On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

by Stephen King

June 19, 1999 Dear : I am a young writer, twenty-eight years old, in search of an agent. I got your name in a Writer’s Digest article titled “Agents of the New Wave,” and thought we might fit each other. I have published six stories since getting serious about my craft. They are: “The Lady in the Trunk,” Kingsnake, Winter 1996 ($25 plus copies) “Two Kinds of Men,” Jackdaw, Summer 1997 ($15 plus copies) “Christmas Smoke,” Mystery Quarterly, Fall 1997 ($35) “Big Thumps, Charlie Takes His Lumps,” Cemetery Dance, January–February 1998 ($50 plus copies) “Sixty Sneakers,” Puckerbrush Review, April–May 1998 (copies) “A Long Walk in These ’Yere Woods,” Minnesota Review, Winter 1998–1999 ($70 plus copies) I would be happy to send any of these stories (or any of the half dozen or so I’m currently flogging around) for you to look at, if you’d like. I’m particularly proud of “A Long Walk in These ’Yere Woods,” which won the Minnesota Young Writers’ Award. The plaque looks good on our living room wall, and the prize money—$500—looked excellent for the week or so it was actually in our bank account (I have been married for four years; my wife, Marjorie, and I teach school). The reason I’m seeking representation now is that I’m at work on a novel. It’s a suspense story about a man who gets arrested for a series of murders which occurred in his little town twenty years before. The first eighty pages or so are in pretty good shape, and I’d also be delighted to show you these. Pl...