Information AboutStephen King |
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Stephen Edwin King (born September 21 , 1947 ) is an American Author best known for his enormously popular Horror Novel s. King was the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. King's stories frequently involve an unremarkable protagonist such as a middle-class family, a child, or many times, a writer. The characters are involved in their everyday lives, but the supernatural encounters and extraordinary circumstances escalate over the course of the story. King evinces a thorough knowledge of the horror genre, as shown in his nonfiction book '' Danse Macabre '', which chronicles several decades of notable works in both literature and cinema. He also writes stories outside the horror genre, including the novellas '' The Body '' and '' Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption '' (adapted as the movies '' Stand By Me '' and '' The Shawshank Redemption '', respectively), as well as '' The Green Mile '' and '' Hearts In Atlantis ''. Stephen King also wrote under the pen name of Richard Bachman . BIOGRAPHY Stephen King was born in 1947 in Portland, Maine and is of Scots-Irish ancestry. When King was two years old, his father deserted his family. His mother, Ruth, raised King and his adopted older brother David by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. The family moved to Ruth's home town of Durham, Maine but also spent brief periods in Fort Wayne, Indiana and Stratford, Connecticut . King attended Durham Elementary School and Lisbon High School . He grew to stand 6'4" tall. King has been writing since an early age. When in school, he wrote stories based on movies he had seen recently and sold them to his friends. This was not popular among his teachers, and he was forced to return his profits when this was discovered. The stories were copied using a Mimeo machine that his brother David used to copy a newspaper, "Dave's Rag," which he self-published. "Dave's Rag" was about local events, and King would often contribute. At around the age of thirteen, King discovered a box of his father's old books at his aunt's house, mainly Horror and Science Fiction . He was immediately hooked on these genres. From 1966 to 1971, King studied English at the University Of Maine at Orono, Maine . At the university, he wrote a column titled "King's Garbage Truck" in the university magazine. He also met Tabitha Spruce ; they married in 1971. King took on odd jobs to pay for his studies, including one at an industrial laundry. He used the experience to write the short story '' The Mangler ''. The campus period in his life is readily evident in the second part of '' Hearts In Atlantis ''. After finishing his university studies with a Bachelor Of Arts in English and obtaining a certificate to teach high school, King taught English at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine . During this time, he and his family lived in a trailer. He wrote short stories (most were published in men's magazines) to help make ends meet. As told in the introduction in '' Carrie '', if one of his kids got a cold, Tabitha would joke, "Come on, Steve, think of a monster". King also developed a Drinking Problem which stayed with him for over a decade. During this period, King began a number of novels. One of his first ideas was of a young girl with psychic powers. However, he grew discouraged, and threw it into the trash. Tabitha later rescued it and encouraged him to finish it. After completing the novel, he titled it '' Carrie '', sent it to Doubleday , and more or less forgot about it. Later, he received an offer to buy it with a $2,500 advance (not a large advance for a novel, even at that time). Shortly after, the value of ''Carrie'' was realized with the paperback rights being sold for $400,000 (with $200,000 of it going to the publisher). Shortly after its release, his mother died of Uterine Cancer . She had the novel read to her before she died. In ''On Writing'', King admits that at this time he was consistently drunk and that he was an alcoholic for well over a decade. He even admits that he was drunk during his mother’s funeral while delivering the eulogy. He states that he had based the alcoholic father in '' The Shining '' on himself, though he did not admit it for several years. Shortly after the publication of '', Xanax , Valium , NyQuil . He sought help, and quit all forms of drugs and alcohol in the late 1980s. King fans note that the relative wealth of King's characters has risen through the decades, but not as precipitously as King's wealth itself:
