Sharing a Six-Pack

Joe Hill at a Book-Signing

I recently purchased a copy of the Joe Hill/Stephen King novella entitled “In the Tall Grass” for my e-reader, so I decided to do some background research on Joe Hill. In an article in The New York Times Magazine, at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/magazine/18hill.t.html?pagewanted=all, Hill talks about growing up as the son of Stephen King. He recounts the story of how he answered the door one day as a child to see a man standing there with a six-pack. The man told the young boy that he had just been released from prison and that King's novels were the only thing that kept him from committing murder while he was incarcerated. Hill went on to say that his dad went outside and had a beer with the guy.

This anecdote struck a chord with me not only because it reaffirmed one of the things I like most about King: he's a writer who is not ashamed to be a populist, but also because it touched upon a central tenet of writing. At the heart of the creative process is the need to connect with other human beings by telling a story : the urge to make them laugh, smile, shudder, cry, or forget their problems momentarily as they empathize with the characters we have created. An independent writer sends his or her novels out into the vast, electronic, and depersonalized universe that is e-publishing, hoping to touch someone's life, if only for a short while.

Here's to sharing a six-pack with you!