Long Live the King

Killer clown, pig’s blood, children killing adults, an adventurous cat and “here’s Johnny!” can all be connected to the KING of terror and horror, Stephen King. King is one of today's most popular and best selling writers. King combines thrillers, science fiction, the paranormal and detective themes into his stories. He is mainly known for his novels, which has allowed him to do different types of writings such as movie scripts, nonfiction, autobiographies, children's books, and short stories. King's works are so powerful because he uses his experience and observations from his life and (finish)

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine on September 21, 1947. His parents Donald King a Merchant Marine captain and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury also adopted a son, David King that was born in 1945. He and his brother David spent much of their childhood living between Fort Wayne, Indiana, (where his father's family lived) Massachusetts and Maine with his mother and her family. Eventually Stephen, his mother and David were left to fend for themselves when his father left one day, to the store to buy a pack of cigarettes, and never returned. After discovering a box of horror and science fiction books in his aunt's house, he discovered his gift. By the time King was seven he had begun writing stories. When in school, he wrote stories based on movies he had seen recently and sold them to his friends. King attended a grammar school in Durham and Lisbon Falls High school, where he started to write short stories and played in an amateur rock band. In 1960 he submitted his first story for publication - it was rejected. He edited the school newspaper, The Drum, and also wrote for the local newspaper, Lisbon Weekly Enterprise.Inspired by writers such as Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Robert Bloch and Jack Finney, he began thinking more about horror writing, and published "I Was A Teenage Grave Robber" in comics review later that year.

In 1966, Stephen King graduated from high school and took a scholarship to attend the University of Maine. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, The Maine Campus. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, where he decided his stand of the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. He began his work at an industrial Laundromat, then became a janitor, then finally became an English teacher at Hamden Public School in Maine in the Fall of 1971. He used the experience to write the short story "The Mangler" and the novelette "Roadwork"(as Richard Bachman).During this time, he and his family lived in a trailer. He wrote whenever he wasn't working. King also developed a drinking problem during this time which stayed with him for over a decade.

King began writing numerous novels during this time. One of his first ideas was of a young girl with psychic powers. However, after beginning to write about it he disliked it and threw it into the trash. Tabitha later rescued it from the trash and encouraged him to finish it.After completing the novel, he titled it Carrie. The one thing that really helped the struggling Kings was the sale of Carrie, but on May 12, 1973 changed their life forever. Doubleday had sold the rights to reprint Carrie to New American Library for $400,000, and King was to get half. The struggle for money had now ceased, and allowed Stephen to concentrate on his writing unlike any time in the past. At the end of the summer of 1973, the Kings moved their family to southern Maine because of Stephen's mother's health. During this period, Stephen's mother died of cancer, at the age of 59. Shortly after the publication of The Tommyknockers, King's family and friends decided intervene in his drug and alcohol addiction.

Stephen Kings writing is powerful because he is able to use his experiences and twist them around. One significant experience that is used most in his books is a car accident. In the summer of 1999, King was walking on the right shoulder of Route 5 in Center Lovell, Maine. King was then hit by a 1985 Dodge Caravan and landed in a depression in the ground about 14 feet from the pavement of Route 5. The driver Bryan Smith, was distracted from his Rottweiler in the back of his truck. King was first transported to the Hospital in Bridgton and then flown by helicopter to Central Maine Hospital in Lewiston. a collapsed

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