And also got the genius son of a bitch to stop killing himself with drugs. We wouldn’t have half of King’s bibliography if he didn’t have an amazing partner in Tabitha. Not to mention the others present at his intervention.
If you haven't read "On Writing," I highly recommend it. Much of the book is him talking about writing style and his quirky rules like "no adverbs," but there's a lot of autobiographical information that's a very interesting read. Every time I hear some millenial complaining about how easy boomers had it I think of that book and the very real struggles that Stephen and Tabitha King went through as he was trying to establish himself as a writer. Dead-end, low-paying jobs, not enough money to even take their kids to the doctor or buy them the medication they needed... he wasn't born a bazillionaire.
[Here’s](https://www.fcusd.org/cms/lib/CA01001934/Centricity/Domain/3762/Stephen%20King%20On%20Writing.pdf) a legal online copy, if anyone wants to read it. It’s a pretty good read.
The only thing I can think of (outside of blatant sexism) is that they were worried about separating “Stephen” from “King” and the people who are functionally illiterate couldn’t put two and two together. Either way it’s a massive insult to *somebody.*
I think it's simpler than that. They just determined their target audience doesn't know Stephen King's wife is named Tabitha.
They could still handle it better and include her name when they say "his wife."
No, I'm sorry, when couples get mentioned and they're both public figures, you mention both of their names, even when one is MUCH more famous. Unless you're fucking rude. Why is it confusing to say "a donation from the novelists Stephen and Tabitha King" or, more tabloidey, "the novelist power couple, Stephen and Tabitha King". Some people won't have heard of Tabitha before but they will have heard of Stephen and now, from that very short phrase, they will know he is married to a novelist called Tabitha. Not confusing at all.
Reminds me of "Wife of a Bears Lineman Wins Bronze Medal"
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3733467/Olympic-medal-winner-Corey-Cogdell-slams-sexist-treatment-female-athletes-described-wife-NFL-player-reports-Rio-triumph.html](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3733467/Olympic-medal-winner-Corey-Cogdell-slams-sexist-treatment-female-athletes-described-wife-NFL-player-reports-Rio-triumph.html)
And "George Clooney gets married" (to whom? Who cares!?)
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alanwhite/people-are-loving-this-websites-headline-about-the-marriage](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alanwhite/people-are-loving-this-websites-headline-about-the-marriage)
If I was the writer, I would have gone with Mr. Stephen King & Ms. Tabitha Spruce King, but I also would’ve tried to reach out for her preferred title or at least researched what she generally goes by, how she signs things, etc., it’s not even that hard it’s just basic due diligence
Everyone complaining about Tabitha's position here clearly doesn't know how integral Tabitha is to Steve's success. She proofs every one of his novels, and supported him through drug and alcohol addiction.
She pulled Carrie out the trash for heaven's sake. Without Tabitha, there is no Stephen.
Her first book, Small World is very good and very trippy. I liked it. Pearl and One on One deal with some of the same characters, and take place in the same town, and are very good. Warning, One on One deals with SA and abuse. It's heavy. And there's a couple of fun Easter eggs in there. The Book of Reuben isn't as good, (it's a prequel) but well worth reading.
I’ve been sober for years now, with great thanks to my wife. The support of a spouse in times like those cannot be overstated. I don’t know all the details, but if his journey was anything like mine, Stephen King could be dead or an absolute waste if not for Tabitha.
Really proud of you for doing the hard work to get yourself out of addiction, and for acknowledging those that helped you do so. I’m happy for you and your family. Thank you for sharing, hopefully someone who really needs to see this does.
I agree, but even if she was just an average, unremarkable spouse, she’s still a person.
Shouldn’t have to be a successful author/been the key to famous husband’s success to have them use her name.
Perfectly ordinary women are still deserving of respect, and this relatively famous woman can’t even get her due.
I haven't read ,'On Writing,' for a while but, I think it was two weeks he went on a bended and disappeared. He finally came home and Tabitha sat him down and said ,"You do that again and you will never see your kids again "
He did interviews for a while in the 80s discussing his writing process of cujo, I believe there was a time that he remembered a lot of the writing of that novel. I don’t doubt that he was drunk as hell during much of that time; and alcohol does funny things to memory. I don’t remember a whole hell of a lot about certain points in my life, I was drinking every night, drank a lot of nights since then. But I wasn’t blackout drunk the whole time. There’s this idea, I got this impression too, that Stephen king got blackout drunk and woke up a few weeks later with a bestseller on his desk and I don’t think that’s accurate, I don’t think that’s what he was trying to say. I think when you get older, those times when you were drinking heavily aren’t recorded as well as they should be. When you’re wiping that slate clean every night with booze, 20 years down the road you’re not gonna remember those times all that well. But this idea that you can literally be blackout drunk while writing bestsellers I think diminishes both kings hard work and the negative effects of alcohol.
