The Constant Reader Podcast - The Canon of Stephen King

We begin a month long appreciation of the newest Stephen King adaptation, EPIX TV's Chapelwaite. Based on the short story Jerusalem's Lot from the Night Shift anthology, Chapelwaite stars Adrien Brody, Emily Hampshire and genre favorite Julian Richings. Mixing in elements of the short story with mythology established in the novel Salem's Lot, this is a gothic treat for all fans of haunted houses,...

A book as big as 'It' can't be covered in just one episode, and the response we had to the last episode, and my guest Andy Stanton, was so positive that we have decided to make the return trip to Derry. One correspondent asked why we hadn't covered Pennywise much, or Bill Denborough, which sounded like a valid critique. So, Andy kindly agreed to come back and discuss Maine's scariest clown and Stu...

James Smythe is the winner of the Wales Fiction Book of the Year 2013, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2014. He is the author of, amongst other things, The Machine, The Explorer, No Harm Can Come To A Good Man, and the Australia trilogy, a series for Young Adult readers. More importantly for us at The Constant Reader Podcast, he is also a huge Stephen King fan, and his column in...

Hi, welcome back to the Constant Reader Podcast, with me your host, Richard Sheppard.  Last month’s guest, the mighty Paul Tremblay has recently re-released two of his earlier novels, The Little Sleep and No Sleep Til Wonderland through Titan publishing. They’re wonderful stuff, very offbeat, and will that great Titan design that I love. The Firestarter film will officially commencing filming...

Very excited to speaking to one of the most exciting writers of fiction in this episode. Paul Tremblay is the author of A Head Full of Ghosts, Disappearance at Devil's Rock, Survivor Song and many others. His new book, an omnibus edition of The Little Sleep and No Sleep til Wonderland is out on the 6th April, and available here from Titan Books. He's also a fan of Stephen Kings, and he and discuss...

Very excited to talk to author, producer, editor and all round good-egg Richard Chizmar for this episode. We got to ask him not only about working with Stephen King on Gwendy's Button Box, but also his own formidable body of work, which includes the sequel Gwendy's Magic Feather and the forthcoming Chasing the Boogeyman. We also talk about the next part of Gwendy's story, what it's like when Steph...

Today's guest, Helena Bacon, is an academic, a teacher and a writer. We discuss Stephen King's 2014 novel Revival, one of (in my opinion) King's most beautifully written stories, with one of the nastiest endings. How does it relate to Arthur Machen, HP Lovecraft and the Old Gods of weird fiction? Find out in this conversation..... This episode was hosted by Richard Sheppard, with research and supp...

Mike Muncer is a guest we have wanted to get on the podcast for a while. His podcast, the long-running The Evolution of Horror, was a major inspiration on The Constant Reader Podcast, and it remains a constant source of erudition and joy to a lot of horror fans. We chose to talk about David Cronenberg's 1983 adaptation of the Dead Zone, dovetailing in with The Evolition of Horror's recent season o...

A deep dive into John Carpenter's 1983 adaptation of Stephen King's Christine, with the wonderful Lee Gambin. Like ghost stories? Our sister podcast, Hallowed Histories, is hosting an online screening of A Pleasant Terror: The Life and Ghost of M.R. James, a documentary profiling the life and career of England's master of the ghost story. The screening is free, and will be followed by a roundtable...

A departure for us this month, as we take a look at a thoroughly modern King novel, 2016's The Outsider. Also, our guest, Adam De Collibus is a newcomer to Stephen King. What did he make of his first foray into the world of the master? And is The Outsider the best or worst place to start?? We talk it all through, and discuss Adam's fascinating novel Caravan, available to purchase at the links belo...

Very excited to speak to Peter Laws this month, covering the 1983 novella Cycle of the Werewolf and the 1985 adaptation Silver Bullet. As a Baptist minister, part-time werewolf hunter and full-time horror genre fan, Peter is ideally placed to discuss this genuine oddity in the King canon. We cover Bernie Wrightson's beautiful illustrations, the difficulty of writing a novella in the form of an alm...