CAR ACCIDENT In the summer of 1999, King was in the middle of writing ''''. At the time, he had finished the memoir section and had abandoned the book for nearly eighteen months, unsure of how to proceed or whether to bother. King reports that it was the first book that he'd abandoned since writing ''The Stand'' decades earlier. He had just decided to continue the book. On June 17, he had written up a list of questions that he was frequently asked about writing, as well as some that he wished he would be asked about it; on June 18, he had written four pages of the section on writing. On June 19, about 4:30 PM, he was walking on the right shoulder of Route 5 in North Lovell. Driver Bryan Smith , distracted by an unrestrained Rottweiler moving in the back of his 1985 Dodge Caravan, struck King, who landed in a depression about 14 feet (4 meters) from the pavement of Route 5. Oxford County Sheriff's deputy Matt Baker recorded that witnesses said the driver was not speeding or reckless. {Link without Title} Baker also reported that King was struck from behind. King's official website, however, states that this was incorrect, and that King was walking facing traffic. In any case, Smith was turned and leaning to the rear of his vehicle trying to restrain his dog, and was not watching the road when he struck King. King was conscious enough to give the deputy phone numbers to contact his family, but in considerable pain. The author was first transported to Northern Cumberland Hospital and then flown by helicopter to Central Maine Hospital. His injuries — a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of the right leg, scalp laceration, and a broken hip — kept him in Central Maine Medical Center until July 9, almost three weeks later. Earlier that year King had finished most of '' From A Buick 8 '', a novel where one of the characters dies in an Automobile Accident . Of the eerie similarities, King says that he tries "not to make too much of it." Certainly car accidents and their horrors had figured into King's work before. His 1987 novel '' Misery '' also concerned a writer who experiences severe injuries in an auto accident, and auto wrecks figure prominently in '' The Dead Zone '' and '' Thinner ''. After five operations in ten days and Physical Therapy , King resumed work on ''On Writing'' in July, though his hip was still shattered and he could only sit for about forty minutes before the pain became intolerable. King's lawyer and two others purchased Smith's van for $1,500, reportedly to avoid it appearing on EBay . Smith, a disabled construction worker, died in his sleep in September 2000 at the age of 43. King incorporated his accident into the final novel of his '' Dark Tower '' series, in which the hero Roland Deschain and his friends try to stop King from being fatally injured by the van. In the story, Roland hypnotized both King and the driver in order to make them forget his appearance. The novel '' Dreamcatcher '', which was released after King's accident features a character recovering from a car accident. The series premiere of ''Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital'' involved the main character, a painter out for a morning run being hit by a pickup truck, most likely inspired by this event as well. WRITING STYLE In King's nonfiction book, '''', King discusses his writing style at great length and depth. King believes that, generally speaking, good stories cannot be called consciously and should not be plotted out beforehand but are better served by focusing on a single "seed" of a story and letting the story grow itself from there. King often begins a story with no idea how the story will end. He mentions in the ''Dark Tower'' series that, halfway through its lengthy, nearly 30-year writing period, King received a letter from a woman with cancer who asked how the book would end¹, because she was unlikely to live long enough to read it. He stated that he didn't know. King believes strongly in this style, stating that his best writing comes from freewriting. He is known for his great eye for detail, for continuity, and for inside references; many stories that may seem unrelated are often linked by secondary characters, fictional towns, or off-hand references to events in previous books. Read as a whole, King's work (which he claims is centered around his ''Dark Tower'' magnum opus) creates a remarkable history that stretches from present day all the way back to the beginning of time (with a unique creation myth). King's books are filled with references to American history and American culture, particularly the darker, more fearful side of these. These references are generally spun into the stories of characters, often explaining their fears. Recurrent references include crime, war (especially the Vietnam War ), and racism. King is