Story Matters

In this exciting matchup, I pit legendary authors against one another to see who comes out on top! Yessiree, folks, step right up for the fight of the century. In one corner, we've got legendary suspense author of over sixty-five books and counting, Stephen King, and his novella, The Body. And in the opposite corner, we've got Pulitzer Prize winner and minimalist wordsmith, Cormac McCarthy, and his terse novel, Child of God. Who is the better author, which is the better book, and does anyone really care?

Also in today's podcast: Are dislikable protagonists worth reading about? Does style matter more than substance? Did someone try to scam me while recording this podcast? What's with this book everyone keeps talking about . . . Doom? Dune? Dude? And what's with these new, D&D-themed animes, Frieren and Delicious in Dungeon? And what about Patrick Rothfuss? Is he any good?

After reading and reviewing Cloud Cuckoo Land, my best book of 2023, I knew I had to pick up another of Anthony Doerr's books. This time, I figured, why not the book that won him the Pulitzer? In true Doerr fashion, All the Light We Cannot See is a masterclass in poetry. Every sentence sings. Every word stabs at the heart. It is truly a joy for those of us who still appreciate quality writing. But this isn't to say the plot is lacking. All the Light We Cannot See revolves around a blind French girl, Marie, and an orphaned German boy, Werner, who is forced into the Nazi Youth. It's a story about young people struggling for meaning in a violent, chaotic world. Marie's blindness reflects, metaphorically, the moral darkness created by war and people in desperate situations. It's a book that asks how you can know to be good in an evil world.

If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or anything outside the humanities field, chances are you'll benefit from a college degree. But woe to you whose heart is set on becoming an author, a musician, a visual artist, or any pursuit whose area of study depends on an arbitrary grading system or how much your teacher likes you. Learning from an author/painter/musician who hasn't been dead for a hundred years is worth little in the art world. The collegiate Ivory Tower is run by aging professors with one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel, dusty, out-of-touch curators of the past and defenders of tradition harboring a disdain for all things new, all things trending and popular, tenured wizards of academia who will teach you to love everything the business world would have us forget. Which is why, depending on your field, college might be a huge waste of time and money.

David Sedaris would like you to know that nudists are ugly and weird and should probably know better. At least, that’s the impression he gives, if his book, Naked, is any indication. It’s crass, low-brow comedy—and a sneaky way for him to make fun of fat people just for being fat because, hey, they’re naked, so they deserve it. How dare you love your body when your boobs hang down to your belly like grapefruits in a pair of socks! Seriously, this is more or less a direct quote from the book, one of many colorful descriptions meant to elicit a laugh. Her clit was like a leathery coin purse also sticks to my mind.

In Naked, Sedaris manages to find the one group of people it’s socially acceptable to ridicule because we’re just a bunch of retired, out-of-touch hippies without the good sense to hide our disgusting selves like normal people. Only problem? His portrait is misleading at best. While the eccentric folks he describes in his book most certainly exist (I’ve met them), they no more represent the clothes-free movement than the leather-clad “bondage slaves,” made popular in 80s flicks and Southpark, represent the LGBTQ community.

The Princess of Aenya is a powerful tale of adventure, love, death, and redemption. It is for readers looking to be inspired, a book to fit neatly on your shelf between The NeverEnding Story and The Last Unicorn. If you're a fan of Aenya, fairytales, fantasy, or Sci-Fi, you won't want to miss out on this gem. It also leads directly into my upcoming book, The Magiq of Aenya (working title).

If you would like to listen to the fairytale intro read by my daughter, hear me read the first chapter, or hear music based on the book, hit that link below!

No matter how advanced artificial intelligence becomes---even after a thousand years of quantum computing---novels written by AI will never be worth anyone's time because fiction isn't a math problem to be solved. Storytelling is the greatest form of human expression. It's how we share our lived experiences, our fears, our pain, our aspirations. But a computer that is not sentient cannot know what it means to be alive. It can never know the loss of a loved one, nor understand holding a newborn child, nor comprehend any of the myriad feelings unique to the human experience. AI can do nothing but imitate, and in simply knowing this, knowing that what we are reading is a mere facade of human expression, the writing becomes meaningless. It is to value a photograph of the Mona Lisa like the actual painting.

Unfortunately, too many of today's popular books resemble AI writing because publishers continue to push for trends and copy what sells.