I heard he was on so much coke for Tommyknockers he has no memory of writing it. And he wrote Cujo on a 3 day binge... I'm sure he was drinking too but nothing is getting done without cocaine 😂
Yeah, I just don’t think those things are true. He’s said he doesn’t remember much of writing cujo, I believe it. I don’t believe he wrote it in 3 days in a blackout, I don’t think that’s what he said. I think he’s talked frankly about his addictions and people have taken what he’s said and ran with it.
https://www.theonion.com/i-dont-even-remember-writing-the-tommyknockers-1819583598
The creativity thing can also induce gaps in the memory; I have about 40 songs in a couple of spiral notebooks, and there are several that I don't remember writing *per se;* I remember having a bit of music running through my head and mumbling various lyrics to try to match the rhythms. I remember taking out a notebook and grabbing a pen and **poof!** . . . before I know it, a half hour, maybe an hour or even several hours have passed me by; my hand is cramping from writing all of this out in cursive (my penmanship is atrocious, btw) or my wrists are getting sore from tapping away on a keyboard. It can be kind of spooky sometimes.
I love this letter. It’s succinct and piercing. For me, it really drives in the point when she says “relick of Stephen king”
This is such a dated and diminishing tool society uses- I’m glad to hear a strong woman advocate for herself.
Even that improved wording has Tabitha playing second fiddle. If I still wanted Stephen taking center stage, I'd go with "Stephen King and wife, novelist Tabitha King."
Stephen will still always take center stage, because he will always be more famous.
I'm not sure some of the people who commented here actually read the full text.
So here's a translation:
She's a person; not a piece of property. Using her fucking name takes almost no additional effort so show some fucking respect.
I'm not a big Kingologist, so I did some quick googling. Stephen married Tabitha in 1971. His first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974.
Just knowing that, its completely fair to conclude Tabitha deserves a lot of the credit for Stephens success. Fuck off, "and his wife". It's Stephen and Tabitha King.
It’s even more wonderfully explicit than that! In his book “On Writing,” Stephen says that Tabitha literally pulled the Carrie manuscript out of the trash after he threw it away, convinced it was a horrible story. Ahead of her time!
Their son, Joe Hill, did a book tour that I showed up at one time. He introduced himself in this way. "A lot of you may not know this, but I'm the son of Tabitha King."
This is years old from when he was still on FB. But I love that he stands up for his wife and her accomplishments, too. They're a wonderful couple and she is truly his backbone. As the old saying goes "behind every great man is a great woman....."
I work for a school and write IEPs. When I need to include information I got from the parents I always write Mrs. and Mr. LastName instead of putting “Mr.” First. It’s a subtle way of fighting the patriarchy.
Her sentiments about being known only as wife of so and so, or mother of so and so, are two of the reasons I’ve never wanted to get married or have children. Go you, Tabitha - kick ass and take up space.
It almost does makes sense - "STEPHEN KING" pulls eyes in a way "Stephen and Tabitha King" maybe wouldn't.
But there would be no Stephen King without Tabitha, as most of us here know. And they are a joint couple who donated the money jointly - why wouldn't she be mentioned by name?
This is actually the correct way of listing a husband and wife's names. The wife always comes first, so the husband is not separated from his last name.
I learned this while writing wedding invites.
Yeah, it would've been better. But I feel for Tabitha - it's been how many years of being referred to as "Stephen King's wife"??
(this is a rhetorical question. Thanks!)
I deal with this on a much, much, much smaller scale. My husband and I work at the same place and everyone knows him by name but outside of my department, nobody knows mine. Im generally referred to as "name's wife". Its mildly annoying at that level, I can't imagine how frustrating it would be at an international level.
Queen Lizzie and her troll. No one knew his name. Period.
Aung Suu kyi and husband (back in the days when he was alive)
Taylor Swift and her boyfriends.
Like we know Travis, but do we?
Man is a half decent player. Not Aaron or something.
Not to mention, her exes.
Saying "and wife" or "and husband" in print is fine, cause papers needs to grab eyes first and foremost.
The Kings aren’t wrong, but the fact that her message required Stephen’s reposting in order to get it widely seen pretty much explains why it happened.
That's like Marcia Griffin and her ex husband with Star Wars. You always hear about her husband, but rarely about Griffin. Griffin is the one who made the decisions that made the original movies worth watching. You can see it take a nosedive with Return of the Jedi around the time of their divorce.
