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stephen king
Stephen King 'Most Banned Author' in US Schools, Says PEN America
"Self-righteous book banners don't always get to have their way," the iconic author wrote, urging people to read banned titles. "This is still America, dammit."
Oct 01, 2025
Stephen King was the most banned author in US public schools during the 2024-25 academic year amid "rampant" censorship led by purportedly free speech-loving Republicans, a report published on Wednesday revealed.
According to PEN America, there were 6,870 instances of book bans across 23 states and 87 public school districts during the last scholastic year. Although that's a significant drop from the more than 10,000 proscriptions recorded by the group during the previous academic term, it is still more than double the number from 2022-23, and brings the total number of prohibitions to nearly 23,000 since 2021.
For the third straight year, Florida topped the dubious list, with 2,304 instances of book bans, followed by Texas, where 1,781 bans occurred, and Tennessee, with 1,622. Right-wing groups and Republican state lawmakers—who often claim to champion free speech—have worked together to pass censorship laws driving bans on books they don't like, especially titles related to racial justice and LGBTQ+ rights.
“No bookshelf will be left untouched if local and state book bans continue wreaking havoc on the freedom to read in public schools,” PEN America Freedom to Read program senior manager Sabrina Baêta said in a statement.
“With the Trump White House now also driving a clear culture of censorship, our core principles of free speech, open inquiry, and access to diverse and inclusive books are severely at risk," Baêta added. "Book bans stand in the way of a more just, informed, and equitable world. They chill the freedom to read and restrict the rights of students to access information and read freely.”
Bestselling author @stephenking.bsky.social was the most banned author during the school year. 87 titles of King’s were banned, totaling 206 times. Next most banned was @ellenhopkins.bsky.social author of young adult fiction including Crank and Burned, who had 18 titles banned totaling 167 times.
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— PEN America (@penamerica.bsky.social) October 1, 2025 at 7:23 AM
King, the bestselling icon of horror novels and short stories, was the most banned author during the 2024-25 school year, with 87 titles banned a total of 206 times. King has been an outspoken critic of both book bans and President Donald Trump, whose presidency he has called a "horror story."
The most blacklisted title of any author was Anthony Burgess’ dystopian 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, which PEN America said was banned 23 times.
Responding to becoming the nation's most proscribed writer, King said on social media, "I am now the most banned author in the United States—87 books."
"May I suggest you pick up one of them and see what all the pissing and moaning is about?" he added. "Self-righteous book banners don't always get to have their way. This is still America, dammit."
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Stalwart Biden Defender Stephen King Says: 'It's Time'
"In the interests of the America he so clearly loves," says the novelist, the Democratic incumbent should "announce he will not run for re-election."
Jul 08, 2024
While President Joe Biden on Monday tried to put an end to the national discussion about whether or not he should stay in the presidential race any longer, another longtime and vocal ally offered his unsolicited advice.
"Joe Biden has been a fine president, but it's time for him—in the interests of the America he so clearly loves—to announce he will not run for re-election," famed novelist and essayist Stephen King declared in social media post.
King, a loyal Democrat for decades who has been outspoken in his praise for Biden, is no friend of the Republican's presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, who the author has categorized as an existential threat to the nation and the world.
In 2017, King took note of the former president's proposed tax plan—a version of which later passed into law and showered enormous giveaways to the very rich and corporations—by telling working people in the U.S. that it showed Trump "couldn't give shit one about you."
"Trump's no friend of the working man," King said.
On Sunday, in response to a leftist victory in France by which the far-right faction was blocked from seizing control of Parliament, King said: "The French right wing is going down to defeat in spite of polls. May it happen to Trump and his head-in-the-sand cronies."
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Mass Shootings and the 100th Monkey
In our years-long struggle to eradicate the scourge of mass shootings, could we be approaching a tipping point?
Nov 01, 2023
Another American first. We’re closing in on 600 mass shootings in 2023 and—good news, people—there’s still two months left in the year. Can we get to 650? 700? USA! USA! USA!
