Mike Flanagan to co-host podcast on Stephen King’s novel The Stand

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Jason Sechrest, horror author and writer of the column What I Learned from Stephen King, has announced that he's working on a King-related podcast that sounds like a "must listen" to me. Sechrest, Tananarive Due, Anthony Breznican, and genre filmmaker Mike Flanagan will be hosting a six-episode limited series podcast about King's epic novel The Stand.  

The podcast is called THE COMPANY OF THE MAD: THE STAND PODCAST and will debut on Friday, May 29th at The StandPodcast.com. It will also be available on iTunes, Spotify, and most other apps where podcasts can be found. Video will be available exclusively at the podcast's official site, where fans can also sign up to be notified when new episodes go live.

Sechrest had this to say about the project: 

The idea is that the four of us will read 200 pages a month, and then meet up on the podcast to discuss what we just read. Sort of like a virtual book club, but one the whole world can join in. We’ll be encouraging listeners to join us in #TheStandChallenge, committing to reading 200 pages a month and letting us know their thoughts. We’ll also be encouraging them to donate to The EMS FDNY HelpFund, benefiting first responders of New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Stand is a book everyone should read, and if you’ve read it before, there is no better time to re-read it. There’s this great quote from the book that reads, ‘Love didn’t grow very well in a place where there was only fear, just as plants didn’t grow very well in a place where it was always dark.’ For all the scares King packs with a punch into his stories, there are equal parts wisdom, spirituality, and life lessons to be found – perhaps more in The Stand than ever. King doesn’t just write horror, he writes about people. He writes about the nature of the human condition, and that is what makes the horror work. That’s a big part of what we’ll be exploring in the podcast.” 

Sechrest will serve as the host of the podcast, guiding the conversation.

Tananarive Due is an award-winning novelist who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA, and was the executive producer of the Shudder documentary HORROR NOIRE: A HISTORY OF BLACK HORROR. "Due has been reading King since she was a young girl, having first read The Stand while in bed sick with the flu, and has played with King on stage in the rock band The Rock Bottom Remainders."

Anthony Breznican has worked for The Arizona Republic, Associated Press, USA Today, and Entertainment Weekly as a journalist. He is also the author of a novel called Brutal Youth, which King provided a blurb for.

Mike Flanagan has directed feature adaptations of the King novels GERALD'S GAME and DOCTOR SLEEP, and is now working on an adaptation of King's novel Revival.

I am a huge fan of The Stand (and of the 1994 mini-series adaptation), that story had a major impact on my childhood, so I will be listening to every episode of this podcast.