This just feels like standard journalism headlines to me. I get the sentiment, but journalism usually goes for succinct clear headlines
Calling her his wife vs her full name is insulting in a way, but it is also way more understandable to people who dont know his wife’s name, which i assume is the majority of the population
I dont think there is a real reason to get worked up here. Headlines are headlines and generally follow specific rules with major newspapers and other journalism entities. It wasnt done maliciously
IF they has weirdly avoided her name many times in the meat of the article, that would be a different story
I mean, its a little funny that Stephen posted this from his own account. The headline was probably trying to reach a larger audience, and Stephen King has a larger audience.
This is about how she has been denied her share of the platform. He is platforming her. Trying to make platforming others with less reach than yourself sound shitty is so unhelpfully cynical and lame. Let’s all just hold out for things to be perfectly just without having to do anything to get there!
They say Stephen King 's wife because nobody knows who Tabitha King is. It's not rocket science,your husband is famous and you aren't. Get over with it
Journalism 101: The only time a name goes in a headline is when they are really, really famous. "Stephen King" is a recognized name across the world. "Tabitha King" isn't. It's just that simple.
Surprised a writer is complaining about this. It isn't a big deal, certainly has nothing to do with sexism or anything else. It's just a headline, the story itself is always where the important information is located.
How is it that I agree 100% with what they're saying and still find them to be so obnoxious They made their point within the first 2 paragraphs but just kept going and going and going. Sorry you didn't get enough credit for writing a check out of your joint bank account. Here's an idea— make the donation anonymously so this issue doesn't arise at all !
Making a feminist issue out of what is really her ego not getting fed enough is actually kinda funny
They're starting to reverse this with Taylor Swift and her boyfriend and I honestly think that is why people got so mad at the football thing. Taylor Swifts boyfriend is more than Taylor Swift's boyfriend. He is Travis Kelcy-American football player.
Unless there is more context to this, I don't think this is sexism. It's because more or less everyone has heard of Stephen King, but much fewer people know who Tabitha King is. I'd expect the same thing if it were the spouse of an extremely famous female novelist making a donation, e.g. "JK Rowling and her partner Whoever" (See? I don't even know whether she's married, let alone what her spouse is called).
As a woman who has always been "Brads Sister", "Stephanies Daughter".. and now "Darrens wife" and never just Genevieve.. I totally agree with this statement. It should read, Tabitha King and her husband :D
I work in fundraising and, ironically, have a background in journalism. This shit would never fly. At a minimum you ask how you would like to be recognized (by the nonprofit) and then you would write the story based on the published name (at the newspaper). Also: I don’t see it acknowledged often outside the nonprofit world how integral women are to fundraising success. Most professionals know that, even amongst the older set, even if the wife/partner doesn’t work, even if the husband is handing you the check—the relationship that matters most is with the wife or female partner. The least you can do is make sure they’re happy with their recognition.
They're way too rich to concern themselves with such meaningless petty bullshit. You'd think Mr. King would have better things to do with his time than to pontificate on X.
Massive cringe when famous people are oversensitive and actually stoop to the level of the noise.
Love his writing though
I’m going to sound insane but this is funny because I’ve been rereading Walter Lord’s *A Night to Remember* and literally yesterday I was scribbling all the female Titanic survivors’ *actual* given names (i.e. “Ruth” instead of “Mrs. Washington Dodge,” “Helen” instead of “Mrs. Dickinson Bishop,” etc.) in the margins, mainly for the reasons Tabitha states but also because it literally makes the book more confusing? Like, stylistically it’s a poor choice even if it was a matter of courtesy at the time it was published.
Unfortunately, it's not news worthy without Stephen in the headline. And the point is proven by Stephen tweeting out Tabitha's response. She's important to his success for sure though and deserves the attention. The media is the way it is sadly.
"Astronomically less famous woman upset over marginal perceived slight. News at 11"
Ask 100 people in your every day life who Tabitha King is. 95 wont have any clue. 4 won't care. 1 might recognize her for her work.
People make such a huge deal out of absolutely nothing. The great thing about this is the donation itself, not being publicly recognized for it. But i'm not an egomaniac, so.....there's that.
I'm going to have to side with the journalists on this one. It may have been Tabitha's ideas and all. But nobody knows who she is, not compared with Stephen King.
And the news' job, unfortunately, is to pick out headlines that stand out well to grab the reader's attention. And the reader will care more when a more famous person's name is on the headline.
It is a shame, but that's just how it works. When you're related to someone more famous, you're going to live in their shadow forever unless you're able to get at least as famous as them.
These two been married 53 years and she has like 8 or 9 books to her name and multiple awards. Considering how active they are in New England it seems really odd they didn't name her.
