Secret Windows

Last updated
Secret Windows
Secret Windows.jpg
Author Stephen King
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subject Writing
Publisher BOMC
Publication date
October 2000
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Pages433
ISBN 0-16-500643-9
Preceded by On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft  
Followed by Faithful (book)  

Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing is a collection of short stories, essays, speeches, and book excerpts by Stephen King, published in 2000. It was marketed by Book-of-the-Month Club as a companion to King's On Writing . Although its title is derived from a King novella ( Secret Window, Secret Garden ), it is not otherwise related to that novella or the film adaptation, Secret Window . [1]

The texts in the collection are primarily concerned with writing and the horror genre. Several of the entries have been published elsewhere, including introductions King had written for other authors' novels, as well as introductions and essays from King's previous books. [1] This volume also includes several short works that had not been previously published elsewhere, including lectures given by King, an interview with King conducted by Muriel Gray, a never-before-published short story by King, titled "In the Deathroom," and an introduction written by Peter Straub.

Contents

TitleOriginally published in
Introduction by Peter StraubPreviously unreleased
Dave's Rag Dave's Rag (1959–1960)
The horror market writer and the ten bears: A true storyWriter's Digest (1973)
Foreword to Night Shift Night Shift (1978)
On becoming a brand nameAdelina magazine (1980)
Horror fiction Danse Macabre (1981)
An evening at the Billerica (Massachusetts) library1983
The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine (1984)
How It happenedBook-of-the-month-club news (1986)
Banned books and other concerns: The Virginia Beach lectureVirginia Beach Public Library (1986)
Turning the thumbscrew on the readerBook-of-the-month-club news (1987)
"Ever et raw meat?" and other weird questionsThe New York Times book review (1987)
A new introduction to John Fowles's The Collector The Collector (1989)
What Stephen King does for love Seventeen (1990)
Two past midnight: A note on Secret Window, Secret Garden Four Past Midnight (1990)
Introduction to Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door The Girl Next Door (1995)
Great hookers I have known
A night at the Royal Festival Hall: Muriel Gray interviews Stephen King1998
An evening with Stephen King1999
In the Deathroom Blood and Smoke (1999)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clive Barker</span> English author, film director and visual artist

Clive Barker is an English novelist who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the Books of Blood, which established him as a leading horror writer. He has since written many novels and other works. His fiction has been adapted into films, notably the Hellraiser series, the first installment of which he also wrote and directed, and the Candyman series. He was also an executive producer of the film Gods and Monsters, which won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen King</span> American writer (born 1947)

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Called the "King of Horror", his books have sold more than 350 million copies as of 2006, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. He has also written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in book collections. His debut, Carrie, was published in 1974, and was followed by 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, The Stand and The Dead Zone. Different Seasons, a collection of four novellas, was his first major departure from the horror genre. The novellas provided the basis for the films Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption. King has published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman and has cowritten works with other authors, notably his friend Peter Straub and sons Joe Hill and Owen King.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Short story</span> Brief work of literature, usually written in narrative prose

A short story is a piece of prose fiction that can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century.

This is a list of short fiction by Stephen King. This includes short stories, novelettes, and novellas, as well as poems. It is arranged chronologically by first publication. Major revisions of previously published pieces are also noted. Stephen King is sometimes credited with "nearly 400 short stories". However, all the known published pieces of short fiction are tabulated below. In all, 218 works are listed. Most of these pieces have been collected in King's seven short story collections: Night Shift (1978), Skeleton Crew (1985), Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993), Everything's Eventual (2002), Just After Sunset (2008), The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (2015), and You Like It Darker (2024); in King's five novella collections: Different Seasons (1982), Four Past Midnight (1990), Hearts in Atlantis (1999), Full Dark, No Stars (2010), and If It Bleeds (2020); and in the compilation Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing (2000). Some of these pieces, however, remain uncollected.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramsey Campbell</span> English author

Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. He is the author of over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, many of them winners of literary awards. Three of his novels have been adapted into films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poppy Z. Brite</span> Novelist, short story writer, food writer

William Joseph Martin, formerly Poppy Z. Brite, is an American author. He initially achieved fame in the gothic horror genre of literature in the early 1990s by publishing a string of successful novels and short story collections. He is best known for his novels Lost Souls (1992), Drawing Blood (1993), and Exquisite Corpse (1996). His later work moved into the genre of dark comedy, with many stories set in the New Orleans restaurant world. Martin's novels are typically standalone books but may feature recurring characters from previous novels and short stories. Much of his work features openly bisexual and gay characters.

