Casey Key resident speaks to the Herald-Tribune before a Bookstore1Sarasota signing Wednesday

SARASOTA — To help celebrate its new location, Bookstore1Sarasota brought in one of the area’s — and the world’s — most iconic living literary figures.

Stephen King, who lives in Maine and Casey Key, visited for a sold-out book signing Wednesday at the bookstore on Palm Avenue in downtown Sarasota.

In an exclusive interview with the Herald-Tribune, King said he grew up unable to afford buying much at bookstores, frequenting libraries and drugstores’ paperback racks instead.

Now that he can afford them, many people send him books for free. But he said he loves visiting bookstores, particularly Bookstore1Sarasota.

“I love to come to this place because they have everything, they hand-sell, it’s well-lighted, you can browse,” King said. “I can’t browse as freely as I used to because people come up and say, ‘Are you him?’”

He is the author of beloved, bestselling novels such as “The Shining,” “Carrie,” “The Stand” and “It,” which were then adapted into successful movies and television series.

The author came to sign copies of his 2016 book “End of Watch,” the third in a trilogy of crime novels following Detective Bill Hodges.

King has credited author and longtime Sarasota resident John D. MacDonald, including in a Herald-Tribune column, as a huge influence on his work. MacDonald’s crime writing helped reject the idea that genre fiction and great literature are separate worlds — a belief King said many people still had while he was teaching a college seminar on popular fiction.

“I wanted to talk about books that were popular and still could count as literature,” King said. “I taught this John D. MacDonald book in that course called ‘The End of the Night,’ which I still tell people to read to get an idea of what you can do with popular fiction.”

Father-and-son effort

King soon will have a new book, which he co-wrote with son Owen King, called “Sleeping Beauties” set for release in September. (Another son of his, pen name Joe Hill, is also an author).

The story takes place in a world where all women have fallen asleep in a cocoon-like gauze and turn feral and violent if awoken, leaving men to themselves. King and his son had initially considered making a limited television series out of the premise, but believing that would bring too many other people into the process, spent two years writing it as a novel together.

“The way that it worked was we went back and forth, like tennis, like the book is the ball,” King said. “I’d have it for three or four weeks and he’d have it for maybe three or four weeks or maybe a little bit longer. He’s a slower composer than I am, but he’s very, very good — very sharp, very funny.”

King, 69, said there’s been a lot of interest in the novel even before its publication, particularly with the ever-relevant topic of women’s rights.

“It just turned out when we were writing this book, it never even occurred to us all of a sudden the whole question of women’s rights and the way men that behave toward women (would arise.)” King said. “I think in a way what made us a fortune was that tape of Trump saying, ‘I grab them by the p---y.’ It just woke people up in some way.”

King participated and spoke at the Sarasota Women’s Solidarity March in January, which he said was a cathartic experience for everyone involved.

“A lot of us were really depressed and that thing was the day after the inauguration,” King said. “And for everybody to come together and feel there was still a chance to make change and not to roll back everything that happened during the Obama years, that was good.”

In addition to his upcoming book, there will be two films based on his work — a remake of “It” and “The Dark Tower” — hitting multiplexes this year.

King also has entered the streaming service game. Hulu made a television series of his novel “11/22/63” and has ordered another series called “Castle Rock,” based on the fictional Maine town that frequently appears in King’s writing. Netflix will also make two films adapting his novel “Gerald’s Game” and novella “1922,” both of which King has seen and said are terrific.

“And I’ve seen ‘It’ the film, and that’s terrific,” King said. “And I’ve seen ‘The Dark Tower’ and that’s terrific.”

Bookstore1Sarasota owner Georgia Court said this is the second time King has done an in-store book signing for the business and the fourth event overall, including two fundraisers for the Manatee County Library Foundation.

King not only did the appearances for free, he brought his friend and fellow best-selling author John Grisham to one of the fundraisers. He also accepted no appearance fee.

“This is unheard of on that fundraising circuit, totally unheard of,” Court said. “He deserves all kinds of credit for his generosity to this area.”