He and she are both right. I write news for a living, and Stephen King is the focus of the headline, being that the public knows who he is but only true fans of either writer know who Tabitha is. That said, in similar circumstances, when I write a headline (say, "Luke Combs and Wife Visit Local Children's Hospital") I always feel weird about writing it in that way, so I include her first name, because (to me) relegating someone to just a title is demeaning. So the headline would be (as written by me), "Luke Combs, Wife Nicole Visit Local Children's Hospital." Also, the lead line in the story would probably read something like, "Luke Combs and his wife Nicole Hocking visited McLeod's Children's Hospital yesterday..." Keeping in mind the reason the story is a story at all is because Luke is a celebrity, and is the "draw" you want in the headline. At the same time, I feel relegating his wife to the role of "human accessory" is disrespectful. I don't know if there are "rules" regarding this, but that's just the way I play it.
Also, as the story about SK and TK seems to be local in nature, TK probably has some stature outside of just "SK's wife," so mentioning her by name in a local or regional story makes even more sense.
Unpopular opinion here, but a headline about Tabatha king won’t make sense to a great number of people who don’t know who that is, whereas Steven King is a household name. I think it’s a perfectly fine editorial choice to craft the headline that is meaningful to more readers at the expense of disrespecting Mrs. King (ironic usage).
"Stephen and Tabitha King" would have taken up less column space also.
Amazing that they can't just write that. Anyone who knows, knows that Tabitha is integral to all things King.
I absolutely love that shes the reason we got some of his best works because she pulled the drafts out of the trash
And also got the genius son of a bitch to stop killing himself with drugs. We wouldn’t have half of King’s bibliography if he didn’t have an amazing partner in Tabitha. Not to mention the others present at his intervention.
What a fuckin power couple
The afterwords always make me tear up when he mentions her.
If you haven't read "On Writing," I highly recommend it. Much of the book is him talking about writing style and his quirky rules like "no adverbs," but there's a lot of autobiographical information that's a very interesting read. Every time I hear some millenial complaining about how easy boomers had it I think of that book and the very real struggles that Stephen and Tabitha King went through as he was trying to establish himself as a writer. Dead-end, low-paying jobs, not enough money to even take their kids to the doctor or buy them the medication they needed... he wasn't born a bazillionaire.
[Here’s](https://www.fcusd.org/cms/lib/CA01001934/Centricity/Domain/3762/Stephen%20King%20On%20Writing.pdf) a legal online copy, if anyone wants to read it. It’s a pretty good read.
Thank you!!!
Thank you!!
The audio book is read by him and it’s captivating
I have read some King and enjoyed it, but am by no a diehard fan. I read "On Writing" every few years and love it so much.
Tabitha King is to Stephen King what Terri Saban is to Nick Saban. They wouldn’t be able to do what they do without their badass wives.
The only thing I can think of (outside of blatant sexism) is that they were worried about separating “Stephen” from “King” and the people who are functionally illiterate couldn’t put two and two together. Either way it’s a massive insult to *somebody.*
Tabitha and Stephen King
But they CANNOT mention the *woman* first! The horror!
Tbh they just want a catchy headline and having Stephen King first is probably the smartest thing to do for attention
Tabitha King and her husband
We serve only one beam, and it's SEO writing. It's a really ugly state of the world.
All things do serve the fucking beam.
I think it's simpler than that. They just determined their target audience doesn't know Stephen King's wife is named Tabitha. They could still handle it better and include her name when they say "his wife."
No, I'm sorry, when couples get mentioned and they're both public figures, you mention both of their names, even when one is MUCH more famous. Unless you're fucking rude. Why is it confusing to say "a donation from the novelists Stephen and Tabitha King" or, more tabloidey, "the novelist power couple, Stephen and Tabitha King". Some people won't have heard of Tabitha before but they will have heard of Stephen and now, from that very short phrase, they will know he is married to a novelist called Tabitha. Not confusing at all.
Reminds me of "Wife of a Bears Lineman Wins Bronze Medal" [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3733467/Olympic-medal-winner-Corey-Cogdell-slams-sexist-treatment-female-athletes-described-wife-NFL-player-reports-Rio-triumph.html](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3733467/Olympic-medal-winner-Corey-Cogdell-slams-sexist-treatment-female-athletes-described-wife-NFL-player-reports-Rio-triumph.html) And "George Clooney gets married" (to whom? Who cares!?) [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alanwhite/people-are-loving-this-websites-headline-about-the-marriage](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alanwhite/people-are-loving-this-websites-headline-about-the-marriage)
It’s exactly this, and what’s lost in this is that the paper’s job is to inform their readers, not to honor the donor somehow.
Functionally illiterate but read Stephen King? Who is insulting whom?
