In an era where nearly every story is consumed on a screen, Minnesota author Benjamin Percy is turning back the clock—and reinventing the future of storytelling. His latest project, “The End Times,” is a serialized post-apocalyptic tale written in collaboration with literary icon Stephen King and published not as a book, but as a newspaper.
Subscribers receive each new chapter as part of a yearlong storytelling experience—either as a printed tabloid delivered by mail or a digital issue sent to their inbox. Each monthly edition continues the narrative through fictional news articles, illustrations, and serialized chapters, building a vivid world of survival, loss, and hope.
Printed in Ortonville, Minnesota, and designed by artist Matt Bowers, “The End Times” follows a woman who revives an old printing press after a pandemic decimates civilization, using her small-town newspaper to reconnect a fractured community.
We caught up with Percy to talk about how the collaboration with King began, what inspired this experimental format, and why he believes local journalism—and storytelling itself—might just be the thing that saves us.
Courtesy of Fangoria
Q: How did this collaboration with Stephen King come about, and what was your reaction when he joined the project?
BENJAMIN PERCY (BP): When I was a professor at St. Olaf about 10 years ago, I was in the middle of a creative writing class when my phone started blowing up. Stephen King had tweeted about one of my novels, “Red Moon.” I reached out to Peter Straub—who had collaborated with King on “The Talisman”—and asked him to pass along my thanks. Soon after, King wrote back, and we began corresponding. He was kind enough to blurb several of my books, and in 2019 I even had the honor of interviewing him on stage at a Twin Cities literary festival.
I grew up worshiping at the altar of King, but I never wanted to take advantage of our connection. Still, when I dreamed up this project, it felt natural to reach out. The story takes place in a world much like “The Stand,” and I also remembered reading “The Green Mile” in serialized installments as a kid—a really formative experience. King has always taken big experimental swings, and that inspired me. So, I sent him a note saying, “No pressure, but here’s what I’m doing—it would be amazing if you wanted to contribute.” To my surprise and delight, he wrote back within five minutes: “Hell yeah, I’m in.”
Q: How has King’s involvement helped shape the project?
BP: I’m the No. 1 Stephen King fan, and my creative DNA has been forged by him. To see his name in my inbox—getting feedback and counsel from him—feels like something out of a fever dream. He’s incredibly generous, down-to-earth, and despite his cultural impact, just seems like an ordinary guy.
He’s been firing off ideas, introducing characters, and adding some necessary darkness. Without giving away spoilers, I’ll just say his pseudonym, Richard Bachman, plays an important role in the story.
Photo by Eric Mueller
Q: How did you end up coming to Minnesota from Oregon?
BP: I grew up in Oregon, but I’ve lived all over. I married into the Midwest—my wife, Lisa, comes from a dairy farm outside Eau Claire, Wisconsin. At the time, I was a tenured professor at Iowa State, but I decided to go full time as a writer. We wanted to be closer to family, so we looked at communities within a three-hour drive of the farm. Northfield felt like the right place to raise our kids.
There happened to be an opening at St. Olaf for a visiting professor and writer-in-residence, so I did that for two years. Since then, I’ve been full time at the keyboard.
Q: The novel explores themes of misinformation, journalism, and storytelling. Why do those feel especially urgent right now?
BP: The story centers on Mary Poole, who lives in a post-apocalyptic version of Northfield—called North End—10 years after a pandemic has wiped out most of humanity. People are redefining their roles: farmers, blacksmiths, hunters. Mary hasn’t found her purpose until she stumbles on an old printing press. She begins publishing a newspaper—at first just for herself—but soon it unites and protects the town.
Over the course of the 12-month serialization, the paper becomes the community’s voice, not just hers. I’ve described it as a cross between “Station Eleven” and “Our Town.”
Part of my inspiration was the Northfield News, which is mostly written by one person. During COVID, I realized how vital local journalism really is—no matter how overwhelming the global headlines get, people make a difference locally. In “The End Times,” journalism is literally heroic; it saves lives. At a moment when misinformation and disinformation are spreading faster than ever, I wanted this story to be a kind of inoculation.
Q: Why publish ‘The End Times’ as a serialized newspaper instead of a traditional book?
BP: I’m always raising the hurdles in front of myself creatively. I write across genres and mediums—novels, comics, journalism, audio dramas, screenplays—which keeps me from ever getting writer’s block. I’ve long been fascinated by epistolary forms like “Dracula” or King’s “Carrie,” where letters and interviews tell the story.
By releasing “The End Times” as a newspaper, I get to include articles, maps, interviews, cartoons—making it feel fresh even though it’s also a throwback. Readers have encountered post-apocalyptic narratives countless times, but this format disorients them in a good way; they don’t know what’s coming.
Plus, I think people are craving something tangible. With AI on the rise and our lives dominated by screens, holding a printed newspaper in your hands feels refreshing. And printing it through a small-town press in Ortonville, Minnesota, makes the project even cooler.
Artwork by Matt Bowers
Q: Do you have a personal connection to Ortonville, or was that just a publishing choice?
BP: That connection came through my publisher, Doug Murano at Bad Hand Books. His mother-in-law runs a small-town paper in South Dakota, which uses the Ortonville Independent’s presses. So it was a natural fit to have “The End Times” printed there.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from ‘The End Times’?
BP: I hope they’re thrilled, moved to gasp, cry, and laugh. But I also hope they see the troubled world of “The End Times” as a reflection of our own.
Q: Being linked with someone like Stephen King, where do you see yourself in today’s genre fiction landscape?
BP: This will be my twelfth book, and I also write for Marvel Comics—titles like “Wolverine,” “Ghost Rider,” and “The Punisher.” I straddle the line between literary and genre fiction, and I want this project to continue that tradition: stories that are artfully told but also thrillingly delivered. If this collaboration with King gets my name out to more people, great—but that’s not the point. Ultimately, I reached out to him, and I took on this newspaper experiment, just to have fun and scratch an itch in my brain.