Banks. Bars. Beauty Salons. Big box stores. Bowling alleys. Concerts. Colleges and universities. Convenience stores. Dance studios. Gas station. Grocery stores. Halloween parties. Houses of worship. Massage parlors. Mushroom farms. Movie theaters. Nail salons. Nightclubs. Restaurants. Schools. Shopping malls. Spas. Please forgive me if I missed other venues where (primarily) white men hunt to kill in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
While the Maine shooter was clearly suffering a mental health crisis, don’t let that fact distract you from the larger truth: The shooter, once again, was male.
On October 25, a 40-year-old white male Army reservist murdered 18 people and wounded 13 in Lewiston, Maine. Even before authorities discovered that he had died by suicide, a Maine congress member did a 180, reversing his views on gun control. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, told a press conference:
I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war like the assault rifle used to carry out this crime. The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure—which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles like the one used by the sick perpetrator of this mass killing in my hometown of Lewiston.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for Congress to take up his proposal. The best newly installed Speaker of the House, evangelical Christian and staunch gun control opponent Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), could manage to offer was, “This is a dark time in America… Prayer is appropriate at a time like this, that this senseless violence can stop.” That’s it, Mr. Speaker? That’s your “Sandy Hook” promise? WWJD?
One of Maine’s most famous residents, author Stephen King, wrote on social media, “It’s the rapid-fire killing machines, people. This is madness in the name of freedom. Stop electing apologists for murder.”
King, whose titanic body of work includes the aptly named 1982 novel, The Dark Tower: Gunslinger, is just the latest prominent voice calling to stop the madness. What’s true, and what continues too often to go unexamined amid the horror of the latest mass shooting, is the gender of the shooter. While the Maine shooter was clearly suffering a mental health crisis, don’t let that fact distract you from the larger truth: The shooter, once again, was male.
Last December, commemorating the 10th anniversary of Sandy Hook, I reiterated my long-standing assertion that:
If we are ever to radically reduce, if not prevent, this almost exclusively U.S. phenomenon, the murderer’s gender must move from the periphery to the center of the discussion. If we refuse to turn our attention, resources, and political muscle to asking why the killers are almost always white men, we will be doomed to a never-ending cycle: murder, outrage, mourning, repeat.
April 20, 2024, will mark the 25th anniversary of the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two alienated young white males, 17- and 18-years-old, slaughtered 13 and wounded 21. Imagine if we had begun back then paying attention to how we raise boys, beginning in preschool? How many alienated, lonely, and bullied males might we have helped to live a healthy boyhood and a productive manhood? It’s not too late. The warning signs are often right in front of us.
While a dysfunctional House of Representatives is highly unlikely to take up my suggestion anytime soon for Congress to authorize the CDC to begin a pilot study of Head Start preschool boys, that’s not a reason to stop trying. There are plenty of staff in both the Senate and the House who would gladly run with this idea.
Despite my doom and gloom, I believe we are inching closer to reaching the “100th monkey effect”: the phenomenon in which a new behavior or idea inexplicably begins to quickly spread from one group to all related groups as soon as a critical number of members begins to exhibit the new behavior or acknowledge the new idea. In other words, in our years-long struggle to eradicate the scourge of mass shootings, could we be approaching a tipping point?
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
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'Madness in the Name of Freedom,' Says Stephen King After Maine Gun Massacre
The author and one of the state's most famous residents said the culprit is clear: "It’s the rapid-fire killing machines, people.... Stop electing apologists for murder."
Oct 26, 2023
With a massive manhunt still underway Thursday morning in the state of Maine for the suspect behind the massacre in the city of Lewiston that left 18 people dead and at least 13 wounded, defenders of stronger gun control laws lashed out at political leaders who have failed to back or impose assault weapons bans or other measures despite the nation's epidemic of mass killings.
Schools were closed across the state Thursday and a shelter-in-place order remained in effect for a large region surrounding Lewiston in central and southern Maine as police looked for Robert Card, aged 40, announced overnight as the person of interest in shootings in two separate locations.
Among the critics aiming their ire at political failures was author and longtime Maine resident Stephen King. "The shootings occurred less than 50 miles from where I live. I went to high school in Lisbon," King tweeted early Thursday, including a reference to the small town where an automobile believed to belong to Card was found by law enforcement after the shootings.
"It’s the rapid-fire killing machines, people," King said. "This is madness in the name of freedom. Stop electing apologists for murder."