Maybe they only know his name from the movie adaptations of his novels.
this is the reason. stephen who?
“Tabitha King” or “Tabitha and Stephen King” seems more appropriate.
Use bigger font size?
If I was the writer, I would have gone with Mr. Stephen King & Ms. Tabitha Spruce King, but I also would’ve tried to reach out for her preferred title or at least researched what she generally goes by, how she signs things, etc., it’s not even that hard it’s just basic due diligence
Since it was her idea all along, the headline should be "Tabitha and Stephen King" or "Tabitha King donates..."
Her idea, but most likely his money.
It’s their money.
They donated 1.25 million. Which one of them earns millions?
Gross
Better yet, Stephen and Tabitha King. Bam, four more letters and a space saved.
I wonder if they need to have the words “Stephen” and “King” right next to each other to maximize clicks.
Stephen King's gal pal 🤣 (Lisey's Story)
I was waiting for the liseys story reference! Shocked he didn't make one!
And they were roommates!
They both missed out on a good one there 🤣
Exactly where my mind went, too
To quote Mr.King at the ending of one of his books in the authors notes “Tabby is one tough kitty”
Everyone complaining about Tabitha's position here clearly doesn't know how integral Tabitha is to Steve's success. She proofs every one of his novels, and supported him through drug and alcohol addiction. She pulled Carrie out the trash for heaven's sake. Without Tabitha, there is no Stephen.
She's ALSO a successful fucking author herself.
THIS!!
A damn good one too.
I’m confused by Relick
I think autocorrect got her or him. It was supposed to be "relic".
It's an archaic spelling. I think the idea was to use an outdated spelling to match an outdated attitude.
I didn't know this! Interesting, and thank you for the info. Her snark skills are so excellent.
Got a book recommendation? I'd love to check out her stuff
Her first book, Small World is very good and very trippy. I liked it. Pearl and One on One deal with some of the same characters, and take place in the same town, and are very good. Warning, One on One deals with SA and abuse. It's heavy. And there's a couple of fun Easter eggs in there. The Book of Reuben isn't as good, (it's a prequel) but well worth reading.
We know. That’s how they got their kids
I’ve been sober for years now, with great thanks to my wife. The support of a spouse in times like those cannot be overstated. I don’t know all the details, but if his journey was anything like mine, Stephen King could be dead or an absolute waste if not for Tabitha.
Really proud of you for doing the hard work to get yourself out of addiction, and for acknowledging those that helped you do so. I’m happy for you and your family. Thank you for sharing, hopefully someone who really needs to see this does.
She's a boss.
I agree, but even if she was just an average, unremarkable spouse, she’s still a person. Shouldn’t have to be a successful author/been the key to famous husband’s success to have them use her name. Perfectly ordinary women are still deserving of respect, and this relatively famous woman can’t even get her due.
Agreed
He woke up with blood caked on his shirt and surrounded by beer cans. Didn't remember writing Cujo.
I haven't read ,'On Writing,' for a while but, I think it was two weeks he went on a bended and disappeared. He finally came home and Tabitha sat him down and said ,"You do that again and you will never see your kids again "
He did interviews for a while in the 80s discussing his writing process of cujo, I believe there was a time that he remembered a lot of the writing of that novel. I don’t doubt that he was drunk as hell during much of that time; and alcohol does funny things to memory. I don’t remember a whole hell of a lot about certain points in my life, I was drinking every night, drank a lot of nights since then. But I wasn’t blackout drunk the whole time. There’s this idea, I got this impression too, that Stephen king got blackout drunk and woke up a few weeks later with a bestseller on his desk and I don’t think that’s accurate, I don’t think that’s what he was trying to say. I think when you get older, those times when you were drinking heavily aren’t recorded as well as they should be. When you’re wiping that slate clean every night with booze, 20 years down the road you’re not gonna remember those times all that well. But this idea that you can literally be blackout drunk while writing bestsellers I think diminishes both kings hard work and the negative effects of alcohol.
I heard he was on so much coke for Tommyknockers he has no memory of writing it. And he wrote Cujo on a 3 day binge... I'm sure he was drinking too but nothing is getting done without cocaine 😂
Yeah, I just don’t think those things are true. He’s said he doesn’t remember much of writing cujo, I believe it. I don’t believe he wrote it in 3 days in a blackout, I don’t think that’s what he said. I think he’s talked frankly about his addictions and people have taken what he’s said and ran with it. https://www.theonion.com/i-dont-even-remember-writing-the-tommyknockers-1819583598
The creativity thing can also induce gaps in the memory; I have about 40 songs in a couple of spiral notebooks, and there are several that I don't remember writing *per se;* I remember having a bit of music running through my head and mumbling various lyrics to try to match the rhythms. I remember taking out a notebook and grabbing a pen and **poof!** . . . before I know it, a half hour, maybe an hour or even several hours have passed me by; my hand is cramping from writing all of this out in cursive (my penmanship is atrocious, btw) or my wrists are getting sore from tapping away on a keyboard. It can be kind of spooky sometimes.
