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marked the first time that he and his wife had officially worked together on a story, with Tabitha providing the plotline for the tenth episode.
    King had never lost his love for small publishers – he maintained the relationship with Donald M. Grant for all seven of the ‘Dark Tower’ novels – and was delighted to help the Hard Case Crime series, set up by editor Charles Ardai. Rather than just provide a cover blurb, King offered to pen a story, and
The Colorado Kid
became a headline release for the company, eventually leading to a TV series,
Haven
, from the same production team who mined King’s early novel
The Dead Zone
for six years of stories about psychic Johnny Smith. His contributions to the mystery field were recognized when he received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 2007.
    His creative juices seemed to be flowing: in addition to
The Colorado Kid
and
Lisey’s Story
, King wrote the shorter, but very effective, tale
Cell
, which Scribners decided they wanted to publish ahead of
Lisey’s Story
. The two books showcased the differing sides of King’s writing in the twenty-first century:
Cell
is a science-fiction horrorstory;
Lisey’s Story
, which he proudly maintained was the best piece of fiction he had written, is a love story with some fantastical elements.
    The Kings continued to split their time between Maine and Florida, and, starting with the novella
The Gingerbread Girl
, King began to set some of his stories in his new locality, able to bring an outsider’s eye to locations and situations which he was unable to do in Maine. His love of short stories was rekindled when he was asked to be guest editor for the
Best American Short Stories 2007
, and he increased his output in that area – leading to a new collection,
Just After Sunset
, in 2008. King was proud that both that collection and his novel,
Duma Key
, out the same year, won the Bram Stoker Awards in their relevant categories.
    The ‘Dark Tower’ series had been fêted on its completion, with the final volume receiving a British Fantasy Award. In 2007, the circle started to turn again with the start of Marvel Comics’ sixty-issue series that ran for six years, filling in gaps in Roland the gunslinger’s chronology, and retelling some of the key stories from the early years. King kept a weather eye on the stories plotted by his assistant Robin Furth, and scripted, for the most part, by Peter David. The same year, a further ‘trunk’ novel,
Blaze
, was released under the Richard Bachman name, to support the Haven Foundation, a charity set up to help freelance artists who couldn’t work because of sudden disability or disease. King worked with John Irvine and J.K. Rowling on a two-night benefit at the Radio City Music Hall in New York (‘Harry, Carrie and Garp’) to kick-start the foundation, and all his revenue from
Blaze
was passed to Haven.
    Joe King had begun publishing stories under the pen-name Joe Hill some years earlier, although his identity was revealed in 2007; he and his father started to team up to write the occasional story, starting with ‘Throttle’, a tribute to Richard Matheson’s ‘Duel’ in 2009, and continuingwith ‘In the Tall Grass’ in 2012. Clearly proud of all his children’s achievements, King even noted that, should anything happen to him, Joe would be able to complete his work in progress.
    King returned to an unfinished novel, ‘The Cannibalists’, for his next work, which became the massive
Under the Dome
, which was released in the summer of 2009. He started hinting that he was thinking about another story in the ‘Dark Tower’ saga around this time, as well as a sequel to
The Shining
. He decided to work on the former first, with
The Wind Through the Keyhole
arriving in 2012, and
Doctor Sleep
– which King noted was a new attempt to scare readers properly – following in 2013.
    Before those, he returned to an earlier fascination – what if someone could