FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-MAY 2003
Three Australian authors have been credited on the official website of Stephen King, one of the world's most prolific authors.
Rocky Wood of Melbourne; David Rawsthorne of Lithgow and Norma Blackburn, of Mount Hutton, are the co-authors of 'The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King', the most ambitious reference work on King and his Works ever compiled.
When King released his new website, www.stephenking.com last weekend it used Character Lists compiled by three authors.
'We spent the last 3 years compiling the Guide,' Wood said from his home. 'Late last year we discussed using our Character Lists for the revamped official website with Stephen King's assistant. There are over 26,500 characters in King's fiction and many fans had been asking King's staff for lists. We agreed to provide our database, which was then used to compile the lists that appear against each story on the new site.'
King's site credits the three. 'It's nice to know our work was of such quality that King himself approved its inclusion on his site,' Blackburn said. 'The site receives hundreds of thousands of visitors. As Australians we are proud that King fans worldwide will access our material.'
Wood has been an avid King reader for over 25 years. As the coordinator of the Complete Guide project from his home in Melbourne Australia he wrote many of the Summaries and selected Indices and served as overall Editor of the work. In addition, he spent three weeks in late 2002 at the Fogler Library of the University of Maine at Orono reviewing rare and restricted King works.
Rocky has been a senior executive in major corporations such as UPS and Australia Post and has lived and worked in New Zealand, Australia , Europe and North America. As a college student and for some years thereafter he moonlighted as a freelance journalist and has maintained his interest in writing throughout his business career.
Wood lives in South Yarra with his wife, a business consultant and two daughters.
David Rawsthorne has been reading King since 1984. He has collected every book, short story, interview, audio book and movie, and now has a diverse selection of King material. Rawsthorne started a Stephen King website in late 1997, which was later moved to www.horrorking.com, and has proven extremely popular with King fans worldwide.
The experience gained from horrorking.com has allowed him to design and run many websites for companies as well as friends. He currently administers 7 websites for others, as well as regularly helping with problems on other sites.
Rawsthorne has worked in the New South Wales electricity industry for over 16 years, and lives in Lithgow with his wife and two children. He enjoys family history, and regularly takes trips throughout Australia to further his knowledge of the family.
Having first read Carrie as a teenager, Norma Blackburn has been a Stephen King fan for around 25 years. Her extensive King collection includes printed, audio and video works. Blackburn has also maintained a Stephen King web page, King of Horror, for a number of years at http://www.acay.com.au/~normab/king/king-1.htm
A full time mother, Blackburn lives in Newcastle, Australia with her husband and three of their four daughters. She spends her spare time making miniatures, researching her family tree and working on her numerous web pages. Norma is an expert on King's 'fictional' town of Castle Rock, Maine.
King is one of the world's best-selling authors, becoming world famous with such best-sellers as 'Carrie', 'The Shining' and 'Misery', and movies of his work, such as 'Stand By Me', 'The Shawshank Redemption' and 'The Green Mile'. His books have sold tens of millions of copies. His most recent success in Australia has been the TV series, 'The Dead Zone'.
'The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King' is available on-line at www.horrorking.com for US$49.95. It includes Chapters on each of King's 270 Works of Fiction and is expected to set a standard as the key King reference work for many years to come. Full details about the Guide are available at the site.
Contact Details for Interviews or Follow Up:
Rocky Wood - +61 419 898 882