What can I say about this book that hasn't already been said? Harper Lee's masterpiece and only true novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, has been analyzed to death by critics and is quintessential reading for any middle school English class. How Lee manages to write with such pathos, conviction, and storytelling skill without ever having published anything before or since (I am not counting Go Set a Watchmen, sorry) is, for me, the most remarkable fact about this book. Mockingbird may also be the most important social commentary about race and is of special significance given today's bipolar, Trump-loving America.

What mostly sets To Kill a Mockingbird apart, however, is its choice of protagonists. Lee draws inspiration from her upbringing to paint a portrait of small-town life in Alabama circa the 1930s. Through the rosy, innocent lens of childhood, we learn of the evils of racism through the eyes of the book's pubescent protagonists.

Writing is hard and storytelling is even harder. It is a fool's errand paved with heartache and disappointment and oddly placed metaphors. So, if you're dreaming big, wanting to see your name appear at Barnes & Noble next to the big shots of the literary world, do yourself a favor and step away from the keyboard. That's my #1 piece of advice for all you aspiring authors out there: don't. The world has more than enough stories, and we sure as heck don't need yours. Thanks but no thanks.

Did I piss you off? Good! You'll never make it in this business if you're willing to give up that easily. Because if you're anything like me and you feel like you just don't have a choice in the matter, you'll want to go ahead and listen to this podcast. Heck, I dare you to listen to it!

In this episode, I offer my top three suggestions (not rules!) for engaging storytelling, I get into the challenges of today's art-killing algorithm, and last but not least, I explain why becoming successful has little to do with luck.

Trigger warning: This episode may frustrate you and cause you anxiety, but if you are serious about the craft, and I mean really serious, you may also find hope.

I have thoughts. No surprise, I know, but being an oh-so-special lover of words, my thoughts tend to be stubborn things. They stick to my brain like molasses and refuse to go away. Unfortunately, we live in a time when having thoughts can be dangerous. Expressing an opinion---any opinion, really---is like strolling through a minefield. Take a wrong step, and BOOM! There goes your career.

Seriously, though, I have never been shy about my views, and I feel it is important to express them, not because I possess some special wisdom (I do not) but because only through freedom of expression can we ever hope to achieve the Star Trek utopia we all (at least most of us) are hoping to build. Society is a tapestry of voices, and we are all responsible for what we make of it. Like it or not, choosing to remain silent on matters of life, death, and suffering is to become culpable when things go wrong.

This is why, on today's very special double-whammy podcast, I throw my hat into the ring regarding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the transgender issue. Yes, these topics are rife with landmines, but it's possible to make a stand (or take a walk, metaphorically speaking) without the risk of getting canceled. Even with zero to little expertise on the matter (I am just a struggling author/ex-pizza maker), I believe that, whether you are left or right-leaning, fundamental human principles exist that we can all agree upon.

I sit (virtually) with my artistic conspirator and college-attending daughter, Jasmine, to discuss Diana Wynne Jones's imaginative yet convoluted fantasy romp, Howl's Moving Castle. We then compare it to Hayao Miyazaki's masterful cinematic interpretation. We also get into anime in general and the differences between Western and Japanese storytelling.

Love Studio Ghibli? Or books by British authors? Please give us a listen!

"The book was better" always gets thrown around when readers compare a movie to its novel counterpart. And I admit that, with few exceptions, the novel version is superior. The reasons for this are many. Transitioning a story from one medium to another is often like translating a pun into another language. What works in print doesn't work on the screen. Each reader imagines an event differently and focuses their attention on varying plot details. A book contains a richness of information that a two-hour film simply cannot convey. Perhaps most importantly, the written medium delves into the protagonist's mind like no other medium can. There's probably no better example of this than Stephen King's Misery, the epitome of the expression, "The book was better."

Misery is one of those rare books I didn't want to stop reading. Much more than the simple psychological/body horror the movie conveys, Misery is a tale of addiction, mental illness, and the writer's struggle.

I finally got around to reading one of this generation's most beloved and successful fantasy authors: Brandon Sanderson. Is the guy all he's cracked up to be, at least judging by his debut novel, Mistborn?

