by Jay Wilburn

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 got Bag of Bones right before Christmas during the second, third, or fourth year I taught school. I should be able to narrow it down more than that, but I can’t because I might have gotten the book used. I was teaching fourth grade at a school in south Atlanta. My classroom had moved out to a trailer just outside the building. It was a fine room and very peaceful.

Whichever year that was, I was teaching the sister of a student I had my first year of teaching. I think there had been more than one year between the brother and sister, so maybe third or fourth year. I was still figuring out what I was doing. Maybe I never really did figure it out before I finally quit teaching years later.

Between the time I taught the brother and then the sister, the family had split up and the interaction between the parents was nasty and spilled over into the school. The father opened a used bookstore and barely got by.

The year I taught the sister, her and her father gave me a copy of Bag of Bones as a Christmas present. It had been kind of a tough school year, so I’d been looking forward to the break.

I started reading Bag of Bones. I wrote the thank you notes for my gifts that year and had written in that one that I was halfway through the book and really enjoying it. By the New Years holiday, I’d finished the book ahead of going back to school.

I really enjoyed this novel and look forward to reading it again.

My next post in this series will be After Bag of Bones 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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