Editing Stephen King (section)

=== Influence ===
In an interview, [[Sherman Alexie]] recalls the influence of "Stephen King, who was always writing about underdogs, and bullied kids, and kids fighting back against overwhelming, often supernatural forces... The world aligned against them. As an Indian boy growing up on a reservation, I always identified with his protagonists. Stephen King, fighting the monsters."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mack |first=Sammy |date=November 19, 2013 |title=Author Sherman Alexie Talks Young Adult Fiction and Banned Books |work=State Impact |url=https://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2013/11/19/author-sherman-alexie-talks-young-adult-fiction-and-banned-books/}}</ref>

[[Lauren Groff]] says that "I love Stephen King and I owe him more than I could ever express... I love his wild imagination and his vivid scenes, many of which populate my nightmares even decades after I last read the books they're in. But the greatest thing I gleaned most from reading Stephen King is his big-hearted glee, the way he treats writing with gratitude, the way he sees his job not as the source of anguish and pain many writers self-pityingly see it as, but rather as something he's over-the-moon delighted to be lucky enough to do. If I could steal one thing from King, and keep it close to my heart forever, it is his sense of almost-holy glee when it comes to writing."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Timberg |first=Scott |date=September 11, 2015 |title=Stephen King goes to the White House: With his National Medal of Arts, the master of horror plants both feet firmly in the literary canon |url=https://www.salon.com/2015/09/11/stephen_king_goes_to_the_white_house_with_his_national_medal_of_arts_the_master_of_horror_plants_both_feet_firmly_in_the_literary_canon/}}</ref>

The hero of [[Junot Díaz]]'s ''[[The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao]]'' dreams of being "the Dominican Stephen King", and Díaz alludes to King's work several times throughout the novel.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Díaz |first=Junot |title=[[The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao]] |year=2007 |pages=12, 18, 27}}</ref> [[Colson Whitehead]] recalls that "The first big book I read was ''[[Night Shift (short story collection)|Night Shift]]'' by Stephen King, you know, a huge book of short stories. And so for many years I just wanted to write horror fiction."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Freeman |first=John |date=November 23, 2016 |title=Write the Book That Scares You: An Interview with Colson Whitehead |url=https://lithub.com/12-literary-writers-on-stephen-kings-influence/}}</ref> In a talk at [[Virginia Commonwealth University]], Whitehead recalls that in college "I wanted to write the black ''[[The Shining (novel)|Shining]]'' or the black ''[['Salem's Lot|Salem's Lot]]''... Take any Stephen King title and put 'the black' in front of it. That's basically what I wanted to do."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gresham |first=Tom |date=February 10, 2017 |title=Colson Whitehead tells the story behind the 'Underground Railroad' - VCU New - Virginia Commonwealth University |work=VCU News |url=https://news.vcu.edu/article/Author_tells_the_story_behind_his_awardwinning_Underground_Railroad}}</ref>