While I found much of the book a bit too formulaic for my tastes---we are treated, yet again, to yet another evil sorcerer-king ruling over a dystopian setting, while a young vagabond girl (is there any other kind?) discovers she has magic powers (take a number, please, and go wait in the hall)---Sanderson proves he's got storytelling mettle (pun intended!). Though often burdened by exposition-heavy dialogue, Mistborn remains engaging throughout, with likable characters and a romantic subplot ripped from the pages of Pride and Prejudice.

This series is a tribute to my late father, Arthur Alimonos, who passed away in March of this year. In this episode, we learn how he went from cook to restaurant owner, about his dalliances in America, and how he returned to Greece to meet and marry my mother.

Arthur Alimonos, my father, passed away in March of this year at the age of ninety after having lived an amazing life. Twelve years ago, he asked me to share his story with the world. This is Part II of that story, where he journeys from his homeland in war-ravaged Greece to the shores of New York in search of a more promising future.

Please help celebrate his legacy by sharing Arthur's story with the people you know and love.

Everything old is new again! Nostalgia sells, and like any good business, Hollywood is banking on your childhood like never before. Instead of the innovative storytelling we grew up with in the '80s, we are inundated with sequels, prequels, remakes, and reboots. Disney gave us new Star Wars, and Amazon's Rings of Power brought us back to Middle Earth, and She-Ra and He-Man are back too! And look, the entire cast of Enterprise-D returns in Paramount's Picard! Hell, even Indiana Jones is making his fifth comeback. And Harrison Ford is 80!

But far more often than not, these retreads are met with skepticism, disappointment, and anger. MAGA-heads blame our changing cultural landscape and what they call "wokism." Something is clearly missing here, but it definitely isn't a lack of white male leads.

The problem is simply this: it's impossible to recreate someone else's art. Only George Lucas can be George Lucas. Only Gene Roddenberry can be Gene Roddenberry. Everything we love about Disney, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings, DC Comics, etc., came from a brilliant creative mind, and a vision sorely lacking from many of today's retreads, when every storytelling decision is made by suits looking to maximize their profits. Big media companies commodify art for mass production---products devoid of nuance, or anything remotely challenging or controversial.

This is nothing new, of course. Business and art have made for strange bedfellows since the dawn of time. It's a sad state of affairs that has been simmering in my brain for decades now. But for me, at least, it's no more egregious than the final season of Picard, when Paramount at last achieved their goal of turning the less profitable and cerebral Star Trek into another check-your-brain-at-the-door Star Wars ripoff.

My father passed away in March of this year after ninety years on this Earth. Here, I share the amazing life of Arthur Alimonos as he tells it, beginning in 1933, in the little-known village of Magoula, Greece. Having lost his father to tuberculosis at age five, Arthur struggled to survive in a family of four brothers, a sister, and a destitute mother. In the following years, he experienced poverty, hunger, the Nazi capture of his family, and the violence of Communist radicals.

Terminator and The Matrix had it all wrong. AI isn't going to kill us and it won't turn us into slaves. But we should be afraid ... very afraid. Because what we are essentially creating with programs like ChatGPT is a superior form of human. Our lives are significantly diminished when machines can be programmed to do everything better and faster than we can: paint faster pictures, write better stories, and create better music. Why study medicine when AI doctors can be everywhere instantly, diagnosing patients without making mistakes? Why pay screenwriters when AI screenwriters can better understand what excites moviegoers and what makes them pay for tickets? When AI can be more creative and clever than we can be, when AI inevitably becomes superior in all the ways that matter to society and culture, what will be left for us to contribute, and how will that affect our sense of self-worth? 

The indie publishing industry is an embattled landscape of scams, schemers, dashed dreams, and desperation. Thanks to Amazon and the advent of POD printing, we are inundated with dreck novels by would-be authors, while the truly rare, standout storyteller often goes unnoticed. All the while, online predators take advantage of this gross surplus of books nobody wants to read, preying on the desperate with paid reviews, vanity presses, and marketing schemes that go nowhere.

But it's not all gloom and doom. If you're willing to master the art of storytelling, readers will notice, and publishers will too. Like everything else in life, it takes passion, patience, and most of all, hard work! Really, it's 99% hard work. 

In today's podcast, Heather and I discuss Chinese novelist Cixin Liu's Hugo award-winning, The Three-Body Problem, a book President Barack Obama called "wildly imaginative."

