The plan is to reread all of Stephen King’s works in the order that they were published. Richard Chizmar of Cemetery Dance had the vision. I’m doing it because I am a writer and I want to improve my fiction. And I love Stephen King’s stories. I think there is something to be learned through this process.

You can also go back to the beginning and read Before Carrie or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out this link to the Master List of all my #StephenKingRevisited posts.

I really liked the stories in Just After Sunset. I was having a good year of teaching at the time I bought the paperback. The stories were new to me and good. It took me back to earlier years in my life when the excitement of a new Stephen King collection uplifted my mood. I still jumped around and read the stories out of order based on what I thought would be most exciting.

I remember reading somewhere that King was spending more time in Florida and a number of the stories were set in Florida. I thought, well, at least this is different from everything being in Maine. I also thought that Stephen King is really a creature of his environment, his circumstances, and his moment. He writes about where he is living, he writes about writers, and he writes into the stories what he’s going through. I suppose we are all like that, if we write fiction, and it just stands out for King because we know more about his life.

Finishing Duma Key and moving into this collection shows me just how much that change in location impacted the nature of his writing in setting and in other ways.

There are some real standout stories in this collection I still remember. I look forward to revisiting this one.

My next post in this series will be After Just After Sunset which will be linked on the Master List of all my Stephen King Revisited posts.

Jay Wilburn

Jay Wilburn has a Masters Degree in Education that goes mostly unused since he quit teaching to write about zombies. Jay writes horror because he tends to find the light by facing down the darkness. His is doing well following a life saving kidney transplant. Jay is the author of Maidens of Zombie Kingdom a young adult fantasy trilogy, Lake Scatter Wood Tales adventure books for elementary and middle school readers, Vampire Christ a trilogy of political and religious satire, and The Dead Song Legend. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near, Yard Full of Bones, and The Hidden Truth with Armand Rosamilia. You can also find Jay's work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5. He is a staff writer with Dark Moon Digest, LitReactor, and the Still Water Bay series with Crystal Lake Publishing.

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