also known for his folksy, informal narration, often referring to his fans as "Constant Readers" or "friends and thee neighbors." This familiar style to contrasts with the horrific content of many of his stories. King has a very simple formula for learning to write well: "Read four hours a day and write four hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a good writer." King also has a simple definition for talent in writing: "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented" (from "Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully — in Ten Minutes"). Shortly after his accident, King wrote the first draft of the book ''Dreamcatcher'' with a notebook and a Waterman fountain pen, "the world's finest word processor." QUOTES
-'' The Stand ''
KING'S RECENT YEARS In 1996, King won an O. Henry Award for his short story, "The Man in the Black Suit." In 2003, King was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Book Awards . There was an uproar in the literary community over the choice of King. :"He is a man who writes what used to be called Penny Dreadful s. That they could believe that there is any literary value there or any aesthetic accomplishment or signs of an inventive human intelligence is simply a testimony to their own idiocy" — literary critic Harold Bloom . Others in the writing community expressed their contempt of the slight towards King. Orson Scott Card wrote "Let me assure you that King's work most definitely is literature, because it was written to be published and is read with admiration. What Snyder [former CEO of Simon & Schuster, who described King's work as non-literature really means is that it is not the literature preferred by the academic-literary elite."[http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2003-09-21.shtml]. Stephen King has also written six books under the Pseudonym Richard Bachman . King staged a mock funeral for Bachman after the pseudonym was made public, which in turn inspired the book '' The Dark Half '', in which a novelist stages the burial of his horror author pseudonym after having a "serious" novel published, only to find that his alter ego does not want to leave quite so easily. King also wrote one short story under the name John Swithen — '' The Fifth Quarter '', which was reprinted in King's collection '' Nightmares & Dreamscapes '' in 1993 under his own name. King used to play guitar in the band ; Ridley Pearson ; Scott Turow ; Amy Tan ; James McBride ; Mitch Albom ; Roy Blount Jr. ; Matt Groening ; Kathi Kamen Goldmark; and Greg Iles . In 2002, King announced he would stop writing, apparently motivated in part by frustration with his injuries, which had made sitting uncomfortable, and reduced his stamina. He has since written several books. ''"I'm writing but I'm writing at a much slower pace than previously and I think that if I come up with something really, really good, I would be perfectly willing to publish it because that still feels like the final act of the creative process, publishing it so people can read it and you can get feedback and people can talk about it with each other and with you, the writer, but the force of my invention has slowed down a lot over the years and that's as it should be. I'm not a kid of 25 anymore and I'm not a young middle-aged man of 35 anymore — I'm 55 years old and I have grandchildren, two new puppies to house-train and I have a lot of things to do besides writing and that in and of itself is a wonderful thing but writing is still a big, important part of my life and of everyday."'' {Link without Title} Since 2003, King has provided his take on pop culture in a column appearing on the back page of '' Entertainment Weekly '', usually every third week. The column is called "The Pop Of King", a reference to "The King of Pop", Michael Jackson. In October 2005, King has signed up with Marvel Comics ; this will be his first time writing original material for the Comic Book medium other than two pages in a benefit comic for African hunger relief in the 1980s. The negotiation will see him expanding his The Dark Tower series. The series will be illustrated by Eisner Award -winning artist Jae Lee . Marvel recently announced the series was delayed until 2007 in order for King to give it the attention it deserves. In January 2006, King appeared on the first installment of Amazon Fishbowl, hosted by Bill Maher . In January 2006, King participated in the Writers in Paradise program at Eckerd College , St. Petersburg, FL. BASEBALL Stephen King is a lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox , and is frequently found at both home and away Baseball games. In his private role as father, King helped coach his son Owen's Bangor West team