The Three-Body Problem is a welcome foray into the hard science fiction genre. When it comes to astronomy, mathematics, and the forefront of scientific theory, Liu knows his stuff. His ideas are both fascinating and largely plausible. But the author admits to being far more interested in exploring science, and the thought experiments in his book, than weaving a compelling narrative with engaging characters, and it shows. That's not to say I don't recommend The Three-Body Problem. The ideas Liu tackles make it a worthy read, and if you love science as much as I do, it's a journey you'll want to take.

Like most things on social media, hatred for Amazon's 'The Rings of Power' has reached a fever pitch and is entirely overblown. Is it a great show? Maybe not. Is it worthy of Tolkien's masterpiece? Not really. Is it on par with the Peter Jackson's films? Certainly not. Is it worth watching? If you're a fan of fantasy on TV, I think so.  

Christmastime is here again, and what better story to celebrate the holidays than Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol? No, wait. Actually, we're doing Lois Lowry's The Giver, a classic tale of the original giver of gifts, Santa himself . . . Actually, no, this dystopian novel has little to do with Old Saint Nick. But, in my defense, Christmas is mentioned somewhere in it, as is "giving" things. We also, my wife and I, get into spoilers for Ender's Game and Never Let Me Go.

This podcast is a gift to all. I enjoyed making it, and I hope you will enjoy listening to it!!!

Sometimes, the best forms of storytelling come from the most unexpected places. After months of reading books and watching shows that have left me feeling cold and empty, it's great to be reminded of what powerful writing can do. But in this case, the story was delivered through the medium of a broadway musical. I am talking about Hadestown, which I was fortunate to see when visiting New York City to watch my kids perform in the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade. And really, I can't seem to stop thinking about the show or listening to the music on repeat in my car or while working at my computer. For me, it's that uber-rare gem that makes me fall in love with story all over again, reminding me why I do this in the first place.

So, in today's episode of Story Matters, I sit down with special guest, Jasmine (my daughter), to discuss this town-award winning musical. Oh, and would you believe the trombonist on the tour played for the Tarpon Springs Conservatory for the Arts, my daughter's marching band? How cool is that?

OK, I've dissected enough of other people's books. Now it's my turn. That's right, folks, it's time I get to toot my own horn. So here is your introduction to Aenya, a world blending the best of fantasy and science fiction.

The books in the Aenya Series have possessed me for over twenty years. And here, at last, I divulge all the gritty secrets about how the series got its start from a fledgling piece of fan fiction. I get into my childhood inspiration, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, my Greek heritage and love of mythology, and how my personal experiences as a nudist shaped this unique fantasy setting. It's a darker, more mature take on He-Man and Teela, with more nudity than even HBO could handle, parts Lovecraft, parts Homer, but more than anything else, a fresh take on the fantasy genre nobody has ever seen. 

Wrapping it all up, I read the prologue to Ages of Aenya in a sound-effects-laden show reminiscent of those old, 1940s radio broadcasts, leaving the door open for you, dear listener, to further explore the world of Aenya.

"Is life a meritocracy?" Does being good at something inevitably lead to success, or is success more dependent on luck: who you know and where you are born? This question keeps me up most nights, gives me anxiety, and makes me walk around my neighborhood when everyone else is asleep.

In my latest podcast, I talk about how my father went from a penniless Greek immigrant to a wealthy pizza tycoon, why Mozart, Stan Lee, and George Lucas were born into the right place and time, and why now-famous authors like Herman Melville and John Kennedy Toole never saw success in their lifetimes. I also get into angry customers raging over the types of cheese we use and all the sneaky things indie authors resort to these days to get noticed in this overstuffed, information-polluted world.

Nothing but blackened teeth? Eww . . . gross. Maybe someone should see a dentist. Oh, but wait, this isn't a story about dentistry; it's a horror novella set in modern-day Japan featuring the titular monster, a "Geisha" ghost with awful oral hygiene.

All kidding aside, newcomer Cassandra Khaw gets a big A+ for this assignment, and if I were her teacher, I wouldn't grade her any less. But therein lies the real problem: her story reads more like something she turned in for class, something to impress her stuffy English professor. Put another way: I've no doubt Khaw aced the vocabulary portion of her SATs. But the art of storytelling is an entirely different animal. Yes, your thesaurus and dictionary are valuable tools. But knowing how to engage readers so book buyers get excited about your next release requires an entirely different set of skills. Skills not taught in school and not easily mastered.