The gunman who carried out Thursday night's shooting at the Sparetime Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar & Grille was shown in security camera footage released by law enforcement to be carrying a long gun which some experts identified as an AR-15-style semiautomatic assault rifle.
Scott Sweetow, a former member of the FBI's Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center, said in an interview with NBC10 in Boston that the gunman in the footage was "kitted out to kill people."
"THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN OTHER COUNTRIES," tweeted King in a separate post.
Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, founder of the gun violence prevention organization GIFFORDS, called the events in Lewiston another "senseless act of gun violence" that exposes the failures of the nation's elected leaders.
"It doesn't have to be this way and it shouldn’t be this way," Giffords said. "Entire communities shouldn’t have to live in fear of an active shooting. My heart breaks for the Lewiston community, the victims, and the survivors. Earlier this week, I visited Uvalde and met with the families and survivors of that mass shooting. I'm angry that yet another community has to experience this pain. Our leaders must act."
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Stephen King Vows Effort to Defeat Maine Democratic Congressman If He Doesn't Vote for Both Trump Articles of Impeachment
"If my congressman, Jared Golden, votes for only one article of impeachment, I will work with all my might to see him defeated next year," warned the famed novelist.
Dec 17, 2019
One of Maine's most famous residents, novelist Stephen King, has vowed to do everything in his power to unseat his own member of Congress, Rep. Jared Golden, if the first-term Democrat follows through with his decision to vote for only one of the two the articles of impeachment levied against President Donald Trump.
With the U.S. House of Representatives voting Wednesday on two articles of impeachment--one for abuse of power and the other for obstructing Congress--Golden on Tuesday announced his plans to vote in favor of the former but against the latter.
As the local Bangor Daily News reported, "Golden said he chose not to support the second article on obstructing Congress because House Democrats had not reached the threshold of 'high crimes and misdemeanors' and there are unanswered questions surrounding the charge."
The decision did not sit well with King:
In a statement explaining his decision, Golden bragged about his voting record which includes aligning with Republicans and Trump on a number of issues.
"In my first year," said Golden, "I have ranked among the top five of 235 House Democrats in voting with the president. In a deeply divided and partisan Congress, the opportunities for agreement have often felt limited, but I have sought in good faith to work with him as best I can."
Maine's northern 2nd District--one of only two in the rural New England state--has a more Trump-friendly constituency than the progressive-leaning 1st District. While Golden--who considers himself a "moderate" Democrat--reclaimed the seat for his party in 2016, his unique position on the impeachment question has largely served only to anger voters on both sides of the aisle.
While King and others hammered Golden for the half-and-half maneuver, Republicans in Maine also voiced outrage. As the Bangor Daily News notes:
In a statement, Nina McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said Golden was "trying to have his cake and eat it too" on the issue. Republicans running for the nomination to face Golden in 2020 took similar lines in Tuesday statements.
Former state Rep. Dale Crafts of Lisbon Falls said in a statement that the congressman "plans to betray" pro-Trump constituents, while Adrienne Bennett, who was the spokeswoman for former Gov. Paul LePage, said Golden was "putting his concern for the Biden family" ahead of constituents. Former state Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn called it "an insult" to the district.
King, a lifelong Democrat and supporter of political causes in his home state, was far from alone in condemning Golden for choosing a middling path on the issue of impeachment.
The comment sections on both Golden's Facebook page and at the Bangor Daily News article were both full of vitriol aimed at Golden, including left-leaning Mainers who echoed King and called for a Democrat to challenge the congressman in the 2020 primary.
One Facebook user, Susan Sargent, tied Golden to Maine's Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins:
Rep. Golden, with all due respect, your split the baby crazy ass impeachment reasoning and vote is unbelievably weak and wrong.
Mainer's aren't dumb and we will you hold you accountable. But, I do give you major kudos for trying to follow in the footsteps of your former boss Sen. Susan Collins.
However, Collins is a master with the film-flam game. You, though Rep. Golden, are a light weight. Both of you should not be holding public office. Election Day is November 3, 2020. Vote NO on Collins. Vote NO on Golden.
"We need a Democratic Primary in the 2nd District," said one commenter at the Bangor Daily News. "Someone please step forward. You will win."
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