Host Richard Sheppard and guest Dan Jones look under the hood of Stephen King's 1983 novel, Christine. On the surface a rip-roaring, high-octane story about a killer Plymouth Fury, yet underneath the flashy paint job is a meditation on first love, high school politics, busted family dynamics and friendship. Dan Jones is the author of Man o' War, published by Snowbooks which can be purchased from a...

Very happy to have the legendary Tom Holland on the podcast, speaking to us from the United States. We discuss his new book The Notch (links below, buy it, it's a corker), the controversial ending of Thinner,  and his life in the film industry including how his first job was to write a sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Plus, Tom gives us some great anecdotes about meeting and working with...

We take our first steps down the long and winding road that leads us to Stephen King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower. Joining Dark Tower-sceptic Richard Sheppard is our special guest, archivist and guide Ben Craske. We talk Roland, Walter O'Dim, gunslinging in the USA and barely talk about the film adaptation at all. Promise. Ben's project, Local Recall, can be found here https://localrecall.archant...

We continue our look at all things Pet Sematary with an interview with author, academic and festival organiser  Dr Linda Sheppard. Wooden acting, cheesy visual FX and blundered writing aside, there's a lot to enjoy about these two films, as we find out. We look at how the shift from Gage to Ellie in the 2019 version puts a very different spin on the tale, as well as the benefits of shooting o...

Edward Parnell is the author of The Listeners (2014 Rethink New Novels Prize Winner) and 2019's Ghostland (‘a wonderfully evocative book, creating a sense of place and invoking the power of literature and nature.’ The Guardian). He joins host Richard Sheppard in the studio to discuss the haunted world of Louis Creed, a young doctor who has bought a new house in the country, complete with cursed Mi...

This episode we check out of the Overlook Hotel with a look at 1997's The Shining Miniseries and 2012's Room 237. Joining host Richard Sheppard is film critic and scholar Craig Appleby, and together they discuss sometimes interesting, often misfiring epic TV version of Stephen King's novel. Lime-green CGI animals meet a likeable version of Jack Torrance and a feminist take on his wife Wendy. Is it...

The Constant  Viewer podcast turns its eyes on Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of The Shining. This is one of the icons of the horror cinema, and to do it justice we got in film reviewer and genre expert Vincent M. Gaine to wield the scalpel as we dissect this masterpiece. We also take time to check Dr Sleep's temperature, and look how Mike Flanagan's 2019 adaptation of The Shining's sequel...

This month we are joined by academic, writer, actor and broadcaster Richard J Hand. Richard is the lead writer on The Poe Radio Theatre out of Baltimore, episodes of which can be found on NPR or through apple podcasts. Today he joins to to discuss The Shining, King's third novel which the set the bar for haunted house stories in the twentieth century. We discuss Jack Torrance, wasp nests, Gothic r...

Stephen King's second novel, Salem's Lot, not only conquered the 'difficult second book' syndrome with style, it went down in culture as THE modern vampire novel. I was lucky enough to sit down with Steph McKenna from the Thirst Podcast and the National Writer's Centre, as we sink our teeth into the Middlemarch of horror fiction. Apologies to Steph for calling the National Centre for Writing the N...

Richard Sheppard is joined by UEA's Bad Film Society's Craig Appleby to take a look at four different adaptations of Stephen King's Carrie. From Spacek to Grace-Moretz, and all points in between, we cover the highs and lows (looking at you, The Rage: Carrie 2) of bringing King's debut novel to the screen. Contact us at theconstantreaderpodcast@gmail.com 

We kick off the Constant Reader Podcast with an in-depth look at Stephen King's bloodstained debut, 1974's Carrie. We look at the Gothic roots of a very modern tale, the sexual politics and the political paranoia of the time that turned Carrie into a worldwide hit and sent Stephen King on a career trajectory that would see him become the world's best selling writer. Mark Jancovich is the author of...