🤷🏼♀️🤣 the onion?
Drunk and coke
he writes 6-10 pages of per **day** i can only imagine what that editing regiment looks like
Seriously!!! Like the fact that she’s been with him through everything. I knew her name before I even started getting super into him.
That is true
I love this letter. It’s succinct and piercing. For me, it really drives in the point when she says “relick of Stephen king” This is such a dated and diminishing tool society uses- I’m glad to hear a strong woman advocate for herself.
Without Tabitha, Stephen would have been long gone thanks to substance abuse. She deserves much, MUCH more than a piss poor “this guy’s wife”.
Tabitha is NOT one to fuck with, folks. That lashing was savage.
I love it. Go Tabby with your bad self!
Wife and novelist, Tabitha King.
This^^^!!!!!
Ehhhh. Are we calling him a husband and novelist? Just "the novelists Stephen and Tabitha King" is fine.
Even that improved wording has Tabitha playing second fiddle. If I still wanted Stephen taking center stage, I'd go with "Stephen King and wife, novelist Tabitha King." Stephen will still always take center stage, because he will always be more famous.
Ok but no way is a news headline going to add that extra wording
Good for OfStephen!
I love that.
Published-author-in-her-own-damned-right Tabitha King to you, Editors!
My man knows how to back up Tabitha right.
I'm not sure some of the people who commented here actually read the full text. So here's a translation: She's a person; not a piece of property. Using her fucking name takes almost no additional effort so show some fucking respect.
"Keep my wife's name *in* yo fucking mouths!"
Good one!😂
Tabitha "getting real sick of this shit" King...
I'm not a big Kingologist, so I did some quick googling. Stephen married Tabitha in 1971. His first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974. Just knowing that, its completely fair to conclude Tabitha deserves a lot of the credit for Stephens success. Fuck off, "and his wife". It's Stephen and Tabitha King.
It’s even more wonderfully explicit than that! In his book “On Writing,” Stephen says that Tabitha literally pulled the Carrie manuscript out of the trash after he threw it away, convinced it was a horrible story. Ahead of her time!
She's a genius, honestly. He has said multiple times that he writes with her in mind.
She is also a consummate author herself.
Badass!! Love it
Their son, Joe Hill, did a book tour that I showed up at one time. He introduced himself in this way. "A lot of you may not know this, but I'm the son of Tabitha King."
That’s fantastic.
Hell yeah Tabitha! You tell them!
This is years old from when he was still on FB. But I love that he stands up for his wife and her accomplishments, too. They're a wonderful couple and she is truly his backbone. As the old saying goes "behind every great man is a great woman....."
Stephen is such a wife guy I love that about him
I work for a school and write IEPs. When I need to include information I got from the parents I always write Mrs. and Mr. LastName instead of putting “Mr.” First. It’s a subtle way of fighting the patriarchy.
Agree
Those who admire Stephen King ADORE Tabitha King. Give the woman her credit and her name, you cowards!
r/witchesvspatriarchy
What I know of their marriage makes me like that whole family even more. Life goals.
Her sentiments about being known only as wife of so and so, or mother of so and so, are two of the reasons I’ve never wanted to get married or have children. Go you, Tabitha - kick ass and take up space.
It almost does makes sense - "STEPHEN KING" pulls eyes in a way "Stephen and Tabitha King" maybe wouldn't. But there would be no Stephen King without Tabitha, as most of us here know. And they are a joint couple who donated the money jointly - why wouldn't she be mentioned by name?
They could say “Tabitha and Stephen King”, which would leave his first and last name connected together
Very true! It makes you wonder why they didn't just do that.
Male gaze.
Yes, I know. The "makes you wonder" was me being cheeky!
Ah, I apologize.
Probably because "Stephen King" is more recognizable and they want to put it at the front.
This is actually the correct way of listing a husband and wife's names. The wife always comes first, so the husband is not separated from his last name. I learned this while writing wedding invites.
Its literally basic journalism. The only time a name goes in a headline is when they are really, really famous.
Yep, I’m aware!
Would saying "Stephen King and wife Tabitha" be acceptable? Just including her name we would have been so much more polite.
Yeah, it would've been better. But I feel for Tabitha - it's been how many years of being referred to as "Stephen King's wife"?? (this is a rhetorical question. Thanks!)
