As I mentioned in my last post, I put what I felt were the two strongest essays leading off and closing out the anthology. Christa's is aptly named for the final essay, "Driving Away from Derry: Memory, What We Were, and Who We Are in the Rearview of IT." Much like Lauren's essay that opens the book, Christa's is a very personal and sometimes haunting tale of her journey in the twenty-seven years that passed between her readings of IT. I'm not saying I teared up a bit reading it, but I'm not...

There is a well-known theory that editors generally put the two strongest stories as bookends, one leading off and the other closing out. With no disrespect to any of the authors or the amazing essays included in Still Floating—they are all wonderful, unique, and necessary to the book—that is exactly the formula I used. Lauren's essay, "The Barrens: The Walled Garden at the Center of Our Story" is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I've ever read. To have it included in Still...

Larry and I go way back, all the way to the Stanley Hotel Writing Retreat in Estes Park, Colorado. That would have been...2015? Since then, we've hung out at every StokerCon and a bunch of other events. I was honored to write the foreword for Larry's first short story collection, The Space Between. Larry is one of the few authors to appear in both editions of The Rack and Still Floating. Larry's contribution, "MEEP MEEP, RICHIE" examines the sometimes inept Henry Bowers and how he is often...