It’s that time of year when people look back and reflect on everything that’s happened in the previous 12 months. But … you want to know something?

I really don’t wanna.

Because for any number of reasons I could come up with—and won’t—my opinion is that 2025 was a helluva stinker and thinking about it will just piss me off. If you had a good year, great, I’m glad for you: feel free to reflect away. For my part I’d sooner put 2025 behind me and steel myself for the crappy stuff that’s probably ahead.

Rather than fuss and moan about the past or worry about tomorrow, I thought I’d conclude ’25 with what I’ve always considered a fun story, just to keep things light.

In October, 1978 I attended the fouth World Fantasy Convention in Ft. Worth, TX; I had a swell time and got to meet a number of writers and artists I admired including Fritz Leiber, Charles Grant, Don Punchatz, Mike Presley, Gahan Wilson, Alicia Austin, and a young fellow who was starting to burn up the bestseller lists named … Stephen King.

King’s first novel, Carrie, had become a popular movie in 1976, ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, and story collection Night Shift had followed, and he had, I think, just turned in The Stand to Doubleday when we met. In less than a year he was routinely swamped by hordes of rabid fans wherever he went, chasing after him sorta like the girls in The Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night, and quickly stopped attending conventions, but at WFC that year he was calm, cool, and hanging out with everyone else and came and went without people bothering him.

Above: The World Fantasy Con program book cover art by Alicia Austin. King signed it for me, saying, “I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve every autographed a woman’s back.”

 

I  had enjoyed all of King’s books and wanted to interview him with my friend Marty Ketchum (who was one of the first unofficial Stephen King historians) for my amateur magazine—and was more than a little flattered that he knew who I was when I introduced myself at the con’s opening party. We were chatting cheerfully while Master of Ceremonies Andrew J. Offutt was officially welcoming everyone to the convention from a small stage on the other side of the room. Suddenly there was something of a commotion as Harlan Ellison entered, entourage in tow (and Harlan always had an entourage at conventions), making a show of trying to “sneak” in, pretending to tip-toe through the crowd in a highly exaggerated way as if he was a character out of a Warner Brothers cartoon. I had met and become friends with Harlan around 1975 and had started to do some design work for him whenever he needed. He spotted me, grinned, came over, and, though he and King both immediately recognized each other, I “introduced” them and they quickly started an animated conversation, with me in the middle trying to keep up. What did they talk about? I’ll be damned if I remember, but it was all friendly and innocent.

During a brief lull in the conversation King suddenly hooked his thumb at the speaker on stage, who was still loudly talking a mile-a-minute, and asked, “Who’s that?”

Harlan tossed his head and rolled his eyes and in a stage whisper said, “Oh, that’s just Andy Offutt. He thinks he’s a writer, but his only real talent is in being a loudmouth.” Obviously, Offutt was not one of Ellison’s favorite people (I don’t know the reason and I never asked him).

King, who is, I believe, something like  6’4”, thought for a moment, then looked down at Harlan—who most will recall was 5’3” and always sensitive to jokes that were made at his expense—and said, “You can’t see the podium over all these people, Harlan. Would you like me to lift you up?”

I don’t know if it was an attempt to lighten a seemingly tense moment or a rebuke for the comment about Offutt or a genuinely innocent offer to help (yeah, I sincerely doubt the last), but being very familiar with Harlan’s volatile personality I started looking for someplace to duck and cover in anticipation of an explosion.

But to my great surprise … there was nothing to worry about. Harlan looked up at Stephen for the briefest of nanoseconds before smiling brightly and saying, “No thanks. If I really wanted to see him I’d just stand on my charisma.”

We all laughed and went on to have multiple conversations together over the weekend about all sorts of stuff. I was admittedly woefully out of my depth, but on this occasion I got to hang out with the Big Kids without getting chased off. (Which is one of the reasons I’m always telling people to stop looking at their phones and get out and mingle: you never know what might happen.)

So … I was there when Stephen King and Harlan Ellison first met and hit it off: that’s a lot more pleasant to remember than to look back at *ugh* 2025. For me, anyway.

Happy (fingers crossed) New Year, everyone!