to the Maine Little League Championship in 1989. This experience is recounted in the New Yorker essay '' Head Down '', which also appears in the collection '' Nightmares And Dreamscapes ''. King has called ''Head Down'' his best piece of nonfiction writing. In 1999 King wrote '''' with Stewart O'Nan . This work recounts the authors' roller coaster reaction to the Red Sox's 2004 season, a season culminating in the Sox winning the 2004 American League Championship Series and World Series . In 1992, Mansfield Stadium, a Little League ballpark (which also host High School and Senior League games) opened in Bangor, Maine. This facility, nicknamed the ''Field Of Screams'', was made possible through the efforts and donations of King and his wife Tabitha. FAMILY Stephen King lives in Bangor, Maine with his wife Tabitha King , who is also a novelist. They also own a house in the Western Lakes District of Maine . He spends Winter seasons in an oceanfront Mansion located off the Gulf Of Mexico in Sarasota, Florida . King recently built a home on Hamilton Reservoir in Union, Connecticut . Their three children, Naomi Rachel, Joe Hill (who appeared in the film '' Creepshow ''), and Owen Phillip, are grown and living on their own. Owen's first collection of stories, ''We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories'' was published in 2005. OTHER WRITERS Influences King is a fan of H.P. Lovecraft , discusses him at length in ''Danse Macabre'', and has used several of Lovecraft's writing techniques in his own work. Lovecraft is probably influential on King's invention of bizarre, ancient deities, subtle connections between all of his tales, and the integration of fabricated newspaper clippings, trial transcripts and documents as narrative devices. King's invented trio of afflicted New England towns Jerusalem's Lot , Castle Rock and Derry are reminiscent of Lovecraft's Arkham , Dunwich and Innsmouth . King differs markedly from Lovecraft in his focus on extensive characterization, naturalistic dialogue, and at least occasional positive plot resolution, all notably absent in Lovecraft's writing. Edgar Allan Poe , one of the fathers to the contemporary literary horror genre, exerts a noticeable influence over King's writing as well. One of the best examples of this is shown with '' The Shining ''. The mangled phrase, "And the red death held sway over all," hearkens back to the original, "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all," from Poe's " The Masque Of The Red Death ." King's novel parallels Poe's short story fairly accurately. The two men also share the common theme of the Doppelgänger , although one might argue that this is prevalent throughout the entire horror genre and cannot be relegated as specific to one author. In addition, the theme of the short story "Dolan's Cadillac" bears an almost identical comparison to Poe's " The Cask Of Amontillado ," up to and including a paraphrase of Fortunato's famous plea, "for the love of God, Montresor!" In ''The Shining'', King refers to Poe as "the Great American Hack". King has also openly declared his admiration for another, far less prolific author: Shirley Jackson . The novel '' Salem's Lot '' opens with a quotation from Jackson's '' The Haunting Of Hill House ''. Tony, an imaginary playmate from '' The Shining '' bears a striking resemblance to another imaginary playmate with the same name from Jackson's '' Hangsaman ''. There are also many similarities between the character of Carrie from '' Carrie '' and that of Eleanor from '' The Haunting Of Hill House ''. King claims that Carrie is actually based on two victims of bullying that he knew from school. A pivotal scene in '' Storm Of The Century '' is based on Jackson's '' The Lottery ''. King may well owe the most to John D. MacDonald . King was a big fan of MacDonald as he was growing up, and the debt he owes the older writer seems clear enough. Just as King is a popular master of the horror genre, so was MacDonald a peerless master of the crime procedural. King very likely learned much of the art of penetrating deep into character from MacDonald's best work..the ways King and MacDonald develop characters, even down to certain turns of language, are strikingly similar. And both men display an intense love of a good story, told well and clearly and in the vernacular of real people, living in the real world. Even their work-habits, in their respective primes, are similar: both spent a lot of time learning their craft, and a lot of time practicing it every single day. King's comment that you can't be a serious writer until you read four hours a day and write four hours a day could have come straight from MacDonald, who felt much the same way about