’s assassins Jack Mort. It then moves on to the journey to the City of Lud, caught in a Civil War. This is resolved in apocalyptic fashion and the group barely manage to escape the cataclysm on a sentient, suicidal monorail. Heady stuff, and I am honored and privileged as always to have the first lady of Stephen King podcasters, Kim C herself, with me on the quest for the Dark Tower. Kim is a university lecturer in creative writing, who has been educating and entertaining the Stephen King fanbase for a while now with her podcast, The Year of Underrated Stephen King and it’s patreon, the Danse Macabre

Welcome back to the Constant reader Podcast, and thanks for bearing with us during our long hiatus. We have gathered up quite a few of our favorite repeat guests for 2025 though, so i am sure you will forgive us. We have lined up Kim C from the year of underrated Stephen King podcast with another step towards the Dark Tower. The gentlemen from King Con will be giving a report on how their convention on Stephen King, the first of its type, went back in October, and what you might expect from them in the future. Plus Andy Stanton will be back to help me sort out the End of the World As We Know It, the upcoming short story collection based in the world of King's The Stand. Plus we have some new guests, including some big names I can’t reveal just yet. 

Today’s guest is one those old friends, James Michels. James was on the show a couple of years ago to talk about The Shawshank Redemption, his own work in the prison industry, and his career as crime writer. We discussed a series of short stories, Life’s Dark Corners, that i urge you to seek out. Today however, he is here to discuss The Melody of Shattered Glass, an ambitious epic novel that depicts the fates of the Oro crime family, one of the last bastions of a mafia that is struggling to identify exactly what it is, and what it stands for in the 21st century. But first, James wanted to talk about Stand by Me, Rob Reiner’s adaptation of King’s novella The Body. It features an incredible cast, a killer soundtrack, a sharp script and has meant a lot of things to a lot of people.

I refer to his new book as The Melody of Shattered Glass, when it is, in fact The Melody of Shattered Gold. A thousand apologies to James for misnaming this book, which has an incredible ending and unforgettable characters.....

As the Dollar Baby experiment comes to its close, i would like to shine a spotlight on some of the more successful films made from the treasure trove of Stephen King's short stories. 'That Feeling' by Paul Inman expertly captures the dark, guilt-ridden themes of the 1998 short story 'That Feeling, You Can Only Say What it is in French'. It's being shown at October's King Con, and tickets for that can still be found here, but hurry, they're going fast.....

This Autumn why not head to the Linq Hotel between the 24th-27th of October for the first-of-its-kind Stephen King Convention (AKA KingCON2024)? There is a great lineup of guests, including Mick Garris, Robert Kurtzman and two of my recent favorite authors, Jonathan Janz and Ronald Malfi. There are also a host of illustrators, artists, writers, collectors, vendors and (more importantly) many like-minded King fans all in one place.

I was lucky enough to talk to two of the hard-working members of the convention planning committee, Kris Webster and Andy Graham. Kris joins us a litte ways in the conversation. We talk about the Con, their backgrounds as Constant Readers and the fine art of book collecting.

Find everything you need to know about the Con here.

Back once again with undisputed Queen of Stephen King podcasting, Kim C. In this episode, Kim C. plays Sherpa Tenzing to my increasingly word-baggery Edmund Hilary as we scale the second Dark Tower novel, The Drawing of the Three. As you will hear, this installment of the DT series left us bewitched, bothered, bemused and with breathe completely taken.

How autobiographical is it? Which is scarier, the world of lobstrosities or 1980s New York? How do you write a quest novel in which the protagonists only walk a few miles? We discuss all of this, and a lot more besides.

Find Kim's podcast here, and her wonderful Patreon here.

Our fever for The Stand has gone full blown this month, as we finish our epic conversation with Andy Stanton. We discuss the mutations of The Stand, from the graphic novels to the miniseries and touching on the forthcoming The End of the World as We Know It, a collection of short stories set in the world of Captain Trips with contributions from past guests including Paul Tremblay and Richard Chizmar. Plus, in-depth discussion of Nick Andros and Mother Abigial.

Andy's work can be found here, and the Tumbler's Willy Podcast can be found here.

Also, previous guest N P Cunniffe's book The Weejee man can be found here. and is well worth a look...

Lindsey Anderson Beer's 2023 prequel to the 2019 reboot of Pet Sematary got something of a kicking by most critics on its release. There are the bones of a good film in their somewhere though, and the look and the soundtrack of the film, plus an eclectic cast, make it an interesting curio if nothing else.

Joining me to discuss it is N.P. Cunniffe, the author of the new folk horror/Gothic novella The Weejee Man. It's a great, classically spooky story with an interesting format and some chilling twists. Plus, the book itself is a beautiful artifact, with a cover design by the author himself. I urge you to pick up a copy here, before the Wee Gee Man comes looking for you....

We're back (again) after a long hiatus, but what a return. One of the most listened to episodes of this podcast were the two-part epic discussions between me and Andy Stanton a few years ago. We both kicked around the idea of a rematch, and what other book could we cover but the 1990 edition of Stephen King's The Stand? Whilst other podcasts displayed depressingly lateral thinking of covering the book during the COVID 19 outbreak, Andy and i took the high ground.

As you will hear, Andy has lived with The Stand in his head and his heart for most of his life, and he brings his blend of wit, insight and passion to this talk.

Unsurprisingly, it was too much to fit in one episode, so this is just the first part of our conversation, stay tuned for part two in a few months' time.

We also discuss Andy's new book, Benny the Blue Whale. A meditation on AI and the creative process, it is well worth a look. Naturally, it also contains a few references to Stephen King.

Next month we talk to NP Cunniffe about Pet Sematary: Bloodlines and his new book, the Irish folk horror tale, The Weejee Man.

We unearth a real curio in the King canon today, as the teleplay for Sorry, Right Number gets a good grilling. Originally filmed as part of the Tales From The Darkside television series, the teleplay was then reproduced in the 1993 short story collection, Nightmares and Dreamscapes. My guest and I discuss how much of this is autobiography, how much a cry for help, and how much just an effective, gut-punch of a tale.

I am joined on the other end of the line by Adam Z Robinson, a multi-talented actor, writer and theatre manager whose work focuses on the supernatural, human relationships and what makes us truly afraid.

His website is here, and you can book tickets to his winter tour here and sign up for his ghost story masterclass, where i will also be in attendance, here.

It should be unsurprising that Stephen King, as the world's most popular writer, should have such a pervasive presence online. More than any other author, the number of his fan-sites is in the thousands.

However, only one fan-site has achieved the kind of dominance that Lilja's Library has. Indeed, it is a resource in producing this podcast every month. I sat down to talk to the man known as Lilja (because i can't pronounce Hans-Åke) about his life, his website, the past present and future of all things Stephen King and plenty more besides.

Lilja was a most gracious guest, and i highly recommend you check out his website here, and check out his books here

And don't forger (like there's a chance you would) that King's new book Holly is now for sale here