I Accidentally Started a Fan Club for Stephen King

But I've never read a horror book in my life

It was a Wednesday at 10 pm. A dumb time to post a note on Substack and expect any engagement. But when I’ve written something I’m excited to share my capacity for delayed gratification resembles a two year left alone with an open bag of marshmallows. So, I published it.

I was shocked the next morning to see over 2,000 likes and 50 reshares of my message.

It had gone viral.

But this was not a success in my mind. The more traction the note got, the more I understood why. I hadn’t strategized it this way, but the fact that Stephen King was featured in my story is what drove its engagement.

My friend

Rob Tourtelot

had been featured in the Substack newsletter and gone viral last week. I’d written about the mix of jealousy and joy I felt for him—ultimately concluding that the chances of me ever getting the same kind of visibility were on par with our dog responding calmly to future knocks on the front door.

I had gained hundreds of followers and subscribers off the back of Rob’s success, because I get automatically recommended when anyone signs up for his publication, not because people fawn over my writing.

Similarly, I was getting a ton of attention with this note, but again, because of the quality of someone else’s writing.

In fact, I feel as though I should apologize to Stephen King fans, because although he was mentioned in my note, I’ve never read a word of Stephen King in my life. I consume horror about as well as you’d expect a lactose intolerant octogenarian to digest cheese balls. The outcomes are unpleasant in both cases. Stephen King aficionados were weighing in on the history of his work, the places he’s lived, strategies of his publishers, the causes and kindnesses he’s championed, and proudly talking about their own signed copies. And it was all going right over my head.

Never-the-less, the message was now out there, and it was gaining traction. At this moment, it’s the trending epicenter of praise for Stephen King on Substack. And I—the last person who should have been appointed—was the founder of the new fan club because of the story I told in the note.

Here’s what it says.

My son had gotten into reading horror novels and during a recent visit to my parent’s house, he mentioned that fact to my mom.

She got up and walked across the room to a bookcase and pulled a title off the shelf, extending it to him.

My mom has a slow-advancing dementia and before it progresses too far she and my dad are moving into a retirement community where they won’t have to worry about making food and doing laundry. So my mom was in the mode of passing anything along that she no longer needed for day to day functioning.

My son walked over and took the book from her hands. It was a 50-year-old copy of Salem’s Lot by Stephen King.

He opened the cover, and I saw his jaw drop.

When I went to look over his shoulder, what we saw was a personal dedication to my mom (who was a librarian at the time) from King. I don’t even know if my mom remembered that it was a signed copy. But now it’s a unique family heirloom that belongs to my son.

The comment section became the beginning of my education about Stephen King, who (as many of you clearly already know) is considered a national treasure. Message after message gushed over both the quality of King’s writing as well as his masterful ability to scare the living crap out of humans who are safely seated at home.

I found out that people love Stephen King, even though he writes about horror! He is writing, it seems, from his heart—despite how counter-intuitive that seems for the genre. And people feel his resonance to his work, and are grateful for his skill.

I stood by and watched this praise-fest unfold for three days, the notifications lighting up on my phone. The appreciation for the author and particularly for Salem’s Lot was so effusive that I briefly considered turning to page one and giving it a try, but then wisely restrained myself.

You can imagine the awkwardness of my position, being the host of this conversation, but not really knowing what these hundreds of people were talking about. From what I’ve gathered, Stephen King is really good at capturing and magnifying human feelings and experience.

What happens when we start feeling things?

Maybe we discover what really matters—and who we really are.

I showed my trending note to a friend and she helped me see the phenomenon of my contribution in a different light.

“Yes, people are responding to the subject of Stephen King, but I think they’re also celebrating the message of connection in your story.”

I looked again, and she was right.

My little story was about my mother asking her grandson, a fraction of her age, “What are you reading these days?” and then actually caring to hear the answer. That prompted her gift of a cherished possession to him—a personally dedicated copy of Salem’s Lot from Stephen King. Connection between generations.

Also, the note was about a budding celebrity who took the time to sit down and send a note of encouragement to my mom, and the ripple effects that had on her life as an author, editor, and inspiration for other future writers in her family. So, the story was about a connection between a master and a beginner on the writing path.

For three days a flash mob of internet strangers gathered around the campfire of my connection message, warming their hands, sharing their experience. Just as I was starting to wish I could write like Stephen King, or Rob, my friend helped me appreciate the way I write and the focus of my own stories.

Perhaps stories about disconnection—from ourselves, from others, from our capacity for empathy and care—remind us that the dark side is never far away, that we need to practice vigilance against its creep, and that we ought to celebrate when love has the upper hand.

Could that be the value of horror?

Perhaps I’m missing something by not embracing the genre. Maybe I should give it a try.

He reached toward the shelf with a trembling hand and against his greater instincts removed the copy of Salem’s Lot from the bookcase, took it out of the plastic bag, re-read the encouraging words of the author to his mother, and turned to page one.

Nah.

I’m definitely not a horror author—or reader.

And I’ll never write like Stephen King.

But if I were going to tell a horror story, I already know how it would end.

With me never learning to write like myself.