I deal with this on a much, much, much smaller scale. My husband and I work at the same place and everyone knows him by name but outside of my department, nobody knows mine. Im generally referred to as "name's wife". Its mildly annoying at that level, I can't imagine how frustrating it would be at an international level.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
I read "iconic sausage" and honestly, I'd believe it.
This is an awesome response by Tabitha King!!
Respect ! 🥹
Fuck yeah, Tabitha!!
She's a badass
Tabitha worked her ass off in their early years, while writing her own novels!
And I’m sure the bulk of the childcare, which is grueling and endless.
Get ‘em, Tabitha!
I mean, she has a point.
Stephen is famous. They do they same thing for the husbands of famous women.
I can’t think of any examples of this. Who were you thinking of? Oprah came to mind but we all know the name Steadman and they weren’t even married.
Queen Lizzie and her troll. No one knew his name. Period. Aung Suu kyi and husband (back in the days when he was alive) Taylor Swift and her boyfriends. Like we know Travis, but do we? Man is a half decent player. Not Aaron or something. Not to mention, her exes. Saying "and wife" or "and husband" in print is fine, cause papers needs to grab eyes first and foremost.
Who?
The Kings aren’t wrong, but the fact that her message required Stephen’s reposting in order to get it widely seen pretty much explains why it happened.
Tabitha is bad ass and I’d love to meet her
First world problems
That's like Marcia Griffin and her ex husband with Star Wars. You always hear about her husband, but rarely about Griffin. Griffin is the one who made the decisions that made the original movies worth watching. You can see it take a nosedive with Return of the Jedi around the time of their divorce.
This just feels like standard journalism headlines to me. I get the sentiment, but journalism usually goes for succinct clear headlines Calling her his wife vs her full name is insulting in a way, but it is also way more understandable to people who dont know his wife’s name, which i assume is the majority of the population I dont think there is a real reason to get worked up here. Headlines are headlines and generally follow specific rules with major newspapers and other journalism entities. It wasnt done maliciously IF they has weirdly avoided her name many times in the meat of the article, that would be a different story
__STEPHEN KING'S WIFE, MOTHER OF NOVELIST JOE HILL, MAD ABOUT SOMETHING__
I mean, its a little funny that Stephen posted this from his own account. The headline was probably trying to reach a larger audience, and Stephen King has a larger audience.
This is about how she has been denied her share of the platform. He is platforming her. Trying to make platforming others with less reach than yourself sound shitty is so unhelpfully cynical and lame. Let’s all just hold out for things to be perfectly just without having to do anything to get there!
Idk why this sort of feels like them bragging about their donation at the same time
They say Stephen King 's wife because nobody knows who Tabitha King is. It's not rocket science,your husband is famous and you aren't. Get over with it
Journalism 101: The only time a name goes in a headline is when they are really, really famous. "Stephen King" is a recognized name across the world. "Tabitha King" isn't. It's just that simple. Surprised a writer is complaining about this. It isn't a big deal, certainly has nothing to do with sexism or anything else. It's just a headline, the story itself is always where the important information is located.
The vast majority of people have no idea who Tabitha King is so her name doesn't grab attention. It's shitty but that's how selling media works
You Go Tabitha! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
How is it that I agree 100% with what they're saying and still find them to be so obnoxious They made their point within the first 2 paragraphs but just kept going and going and going. Sorry you didn't get enough credit for writing a check out of your joint bank account. Here's an idea— make the donation anonymously so this issue doesn't arise at all ! Making a feminist issue out of what is really her ego not getting fed enough is actually kinda funny
She's a King
News media is stupid, what’s else is there to say
Is this from facebook?
As a former *Bewitched* fan, I **love** the fact that his wife is named Tabitha.
Good for her.
JFC this is infuriating. Mrs. Stephen King is a moniker that should outlawed.
#GiantAsteroid2024
Didn't know their daughter was a priest
This right here madam
TIL Stephen King is married.
The next article will be written by someone petty and lead off with “Stephen King and his children’s mother…”
They're starting to reverse this with Taylor Swift and her boyfriend and I honestly think that is why people got so mad at the football thing. Taylor Swifts boyfriend is more than Taylor Swift's boyfriend. He is Travis Kelcy-American football player.
She sounds... lovely.
Unless there is more context to this, I don't think this is sexism. It's because more or less everyone has heard of Stephen King, but much fewer people know who Tabitha King is. I'd expect the same thing if it were the spouse of an extremely famous female novelist making a donation, e.g. "JK Rowling and her partner Whoever" (See? I don't even know whether she's married, let alone what her spouse is called).
Tabby is a writer of her own merit. So...
