Stephen King

Stephen King

Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947. His parents separated when he was a toddler and he and his older brother were raised by his mother. He spent parts of his childhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana and in Stratford, Connecticut before moving back to Durham, Maine, where his mother looked after her elderly parents. After they passed away, she worked in the kitchens of Pineland, a residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen graduated from high school in 1966. Stephen made his first professional short story sale (“The Glass Floor”) to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. He attended the University of Maine at Orono, where he began writing a weekly column for the school newspaper and became active in student politics. He graduated from university in 1970 with a B.A. in English and a teacher’s certificate. He met his future wife, Tabitha, in the university library where they both worked as students, and the two married in 1971.

Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, so he worked as a laborer at an industrial laundry and they lived off his earnings and Tabitha’s student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men’s magazines. In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Stephen would write in the evenings and on the weekends. In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co. accepted his novel Carrie for publication. Shortly after, Stephen learned that a major paperback sale would provide him with enough income to leave teaching and write full-time. The book would be published in the spring of 1974.

Over the next few years, the Kings would move several times and Stephen would publish a succession of best selling novels including Salem’s Lot, The Shining, and The Dead Zone. He has since published over 50 books and has become one of the world’s most successful writers. King is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to the American Letters and the 2014 National Medal of Arts.

Stephen and Tabitha split their time between Maine and Florida. They have three children Naomi Rachel, Joe Hill and Owen Phillip, and four grandchildren.

The couple are regular contributors to a number of charities including many libraries and have been honored locally for their philanthropic activities.

Recommendations For Stephen King

Recommended by Jodie Cox

11/22/63 is not only one of my favorite Stephen King books it’s one of my favorite books. Many LP re

Recommended by Jenny Ward

Holly is a really fabulous Stephen King book and Holly Gibney is a fascinating detective. As soon as

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Books By Stephen King

The Wavedancer Benefit: A Tribute to Frank Muller

Building Bridges: Stephen King Live at the National Book Awards

Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season

Storm of the Century: An Original Screenplay

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

The Green Mile: The Complete Serial Novel

Tips and Resources From Your Stephen King Book Club Friends:

Stephen King has left an indelible mark on the modern cultural landscape. No matter what he writes—whether it’s his standalone horror novels like Carrie, Misery, It, The Shining, or Pet Sematary, his epic fantasy series The Dark Tower, or his renowned short stories such as The Body or Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption—readers are consistently thrilled, shocked, and entertained by his powerful imagination, memorable characters, and expert prose.

It’s no surprise that many of his books have been adapted into film and television. King says he started writing when he was “about six or seven, just copying panels out of comic books and then making up my own stories… Film was also a major influence. I loved the movies from the start. So when I started to write, I had a tendency to write in images because that was all I knew at the time.”

Stephen King says of writing, “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”

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