The Jaunt is an upcoming title in Short Stops, a series from Conversation Tree Press dedicated to bringing exceptional shorter works of fiction to life through illustrated, beautifully bound, letterpress-printed, limited editions. 

“Your mind can be your best friend; it can keep you amused even when there’s nothing to read, nothing to do. But it can turn on you when it’s left with no input for too long.”

I’m exceedingly pleased to announce a new Short Stops title from an author whose work I’ve been reading for almost as long as I can remember. Growing up in Guyana, the passing references to Jonestown sprinkled throughout many of his books were always surreal. It’s a terrible piece of history, but for a country so seldom mentioned in fiction, it brought a feeling of being seen. All these years later, it’s an honour to publish one of his stories. This is an early announcement—the edition will be available in 2027.

In The Jaunt, Stephen King delivers one of his most haunting short stories—a masterful blend of science fiction and horror that lingers long after the final line. Set in the early twenty-fourth century, when teleportation—known as “Jaunting”—has become an ordinary convenience of modern life, the story explores a future in which humanity has conquered distance, but not the space between.

First published in The Twilight Zone Magazine in 1981 and later collected in King’s 1985 collection Skeleton Crew, The Jaunt stands as a chilling examination of technological progress and its unseen risks. In a world reshaped by nearly instantaneous travel across the Solar System, King turns his focus not to spectacle, but to the quiet, creeping implications of discovery: what happens when innovation outruns understanding, and when curiosity presses against boundaries that perhaps were never meant to be crossed.

With clinical precision and mounting dread, King transforms a commonplace act of travel into an existential terror. The story’s power lies not in elaborate machinery or distant planets, but in an exploration of time and the fragility of human consciousness. Spare, unsettling, and devastating in its restraint, The Jaunt builds toward an ending that will stay with you for longer than you think.

Edition Information

The Jaunt will be issued in a limited edition of 500 unnumbered copies, letterpress-printed on mould made paper and hardbound in cloth and hand-marbled paper. Each copy will be signed by the artist. They will not be signed by the author.

Availability

The Jaunt will be available for purchase in 2027 when the book is ready to ship. At that time, it will first be offered to current Deluxe and Lettered rightsholders, and then to the public.

Typography

The title is set in Zetafont’s Autarchist, described as “a typographic odyssey through the aesthetics of 1970s and 1980s science fiction and horror—a golden age of bold, cinematic visions, pulpy paperbacks, and highly stylized letterforms, often pushing the boundaries of legibility in favor of a thrilling blend of futurism, psychedelia, and art nouveau design.”

Letterpress Printing

The edition will be letterpress printed by Phil Abel and Robert Hetherington at Hand & Eye Press. Hand and Eye has a distinguished history of not only letterpress-printing their own editions, but collaborating with Folio Society, No Reply Press, Lyra’s Books, and, of course, with Marcelo Anciano on their very own Areté Editions.

About Short Stops

Books in our Short Stops series are a little different from our other editions that come in multiple states. They:

• Are usually announced and offered for sale when they are completely finished and in hand, with shipping beginning on the same day we begin accepting orders. This title is being announced in advance.
  
• Feature shorter works of fiction.
• Have a trim size of 6in by 9in, slightly smaller than our other 6.7in by 9.5in books.
• Have no rights associated with them and do not include a slipcase.
• Always be offered to current Deluxe and Lettered rights-holders first, even though they have no rights attached to them. Rights holders may skip it entirely without losing rights to the next book from the Press, and having a copy of the most recently published book in the Short Stops series does not give any rights to the next in the series.

Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Never Flinch, the short story collection You Like It Darker (a New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024), Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many copies will there be?
There will be 500 copies available for sale. As with all of the books in our Short Stops series, they will be unnumbered.

Will any copies be signed by Stephen King?
No, the author will not be signing any copies.

Who is the artist?
We have not yet decided on an artist.

What will the book look like?
Books in our Short Stops series are all hardbound in quarter cloth and hand-marbled (not printed) paper. See Kelly Link’s The Faery Handbag, our most recent book in the series, as an example.

When will The Jaunt be made available?
Sometime in 2027. We will put it up for sale when copies are ready to ship (i.e. there will be no pre-orders, we’re going to have the books entirely finished before being made available).

How will copies be made available?
Short Stops titles are always offered first to current rights-holders during a private pre-order period. These are collectors who pre-ordered our most recent multi-state edition with Deluxe copies numbered #1-200 and any Lettered copy.

After a few days, all remaining copies are made available to the public.

How will I know when The Jaunt is going up for sale?
The best way to stay informed is to sign up to our newsletter at the bottom of this page.

Will The Jaunt give rights to any other title?
No, books in our Short Stops series don’t come with the right of first refusal for any future publications. 

What other Short Stops titles do you have planned?
We typically don’t announce Short Stops titles in advance—this is only the second time we’ve done so. The other early announcement was for Josiah Bancroft’s upcoming The Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel, our first piece of original fiction commissioned directly from one of our favourite contemporary fantasy authors.

If you like a certain Argentinian short story writer, you’ll also likely be pleased with three of our upcoming titles as well.

Apart from Short Stops, what other titles are you working on?
See our Schedule page for a longer list, but we’re working on Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash with Subterranean Press, Octavia Butler’s Kindred, and Michael Moorcock’s The Chronicles of Elric. 

We also just had the final few copies of the Standard Edition of Joe Hill’s Faun bound and they’re ready to ship now. Once these are gone, that’s it.

What paper will it be printed on?
It will be letterpress printed on a mould made paper, the kind of paper we typically use for our Deluxe and Lettered books.

Who will be designing the edition?
Tony Geer will be designing and art directing the edition.

Are you sure no copies will be signed by Stephen King?
Yes, I’m sure.