Thomas Ligotti is an American horror writer. His writings are rooted in several literary genres – most prominently weird fiction – and have been described by critics as works of philosophical horror, often formed into short stories and novellas in the tradition of gothic fiction. The worldview espoused by Ligotti in his fiction and non-fiction has been described as pessimistic and nihilistic. The Washington Post called him "the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction."

Michael Lawson Bishop was an American author. Over five decades and in more than thirty books, he created what has been called a "body of work that stands among the most admired and influential in modern science fiction and fantasy literature."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andre Dubus</span> American writer

Andre Jules Dubus II was an American writer of short stories, novels, and essays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Dann</span> American writer

Jack Dann is an American writer best known for his science fiction, as well as an editor and a writing teacher, who has lived in Australia since 1994. He has published over seventy books, the majority being as editor or co-editor of story anthologies in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. He has published nine novels, numerous shorter works of fiction, essays, and poetry, and his books have been translated into thirteen languages. His work, which includes fiction in the science fiction, fantasy, horror, magical realism, and historical and alternative history genres, has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges, Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, J. G. Ballard, and Philip K. Dick.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobias Wolff</span> American author (born 1945)

Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is an American short story writer, memoirist, novelist, and teacher of creative writing. He is known for his memoirs, particularly This Boy's Life (1989) and In Pharaoh's Army (1994). He has written four short story collections and two novels including The Barracks Thief (1984), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Wolff received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in September 2015.

Theodore "Eibon" Donald Klein is an American horror writer and editor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Hill (writer)</span> American writer (born 1972)

Joseph Hillström King, better known by the pen name Joe Hill, is an American writer. His work includes the novels Heart-Shaped Box (2007), Horns (2010), NOS4A2 (2013), and The Fireman (2016); the short story collections 20th Century Ghosts (2005) and Strange Weather (2017); and the comic book series Locke & Key (2008–2013). He has won awards including Bram Stoker Awards, British Fantasy Awards, and an Eisner Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rob Hood</span> Australian writer

Robert Maxwell Hood is an Australian writer and editor recognised as one of Australia's leading horror writers, although his work frequently crosses genre boundaries into science fiction, fantasy and crime.

<i>The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter</i> 1965 book by Katherine Anne Porter

The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter is a volume of her previously published collections of fiction and four uncollected works of short fiction.

This is a bibliography of the works of Michael Moorcock.

Ronald Kelly is best known as a speculative fiction and "southern-fried" horror writer. His tales are usually set in the Southern United States and feature language and actions that are associated with those regions.

<i>The Girl Who Heard Dragons</i>

The Girl Who Heard Dragons is a 1994 collection of short fantasy and science fiction stories by the American-Irish author Anne McCaffrey. It opens with an essay on her celebrity, or lack thereof, and includes 23 drawings by the cover artist Michael Whelan.

<i>Nebula Awards 29</i> 1995 anthology edited by Pamela Sargent

Nebula Awards 29 is an anthology of award-winning science fiction short works edited by Pamela Sargent, the first of three successive volumes under her editorship. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harcourt Brace in April 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aldous Huxley bibliography</span> List of works by Aldous Huxley

The following bibliography of Aldous Huxley provides a chronological list of the published works of English writer Aldous Huxley (1894–1963). It includes his fiction and non-fiction, both published during his lifetime and posthumously.

References

  1. 1 2 Gray, Richard (8 January 2022). "Inconstant Reader: Secret Windows – essays and fiction on the craft of writing". The Reel Bits. Retrieved 23 March 2023.