What's the secret to becoming a great author? Here's a little hint: it's no secret. Yes, this title is clickbait. If you see a YouTube video or Master Class offering a quick and easy way to literary fame and fortune, they're selling you snake oil. Like it or not, it's a long, hard climb to the top, a pinnacle built over a hill of garbage---garbage you'll inevitably have to produce before achieving something worthy of a book lover's time. In this episode, I share some trash produced by my own pen, embarrassing snippets from my early life as a struggling storyteller.

It's hard for me to wrap my head around Stephen King's Dark Tower finale and seventh book in the series, The Dark Tower, but I will try. I will admit I haven't been this eager to talk about a book in a long time.

Imagine, if you will, William Shakespeare writing the novelization of the Star Wars sequels, particularly Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. I am not saying Shakespeare would have written the screenplay. No, no, the story would be the same, but the words used to convey it would be his. Who's Supreme Leader Snoke / The Crimson King? Who knows! How does Emperor Palpatine return? Doesn't matter! As long as you don't think about it, The Rise of Skywalker and The Dark Tower are great stories.

OK, I am being unfair to Stephen King because this analogy doesn't consider that The Dark Tower is the author's baby, a work of pure artistic passion. It's not as if King stole his book from another author just to tack on his own incoherent ending. Secondly, King may not have wanted to make sense from the start because The Dark Tower has never been Sci-Fi or fantasy. From the get-go, the books in the series possess a dreamlike quality, an Alice in Wonderland kind of surrealism, where logic takes a back seat to emotion, and this is where King's magnum opus excels, at getting the reader to feel things. As long as you don't think too much about it, The Dark Tower succeeds at what it sets out to do. In fact, King knocks it out of the park. But it is without question a very, very strange story --- and I have no doubt it would turn off many readers expecting a more traditional tale. See, you have to come into the Dark Tower with a very open mind (so open your brains just might fall out) and whether that's the mark of true genius or just very poor plotting is something I haven't quite figured out yet. But if there is a prime example of write-by-the-seat-of-your-pants fiction, this is it. The Dark Tower is the literary equivalent of Picasso; you can hate it, love it, or just come away scratching your head in confusion --- or, as in my case, fall somewhere between all three.

You know Heather and I just had to talk about Amazon's most expensive show of all time, The Rings of Power, didn't you? As huge lovers of Tolkien's works and Peter Jackson's film adaptation, we try and parse through the honest detractors (the Tolkien purists) from the anti-woke crowd and get into the polarizing decision to include black actors and a badass female lead in Galadriel. Is The Rings of Power simply pandering to the Left or just a sign of changing attitudes? And can we even hope to determine the intent of an author no longer with us? And what the Hell does any of it even matter if the show is great?

Of course, no Story Matters Podcast would be complete without us getting into He-Man, Greek mythology, Tarzan of the Apes (my favorite racist novel), Hellraiser, Prey, and other pop culture fare.

Please give it a listen, a like, and a share!

Yes, we're doing it again! Intrepidly, boldly, perhaps foolishly . . . Heather and I step into the midst of the culture war. The political atmosphere in this country is particularly toxic right now, but we feel it's important to take a stand, as any conscientious person should --- because what we feel, say, and do has lasting consequences. It's an ongoing struggle between truth and falsehood, love and hate, freedom and tyranny. And, as always, storytelling plays a big role in that struggle. 

This is the second part of our three-part series, wherein Heather and I discuss Stephen King's epic fantasy, "The Dark Tower." In this episode, we focus on the ups and downs of the sixth book of King's magnum opus. As always, King excels at literary technique, and his talent for making us feel for his characters remains on point. Yet the pitfalls of his write-by-the-seat-of-his-pants approach to storytelling are more greatly felt in this one. Song of Susannah was a roller-coaster ride for us to review. It's sometimes good, sometimes great, but too often, the plot just goes all over the place and in a bad way.

I recently met a fan of my books (he's read both Ages of Aenya and The Princess of Aenya) who was very much at odds with my political views. Let's just say his beliefs threw me into a depressive spiral. As we continue slipping toward an Orwellian nightmare, I find myself unable to sleep, which is why I felt compelled to share my thoughts on this platform, if only to unburden my skull before getting back to the shiny new novel I am working on. Of course, I may lose readers over this rant, but that's a price I am willing to pay to fight the good fight. Freedom always comes at a cost. Please give it an open ear, mind, and heart.   

