King Visits Canadian High School

Hold on. . . THIS IS COOL!

student banner asking King to come to High School
www.wix.com/mrssmithsrhs

Yorkton This Week has a short article about Stephen King visiting a Canadian high school in Sussex, N.B.

According to the article, the students had put on a "yearlong campaign" to get King to visit the school.  And, how cool is this. . .He met with 18 students in the school library to "provide feedback on their writing."  Imagine how shocked the students were to walk in the library and discover King!

He then spoke to 80 students in the auditorium about his experience as a high school teacher and the inspiration for his novels. 

Matthew Beyer, a 12th-grade student who shook King's hand, told the Kings County Record in Sussex he thought "it was absolutely insane" that King showed up. (www.yorktonthisweek.com)

The Bangor Daily News that described the atmosphere: "Dressed casually in a gray T-shirt and jeans, King sat on the edge of the stage to talk about his writing and how he comes up with the macabre and sometimes twisted ideas that have made him one of the best-selling authors of all time"

According to the Bangor article,

• He read  from his book Christine.
• He discussed being a teacher and bullying.  Surely the reason for his choice to read from Christine.  “One thing I decided after teaching high school for two years was that secretly, most kids feel like they’re out, that nobody likes them,” he told the students.
• Two students filmed King's visit. 
• King left at noon and did not sign autographs. 
• He did sign 10 copies of Different Seasons at the office, and collected some of the posters students had created. 

The Bangor article is HERE.  It has a lot of  info about the campaign the school put on to get King to come.  (Posters, letters so on).

The school created a website to lure King (HERE)

The school also made a blog with the letters to King HERE.  The blog is great,  and my favorite line: "You haven't written a book in a while and visiting Sussex might give you the next great book or movie."  And. . . "what drives you to write these crazy novels?"

Don't you know there is probably a kid who ditched school that day going, "MAN!  I missed it!"