Stephen King Biography

Stephen Edwin King, better known as Stephen King, is one of the most important American storytellers and novelists of the 20th century. His most important work is the book “It” (1986) which narrates the story of a mysterious being that scares children. The novel explores themes such as childhood traumas, the power of memory and phobias.

Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine. His parents were Donald King and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. King has an older brother named David. His father left the family when King was two, so his upbringing was in charge of his mother. He spent part of his childhood in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the other part in Stratford, Connecticut.

Shortly after his eleventh birthday, it became clear that his maternal grandparents were too old to continue living alone; so his mother family, decided that the best thing was for Ruth to take care of the physical and emotional health of the grandparents. This is how his mother took them to the village of his grandparents, in Durham, Maine.

He attended part of his high school at the Grammar School in Durham and finished his studies at Lisbon Falls High School. He graduated in 1966. Then, he started his superior studies in the University of Maine, located in Orono. During his second year at the university, he was in charge of a weekly publication column for the newspaper of the institution called The Maine Campus. He was also very active in student politics; he became a member of the student government. In addition, as he was popular at the time, he was part of the movements that were against the Vietnam War organized by the students, because he considered it an unconstitutional war.

Stephen King graduated in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in English, which declared him qualified to teach literature in high school. Shortly after his graduation, specifically in January, he married Tabitha Spruce whom he had met while working in the university library, the Raymond H. Fogler Library. Currently, the couple has three children: Naomi Rachel, Joe Hill and Owen Phillip, and four grandchildren.

“Fiction is the truth within the lie.” Stephen King

The university diploma was not enough for Stephen King to get a job as a teacher so he had to start working in an industrial laundry. The economic problems he went through led him to start drinking and later on drugs.

The first magazine to publish one of his stories was Startling Mystery Stories. They bought The Glass Floor in 1967. In the fall of 1971, he finally got a job as an educator. He started teaching English at a public school in Maine called Hampden Academy. His work as a teacher did not stop his dedication to writing. He continued to write, especially stories, in the evenings and on weekends.

In 1973, Stephen King received a call from Bill Thompson, who was to become his publisher, informing him that the Doubleday & Co publishing house was interested in publishing the novel, Carrie. The printing of this first installment was large enough for King to abandon teaching and devote himself to literature.

The writer’s mother was diagnosed with cancer and her health was getting worse, so King and her family decided that it was best to move in with her in 1973. They rented a house in Sebago Lake and during that winter Stephen King wrote his next novel, Salem’s Lot.

“As a curious fact: the novel had many different names during its writing; originally it would be called Second Coming, then it became Jerusalem’s Lot until it was Salem’s Lot.” We, the Spanish-speaking ones, know it as The mystery of Salem’s Lot.

Carrie arrived in bookstores in 1974 and it was an immediate success that allowed them to move to Boulder, Colorado. During his stay in Colorado, which lasted only a year, he wrote Danse Macabre, whose original title is The Stand, as well as The Dead Zone.

In 1977, The Shining came out. It followed Cursed Cemetery (Pet Sematary) in 1983; this novel allowed him to be nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Four years later he published the psychological horror novel entitled Misery. Then, he released The Green Mile (1996).

On June 19, 1999, he was hit by a reckless driver. The impact landed King at the bottom of a ditch. From this, he had to undergo five operations and multiple physical therapies.

In 2001, the novel he wrote with Peter Straub, Black House came to light. Also, his work Duma Key was published in 2008. Some of his most recent projects are The Dark Tower: the wind for the lock (The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole) of 2012; Joyland of 2013 and Mr. Mercedes in 2014.

In 1996, Stephen King was awarded the O. Henry Award for The Man in the Black Suit. In 2003, he received the National Book Award and has received many Bram Stoker awards for his contributions to the horror genre.