Stephen King From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other people named Stephen King, see Stephen King (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2010) Stephen King Stephen King, February 2007 Stephen Edwin King Born September 21, 1947 (age 63) Portland, Maine, United States Pen name Richard Bachman, John Swithen Novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, Occupation columnist, actor, television producer, film director Horror, fantasy, science fiction, drama, gothic, Genres genre fiction, dark fantasy Spouse(s) Tabitha King Naomi King Children Joe King Owen King Influences[show] Influenced[show] Signature stephenking.com Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies[7] and have been made into many movies. He is most known for the novels Carrie, The Shining, The Stand, It, Misery, and the seven-novel series The Dark Tower, which King wrote over a period of 27 years. As of 2010, King has written and published 49 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, five non-fiction books, and nine collections of short stories including Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, and Everything's Eventual. Many of his stories are set in his homestate of Maine. He has collaborated with authors Peter Straub and Stewart O'Nan. The novels The Stand, The Talisman, and The Dark Tower series have also been made into comic books, along with the short story N. King has received Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, British Fantasy Society Awards, A Nebula Award for his novella The Way Station, and, in 2003, the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.[8] King and his wife, Tabitha, have three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen. Tabitha, Joe and Owen are also published writers. Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Education and early career 3 1970s – 1980s work o 3.1 The Dark Tower books . 3.1.1 Adaptations o 3.2 Richard Bachman 4 Car accident and thoughts of retirement 5 2000s work 6 Collaborations 7 Analysis o 7.1 Writing style o 7.2 Influences o 7.3 Critical response 8 Appearances and adaptations in other media o 8.1 Philanthropy o 8.2 Political activism 9 Personal life 10 References in popular culture 11 Awards 12 See also 13 References o 13.1 Additional reading 14 External links Early life King's father, Donald Edwin King, who was born ca. 1913 in Peru, Indiana, was a merchant seaman.[9] King's mother, Nellie Ruth (née Pillsbury; March 13, 1913 – December 28, 1973) was born in Scarborough, Maine.[9] They were married July 23, 1939 in Cumberland County, Maine.[9] Stephen King was born September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine. When King was two years old, his father left the family under the pretense of "going to buy a pack of cigarettes," leaving his mother to raise King and his adopted older brother David by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. The family moved to De Pere, Wisconsin; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Stratford, Connecticut. When King was eleven years old, the family returned to Durham, Maine, where Ruth King cared for her parents until their deaths. She then became a caregiver in a local residential facility for the mentally challenged.[10] As a child, King apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train, though he has no memory of the event. His family told him that after leaving home to play with the boy, King returned, speechless and seemingly in shock. Only later did the family learn of the friend's death. Some commentators have suggested that this event may have psychologically inspired some of King's darker works,[11] but King himself has dismissed the idea.[12] King's primary inspiration for writing horror fiction was related in detail in his 1981 non-fiction Danse Macabre, in a chapter titled "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause". King makes a comparison of his uncle successfully dowsing for water using the bough of an apple branch with the sudden realization of what he wanted to do for a living. While browsing through an attic with his elder brother, King uncovered a paperback version of an H. P. Lovecraft collection of short stories that had belonged to his father. The cover art—an illustration of a yellow-green Demon hiding within the recesses of a Hellish cavern beneath a tombstone—was, he writes, "The moment of my life when the dowsing rod suddenly went down hard... as far as I was concerned, I was on my way." Education and early career King attended Durham Elementary School and graduated from Lisbon Falls High School in Lisbon Falls, Maine. He displayed an early interest in horror as an avid reader of EC's horror comics, including Tales from the Crypt (he later paid tribute to the comics in his screenplay for Creepshow). He began writing for fun while still in school, contributing articles to Dave's Rag, the newspaper that his brother published with a mimeograph machine and later began selling stories to his friends which were based on movies he had seen (though when discovered by his teachers, he was forced to return the profits). The first of his stories to be independently published was "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber", serialized over three published and one unpublished issue of a fanzine, Comics Review, in 1965.[13] That story was published the following year in a revised form as "In a Half-World of Terror" in another fanzine, Stories of Suspense, edited by Marv Wolfman.[14] From 1966, King studied English at the University of Maine, graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science in English. That same year his first daughter, Naomi Rachel, was born. He wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Maine Campus, titled "Steve King's Garbage Truck", took part in a writing workshop organized by Burton Hatlen,[1] and took odd jobs to pay for his studies, including one at an industrial laundry. He sold his first professional short story, "The Glass Floor", to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967.[10] The Fogler Library at UMaine now holds many of King's papers. After leaving the university, King earned a certificate to teach high school but, being unable to find a teaching post immediately, initially supplemented his laboring wage by selling short stories to men's magazines such as Cavalier. Many of these early stories have been published in the collection Night Shift. In 1971, King married Tabitha Spruce, a fellow student at the University of Maine whom he had met at the University's Fogler Library after one of Professor Hatlen's workshops.[1] That fall, King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He continued to contribute short stories to magazines and worked on ideas for novels.[10] It was during this time that King developed a drinking problem, which stayed with him for more than a decade. In 1972, Joseph Hillstrom, his second child was born. 1970s – 1980s work In 1973, King's novel Carrie was accepted by publishing house Doubleday. King actually threw an early draft of the novel in the trash after becoming discouraged with his progress writing about a teenage girl with psychic powers. His wife retrieved the manuscript and encouraged him to finish it.[15] His advance for Carrie was $2,500, with paperback rights earning $400,000 at a later date. King and his family relocated to southern Maine because of his mother's failing health. At this time, he began writing a book titled Second Coming, later titled Jerusalem's Lot, before finally changing the title to 'Salem's Lot (published 1975). Soon after the release of Carrie in 1974, his mother died of uterine cancer. His Aunt Emrine read the novel to her before she died. King has written of his severe drinking problem at this time, stating that he was drunk delivering the eulogy at his mother's funeral.[12] After his mother's death, King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where King wrote The Shining (published 1977). The family returned to western Maine in 1975, where King completed his fourth novel, The Stand (published 1978). In 1977, the family, with the addition of Owen Phillip (his third and last child), traveled briefly to England, returning to Maine that fall where King began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine. He has kept his primary residence in Maine ever since. In 1985 King wrote his first work for the comic book medium,[16] writing a few pages of the benefit X-Men comic book Heroes for Hope Starring the X-Men. The book, whose profits were donated to assist with famine relief in Africa, was written by a number of different authors in the comic book field, such as Chris Claremont, Stan Lee, and Alan Moore, as well as authors not primarily associated with that industry, such as Harlan Ellison.[17] The following year, King wrote the introduction to Batman #400, an anniversary issue in which he expressed his preference for that character over Superman.[18] The Dark Tower books Main article: The Dark Tower (series) Stephen King at the Harvard Book Store In the late 1970s, King began what became a series of interconnected stories about a lone gunslinger, Roland, who pursues the "Man in Black" in an alternate-reality universe that is a cross between J.R.R.