What the heck is The Dark Tower anyway? I am six books deep into King's magnum opus, and I still have no idea. (OK, that's not true, I have some clue, but not enough to know why the party of heroes: Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake, are so desperately trying to get there, or why, as a reader, I should care.) In typical fashion, King shows off his penchant for wordiness, yet his superb character-driven storytelling kept me turning the pages even when the plotting wears thin.

In this podcast, Heather and I discuss the first FIVE books in The Dark Tower series.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about MAUS, Art Spiegelman's moving holocaust graphic, which was banned by the Tennessee School Board. Schools in Tennessee are run by ninnies, apparently, because all seven members voted to keep the book from the hands of middle schoolers owing to the book's depiction of nudity (black and white images of nude mice) and a few uses of the word "bitch." Banning books, of course, always results in the opposite of its intended effect, and in no time at all MAUS shot to the top of everyone's reading list, selling out everywhere and jumping to Amazon's no. #2 spot in all book categories.

MAUS isn't just a great book (**** out of 4 stars, easy) but an important one, something everyone should be reading. And, given all the hullabaloo, Heather and I knew we had to throw in our pennies. So in this casting of the pod, we talk MAUS while getting down and dirty into censorship, cancel culture, politics, and religion (all the good stuff, basically). Bored? Not easily offended? Easily offended? We don't care!

Listen at your own risk!!!

We're probably going to catch a lot of flak for this, owing to the immense popularity of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, perhaps the most sprawling epic ever written, rivaling even A Song of Ice and Fire in verbosity. But from what we (Heather and I) were able to assess from the first book in the series, The Eye of the World, Jordan's opus borrows a bit too heavily from Tolkien. While Jordan is a capable storyteller and a skillful wordsmith, his work is the epitome of everything I find wrong with the fantasy genre today. Basically, it's the problem of world-building getting in the way of storytelling. Call me old-fashioned, but what matters most to me is plot and character, particularly characters you can relate to on an emotional level. In The Eye of the World, we are introduced to a very large cast of players, none of whom seem particularly engaging. What's more, the conflict driving the plot is muddled, so you really never get a sense of urgency, a sense of knowing what it is the protagonists want or how they are meant to go about achieving it. To sum it all up, a village is attacked by orcish-like creatures, called trollocs, and a boy named Rand and his friends are convinced by a wizard named Moraine to follow her to a city, where some vaguely hinted at mystery is to be solved. In The Lord of the Rings, the destruction of the One Ring acts as an immediate focal point, with all of the emotional payoff and world-building centered around it. But in Jordan's, dare I say, "version," I am at a loss as to what the point is. To be fair, I only managed to get through the first 300 pages, so I can't leave an entirely honest review, but I don't think a reader should be tasked with digging through so many words just to get to the main idea.

Agree? Disagree? Check out what Heather and I have to say in our latest podcast! We review The Wheel of Time and the new show it's based on, and sneak in a bit of nonfiction talk for a little-known title, Madhusree Mukerjee's The Land of Naked People.

Heather and I discuss Stephen King's quasi-historical time travel story, 11/22/63! We also dip a little bit into Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World. What more do you need to know? Give it a listen!

No discussion of Stephen King's It would be complete without tackling that scene---a scene not surprisingly omitted from every film adaptation---and if you don't know what I'm talking about, just read the book! Hint: sex + children. Historically, taboo subjects in fiction challenge readers to examine social norms, and forces us to consider whether anything should be off-limits to authors, or if well-intentioned creators should be free to tackle any topic, particularly today, in this age of rampant pornography, political outrage, cancel culture, and the death of nuance.

We also discuss King's first novel, Carrie, how he developed as a young writer, and how he experiments with style, often bending the rules of grammar to get into the heads of his characters. And also, how King, as a middle-aged man, handles his pubescent protagonist, a girl dealing with an abusive mother, religious oppression, high school bullies, and the trauma of puberty.

Please give it a listen!!!

In this episode, we discuss Stephen King's "IT". With its deep dive into the psychology of its characters, Stephen King proves that literature has a lot to offer that other media can't provide.