Esquire, perhaps the only periodical to have John McCain and Jessica Beil on its cover in the same year, has hit the big time: in a press release, the magazine announced it would be featuring The Gingerbread Girl, a 21,000-word novella by the guitar player from the Rock Bottom Remainders, Stephen King!

Editor-in-Chief David Granger spoke with the Associated Press last week: “Over the last year, we’ve been trying to breathe life back into magazine fiction. The best way to do that is to publish nothing other than event fiction—stories that have something in addition to their literary merit to call attention to themselves.”

King’s story, which appears in the July issue, is the latest in a rich tradition of Esquire fiction. Truman Copote’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was first published there, as was Norman Mailer’s “An American Dream.” Not bad company to keep.