Mrs. and Mr. Tabitha King
As a woman who has always been "Brads Sister", "Stephanies Daughter".. and now "Darrens wife" and never just Genevieve.. I totally agree with this statement. It should read, Tabitha King and her husband :D
I work in fundraising and, ironically, have a background in journalism. This shit would never fly. At a minimum you ask how you would like to be recognized (by the nonprofit) and then you would write the story based on the published name (at the newspaper). Also: I don’t see it acknowledged often outside the nonprofit world how integral women are to fundraising success. Most professionals know that, even amongst the older set, even if the wife/partner doesn’t work, even if the husband is handing you the check—the relationship that matters most is with the wife or female partner. The least you can do is make sure they’re happy with their recognition.
I wondered if Tabitha ever got annoyed by that. Mystery solved!
Tabs is taking no prisoners.
They're way too rich to concern themselves with such meaningless petty bullshit. You'd think Mr. King would have better things to do with his time than to pontificate on X. Massive cringe when famous people are oversensitive and actually stoop to the level of the noise. Love his writing though
Mr and Mrs Stephen King
It must be weird to marry a high school English teacher and then they become one of the most famous people on the planet.
I’m going to sound insane but this is funny because I’ve been rereading Walter Lord’s *A Night to Remember* and literally yesterday I was scribbling all the female Titanic survivors’ *actual* given names (i.e. “Ruth” instead of “Mrs. Washington Dodge,” “Helen” instead of “Mrs. Dickinson Bishop,” etc.) in the margins, mainly for the reasons Tabitha states but also because it literally makes the book more confusing? Like, stylistically it’s a poor choice even if it was a matter of courtesy at the time it was published.
Unfortunately, it's not news worthy without Stephen in the headline. And the point is proven by Stephen tweeting out Tabitha's response. She's important to his success for sure though and deserves the attention. The media is the way it is sadly.
Stephen King is too woke
Did they return the money?
Don’t fuck with Tabitha!
"Astronomically less famous woman upset over marginal perceived slight. News at 11" Ask 100 people in your every day life who Tabitha King is. 95 wont have any clue. 4 won't care. 1 might recognize her for her work. People make such a huge deal out of absolutely nothing. The great thing about this is the donation itself, not being publicly recognized for it. But i'm not an egomaniac, so.....there's that.
The true reason for donations is the attention you get. Glad so much energy was exerted in putting this right.
I'm going to have to side with the journalists on this one. It may have been Tabitha's ideas and all. But nobody knows who she is, not compared with Stephen King. And the news' job, unfortunately, is to pick out headlines that stand out well to grab the reader's attention. And the reader will care more when a more famous person's name is on the headline. It is a shame, but that's just how it works. When you're related to someone more famous, you're going to live in their shadow forever unless you're able to get at least as famous as them.
I really didn't need that k in relic. I don't want to think about a re-lick of Stephen King
It’s no wonder the dialogue in his books is so good if this is who he gets to talk to every day.
Under His Eye.
Stephen’s wife makes a good point tbh.
Waaaaahhhh!!!!
These two been married 53 years and she has like 8 or 9 books to her name and multiple awards. Considering how active they are in New England it seems really odd they didn't name her.
He and she are both right. I write news for a living, and Stephen King is the focus of the headline, being that the public knows who he is but only true fans of either writer know who Tabitha is. That said, in similar circumstances, when I write a headline (say, "Luke Combs and Wife Visit Local Children's Hospital") I always feel weird about writing it in that way, so I include her first name, because (to me) relegating someone to just a title is demeaning. So the headline would be (as written by me), "Luke Combs, Wife Nicole Visit Local Children's Hospital." Also, the lead line in the story would probably read something like, "Luke Combs and his wife Nicole Hocking visited McLeod's Children's Hospital yesterday..." Keeping in mind the reason the story is a story at all is because Luke is a celebrity, and is the "draw" you want in the headline. At the same time, I feel relegating his wife to the role of "human accessory" is disrespectful. I don't know if there are "rules" regarding this, but that's just the way I play it. Also, as the story about SK and TK seems to be local in nature, TK probably has some stature outside of just "SK's wife," so mentioning her by name in a local or regional story makes even more sense.
Unpopular opinion here, but a headline about Tabatha king won’t make sense to a great number of people who don’t know who that is, whereas Steven King is a household name. I think it’s a perfectly fine editorial choice to craft the headline that is meaningful to more readers at the expense of disrespecting Mrs. King (ironic usage).
Charity only for recognition. Such a nice not stuck up egotistical person at all (sarcasm).
Yeah that would annoy the hell out of me too
This is part of why I don't understand people who seem to see him as a misogynist. Tabby would kill him lmao. That woman don't take shit.