the matter. MacDonald wrote an admiring preface to an early paperback version of ''Night Shift'', and even had his famous character, Travis McGee, reading ''Cujo'' in one of the last McGee novels. King dedicated the novella ''Sun Dog'' to MacDonald, saying "I miss you, old friend." In '' On Writing '', King claimed that the one book he wishes he'd written is '' Lord Of The Flies ''. Collaborations King has written two novels with acclaimed horror novelist Peter Straub , '' The Talisman '' and a sequel, '' Black House ''. King has indicated that he and Straub will likely write the third and concluding book in this series, the tale of Jack Sawyer, but has set no timeline for its completion. King also wrote the nonfiction book, '' Faithful '' with novelist and fellow Red Sox fanatic Stewart O'Nan . POPULAR CULTURE King has been referenced six times on the television show '' Family Guy . #When Brian runs over a person with a truck, he stops and says, "Oh, my God! Are you Stephen King?" The man replies, "No, I'm Dean Koontz ." Brian gets back into his truck and drives backwards, running over Koontz again. #While the Griffin family is at an amusement park, Stewie sees a toy clown, which is one of the prizes at a shooting game. He says, "How deliciously evil, like something out of a Stephen King novel", a reference to '' It ''. #In that same episode, just after Stewie mocks the toy clown, the episode moves into the following Cut-scene : King's editor is shown asking King for a summary for his 307th novel. King invents a story on the spot about a couple who are attacked by a lamp monster, then grabs the lamp from the editor's desk and waves it around making strange noises. The editor sighs and says, "You're not even trying anymore, are you?" and then says, "When can I have it?" #In a more recent episode, Stewie Griffin is riding his tricycle through a home (In a Parody of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of '' The Shining '') and turns a corner to find two ghostly twins. The twins also appeared in the second season episode "Peter Peter Caviar Eater". This scene is repeated in other cartoons, as well (such as the episode of Rocko's Modern Life where Heffer becomes a security guard). #In another episode, Stewie Griffin uses his letter blocks to spell out Redrum, from '' The Shining ''. #In an episode where Peter is subject to a near-death experience and revelation about himself, it is revealed that Lois's father attempted to bribe him out of marrying his daughter. This is possibly borrowed from ''Pet Sematary'', in which Louis Creed, the main character, is subject to an attempted bribe from his future wife's father, Irwin Goldman. He offers to pay Louis's way through medical school if he leaves Rachel. The circumstances are also similar; both offers are made in like settings, down to both Lois's father and Goldman wearing smoking jackets at the time. In '' Futurama '': #Fry walks in a library and passes a room titled "Stephen King, volumes A through Aardvark". #In another episode, King is referenced on an episode related to '' The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz ''. Fry (the temporary Scarecrow ) unsuccessfully attempts to scare away some crows by reading excerpts from '' Christine ''. #In The Honking (a play on the Shining in itself), a series of zeroes and ones forms on a wall in the mansion from blood. Bender says the numbers are gibberish, but then catches sight of them in a mirror and runs, screaming, from the room. In '' The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy '': #Billy gets a haunted tricycle from a haunted outhouse that leads to another dimension. After Billy gets mocked by his peers, the tricycle, which Billy calls "Trykie," goes a spree across the town, giving wedgies and leaving nasty tire marks, likely inspired by '' Christine ''. #In another episode, Billy and Mandy go to a winter camp where the camp counselor is named John "Jack" Daniel Torrance, which was the full name of the main character in '' The Shining '' King makes a small cameo as himself in ''. He's a fascinating man. He discovered electricity, and used it to torture small animals and Green Mountain men. And that key he tied to the end of a kite? It opened the gates of Hell!" Marge asks him to contact her when he gets back to horror, and he writes a note to himself: "Call Marge, re: horror." In another episode, where Lisa is the President of the United States, Bart has a conversation with the ghost of Billy Carter, a direct homage to ''The Shining'', where Nicholson is sitting at the hotel bar, talking to the ghost of the previous caretaker. '' The Simpsons ' episode " Treehouse Of Horror V " includes a parody of '' The Shining '' called "The Shinning." Bart: "Don't you mean '' The Shining ''? Groundskeeper Willy: "Sssh boy! Do you wanna get sued?" Also Homer sits at a bar and has a conversation with Moe who was most likely another caretaker. There was also a recent "Treehouse of Horror" parody called "The Ned Zone" in which Ned Flanders can see people's death if he touches them. This is an obvious parody of the King novel ''The Dead Zone''. A parody of King, named Even Prince was featured on the paranormal mystery cartoon '' Martin Mystery ''. A 1990 episode of '' Quantum Leap '' titled ''The Boogieman'' involved Sam Beckett becoming a hack 1960s horror writer with a teenaged friend named Stevie. Near the end of the episode, Sam discovers the kid's last name and realizes that he may have helped inspire '' Christine '', '' Cujo '', '' The Dark Half '', and other early King novels. In the 1997 movie '' For Richer Or Poorer '', starring Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley , Caroline Sexton (Alley) references '' Children Of The Corn '' as she describes a Lancaster County , Pennsylvania Amish family: "These people are not right! They're like Children of the Corn!" A 2005 episode of '' South Park '' involves Cartman, who suffers from a head trauma, claiming that he can now use his psychic abilities to solve murders. A man in a yellow raincoat with blood on it is seen at every murder scene. While Cartman isn't the person to put the two together, the man is a reference to Frank Dodd, who is a murderer in '' The Dead Zone '' and '' Cujo ''. Many South Park episodes also include an ancient Indian burial ground-type theme, a reference to " Pet Sematary ". The 's on a talk show/With Allan Arkush and Stephen King , you know." The band also recorded the song "Pet Sematary" for the 1989 film adaptation of King's novel of the same name. Eminem references one of Stephen King's novels in his song "Lose Yourself" for the ''8 Mile'' soundtrack. He says "Mom, I love you but this trailer's got to go, I cannot grow old in Salem's Lot" The 1980s Welsh Alternative Rock band The Alarm recorded a song entitled " The Stand " and based it upon King's novel of the same name. In the episode "Meatzone" of '' Aqua Teen Hunger Force '', Meatwad eats silicon caulk he finds in Frylock's room, and thinks he can predict people's futures by touching their hands, a parody of the novel and movie ''The Dead Zone''. In 2004, King made an appearance on Comedy Central's hit television show '' Chapelle's Show '', in a segment called "Ask a Black Dude", featuring comedian Paul Mooney . It was a frequent segment in the show, in which random people (including the occasional celebrities including Twisted Sister 's Dee Snider ), would ask Mooney their various questions about the African-American culture. King's question in particular was whether or not Black individuals had felt comfortable going to White undertakers. Mooney was nonetheless baffled at the question. The work of Stephen King has been a popular source of inspiration for many Heavy Metal bands. The Anthrax song " Among The Living ," found on the 1985 album of the same name, is based on King's The Stand . King returned the favor a made a passing reference to the group in his second Dark Tower book. King's '' The Shining '' also inspired a song of the same name on Black Sabbath 's 1987 '' The Eternal Idol '' album. A number of songs by Blind Guardian are inspired by the works of Stephen King. These songs include "Somewhere Far Beyond", "Tommyknockers", "Altair 4", etc. Three songs on the album '' Touched By The Crimson King '', by Demons & Wizards , a side project of Hansi Kürsch of Blind Guardian, are also inspired by works of Stephen King. In an episode of 'Just Shoot Me!', Nina Van Horn (Wendie Malick) mentions being banned from Maine because she ran over Stephen King. In another episode of 'Just Shoot Me!', Nina Van Horn (Wendie Malick) describes a situation ending with a reference to being covered in pig's blood. A co-worker tells her "Nina, that is the ending to Carrie" TRIVIA King is a fan of the Rock Band AC/DC . They did the soundtrack for his 1986 film '' Maximum Overdrive ''. BIBLIOGRAPHY
(electronically published novella)
+=Dark Tower related, either in characters, places, or events, or, as in the case of the short story collections, a story or two. FILMS AND TV King has granted permission to student filmmakers to make adaptations of his short stories for one dollar (see Dollar Baby ). In 1986 King made his motion picture directorial debut with '' Maximum Overdrive '', from his own screenplay inspired by, but not based on, his short story " Trucks ". King has not directed a film since. SEE ALSO
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