Not that he would care about my opinion, but I used to say that Stephen King couldn't write a word I wouldn't want to read. I had no idea how wrong I would be about that. I am no longer buying his books, as much because of his treatment of JK Rowling as his opinion that TWAW is throwing the safety of women and girls under the bus at no cost to himself.
He won't notice or care, but I can't in good conscience continue to buy his books when I've already made the decision not to support other authors and artists for their stance in this issue. I don't feel my choice is cancel culture though, because I'm not trying to get anyone else to stop buying his books or prevent bookshops from selling them.
I've just looked up the Daily Beast article and I can't believe how he (and the interviewer) is misrepresenting her and what has happened.
Interviewer: One thing I’d like to give you credit for is calling out J.K. Rowling for all her anti-trans proselytism. There was this bizarre exchange, wherein you responded to a fan’s tweet saying, “Trans women are women,” and she reacted by blocking you on Twitter and deleting a tweet praising you.
SK: Jo canceled me. She sorta blocked me and all that. Here’s the thing: She is welcome to her opinion. That’s the way that the world works. If she thinks that trans women are dangerous, or that trans women are somehow not women, or whatever problem she has with it—the idea that someone “masquerading” as a woman is going to assault a “real” woman in the toilet—if she believes all those things, she has a right to her opinion. And then someone tweeted at me, “Do you think trans women are women?” and I said, “Yes, I do.” And that’s what she got angry about—my opinion. It’s like the old saying, “I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” So, nobody has “canceled” J.K. Rowling. She’s doing fine. I just felt that her belief was, in my opinion, wrong. We have differing opinions, but that’s life.
Interviewer: It’s fascinating, because J.K. Rowling was the most famous signatory to the so-called “cancel culture” letter in Harper’s, and this to me seems indicative of the way a lot of the “cancel culture” crowd acts. She’s trying to “cancel” an entire group of people, and then you respond by merely saying, “Trans women are women”—your belief—and then she blocks you on social media.
SK: Yes. But keep in mind too that Jo’s opinion on trans women is an outlier in her entire political spectrum. She was very much anti-Brexit and very much anti-Trump. She’s on the side of the angels in most respects, but she does have this one thing that she’s very vehement about. No doubt.
JK Rowling has not "canceled" Stephen King by blocking him on Twitter, I am absolutely stunned that he has dared to even suggest it.
I left the SK Constant Reader page on Facebook because people on that page were posting "RIP JK Rowling" and worse on that page. She is getting hate mail, death threats, rape threats, in the 1000's and is dealing with them with dignity and even humour but god knows it must be terrifying and exhausting to be on the receiving end of that shit day after day.
He's got to be aware of the abuse she is getting, the scale and content of it all. Yet he has the nerve to say "Nobody has cancelled JK Rowling, she's doing fine..." and in the same breath bitch about her blocking him as her cancelling him? Fuck off.
And JK Rowling is trying to cancel trans people? Fuck off again to the interviewer for that.
I'm dwelling a bit today as someone in my book group has just asked me, knowing how much I loved SK's books, if I've finished his new one yet? And I've had to say I'm not going to buy it or read it, but then I thought I'd google to see if he may, by some miracle, have redeemed himself but instead he seems to have doubled down.