{"id":1248,"date":"2014-02-10T10:43:08","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T23:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/?p=1248"},"modified":"2014-02-14T17:15:59","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T06:15:59","slug":"how-my-high-school-teacher-and-stephen-king-started-me-on-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/?p=1248","title":{"rendered":"How my High School teacher and Stephen King started me on the road"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a very nice article in today&#8217;s <em>Ballarat Courier<\/em> about how my High School  English teacher and one Stephen King started me on the road to writing  horror. I indeed walked down a side street I&#8217;d never seen before and found a used bookstore with King&#8217;s <em>It<\/em> as the only book on display in the window. I promptly bought it, then everything else he&#8217;d written up until then. His <em>Danse Macabre<\/em> even introduced me to horror theory, so I&#8217;m very happy to have this little anecdote in print.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecourier.com.au\/story\/2076387\/ballarat-link-to-horror-film-wolf-creek-2\/?cs=62\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.thecourier.com.au\/story\/2076387\/ballarat-link-to-horror-film-wolf-creek-2\/?cs=62<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Ballarat link to horror film &#8216;Wolf Creek 2&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>By Kara Irving, <em>The Ballarat Courier<\/em><\/p>\n<p>February 10, 2014<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ballarat-courier-photo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1249\" title=\"ballarat courier photo\" src=\"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/ballarat-courier-photo-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"509\" height=\"337\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><em> <\/em>Funnily enough<\/strong>, Ballarat has ties to Australian horror film <em>Wolf Creek 2<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Before  Melbourne writer Aaron Sterns co-wrote the sequel to the box office  hit, he lived in Gordon and attended Ballarat East High School.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, if it wasn\u2019t for his high school teacher Ros McArthur, <em>Wolf Creek<\/em> wouldn\u2019t have a prequel or a sequel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had moved to Gordon and I went to high school in Ballarat,\u201d Mr Sterns said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI  wanted to study graphic design at university, but Ros was part of the  reason why I got into writing and chose to study at Deakin (University  in Geelong) instead.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe knew my passion was writing and swayed me to study a course there, so I did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As they say, the rest is history.<\/p>\n<p>Mr  Sterns, who lived in Ballarat for about 15 years, went on to appear in a  cameo role in the original <em>Wolf Creek<\/em> in 2005. In 2007 he was the  script editor for another Aussie horror flick, <em>Rogue<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>After  the local and international success of <em>Wolf Creek<\/em>, Mr Sterns started  writing a script for the sequel, and eventually, a prequel novel series.  Mr Sterns said living in Ballarat also inspired his novel-writing  career.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was walking along an arcade  where Target is today and I discovered a small bookstore I\u2019d never seen  before,\u201d he said. \u201cI noticed Stephen King\u2019s novel <em>It<\/em> in the front  window. I know it sounds strange, but it seemed as if I was drawn to the  book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr Sterns said King\u2019s novels had since influenced his writing.<\/p>\n<p>Now  based in Melbourne with his family, Mr Sterns hinted he was considering  a return to Ballarat for a book-signing in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m hoping sometime after the film release,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Wolf Creek 2<\/em> is released nationally on February 20.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For more posts: <a href=\"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/?page_id=69\">THE LATEST<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; There&#8217;s a very nice article in today&#8217;s Ballarat Courier about how my High School English teacher and one Stephen King started me on the road to writing horror. I indeed walked down a side street I&#8217;d never seen before and found a used bookstore with King&#8217;s It as the only book on display in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blatant-self-promotion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1248"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1263,"href":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions\/1263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aaronsterns.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}