Stephen King’s BiographyJoin now to read essay Stephen King’s BiographyStephen King’sBiography“People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them that I have the heart of a small boy–and I keep it in a jar on my desk.”
Stephen King(New York Times interview)Stephen Edwin King was born on September 21, 1947 at the Maine General Hospital in Portland Maine . His parents were Donald Edwin King and Ruth Pillsbury King , Stephen being the only natural born child in the family (his older brother David having been adopted at birth two years earlier). His birth was no joy for the family . “ Instead of being a pleasant surprise, I was the one that wasn’t supposed to be, a sort of living dead”. The Kings were the typical family until one night, when Stephen was three, Donald King said he was stepping out for cigarettes and was never heard from again. Stephen will always suffer from this, and later on he will call his father “ a jerk”. At this point Ruth took over raising the family with help from other relatives of the family. They traveled throughout many states over several years finally moving back to Durham, Maine in 1958.
He started writing scary stories at a young age. His connection to this type of writings was first piqued by his father’s collection of fantasy novels. This was the match that started the fire. As a teenager, he wrote and sold a couple of mystery stories to a local publication, a mystery magazine. But it wasn’t all blood and guts: the adolescent Stephen King also used to play in a rock band and as a teammate in the high school’s football team. Stephen King began his actual writing career in January of 1959 when David King and Stephen decided to publish their own local town newspaper named “Daves Rag”. David bought a mimeograph and they created a paper that sold for five cents an issue. Stephen King attended Lisbon High School, in Lisbon, Maine in 1962. Collaborating with his best friend Chris Chesley, in 1963 they published a collection of 18 short stories called “People, Places, and Things-Volume I”. Kings stories included “Hotel at the End of the Road”, “Ive Got to Get Away!” “The Dimension Warp”, “The Thing at the Bottom of the Well”, “The Stranger”, “Im Falling”, “The Cursed Expedition”, and “The Other Side of the Fog.” A year later Kings amateur press Triad and Gaslight Books, published a two part book titled “The Star Invaders”.
Many of Stephen King’s stories take place in Maine. This was directly inflicted by the fact that King himself was born, went to college, and currently resides in central Maine. A major element that changes not only his quotidian life, but his psychology as well, happened when he was five. As a boy he witnessed his best friend’s death. His friend was hit by a train, while little Stephen was watching the whole hazard. The image of the human remains in a basket haunted him for a long time. Stephen comments afterwards this “event”: “Ever since I have been sleeping with my lights on. Of course it was a tragedy, but maybe if it hadn’t been for him too witness this tragedy, we wouldn’t be have been able to read his work today. Maybe King became one of the every-day person, going to work every morning and coming back home every evening. Maybe not!
Stephen King made his first actual entree on the writing scene in 1965 in the magazine “Comics Review” . His story “I Was a Teenage Grave Robber” ran about 6,000 words in length. After graduating high school in 1966, he managed to take a scholarship to attend the University of Maine. Looking back at his high school days, King recalled that “my high school career was totally undistinguishable. I was not at the top of my class, nor at the bottom”. Later that summer the first King novel began to see the light, a novel called “Getting It On”. It was a piece of writing regarding some kids who take over a classroom and try unsuccessfully to ward off the National Guard. But his first full-length novel, “The Long Walk” came out during his first year of college. But the book was rejected by the Bennet Cerf/Random House-publishing agency. King took the rejection badly and filed the book away. The first ray of light
”. After my college days I got a call from a friend who was working on a novel. He had read Stephen King’s books and had suggested an adaptation.
I met up with Stephen King at an old college bookstore in Portland, Oregon. I was sitting in the back of the bookstore, listening to Stephen King on his old CD player. He said he wanted to send me this excerpt:
”, and he sent it to me. I knew then that, as long as I shared the space, I would read this story and make a big difference or something, and that, if I were able to, I would be making a huge difference.
On page 1 of the book;I Was a Teenage Grave Robberᤍ, King took a step back and said he wanted to draw some pictures of his students and his own life on the cover. After a few minutes of that, I asked him if he was going to draw or put a picture of my students’ pictures on the cover. He had a drawing done, with a caption above the picture and he showed me the rest of the page with the caption:
Your pictures will be used in all future installments”
”. And he asked me if I saw your book or was interested in drawing. The problem was, I wasn’t. The artist ”.”, had done a book called Children in Love. And it had made him laugh so badly that he went outside and talked to a bunch of people about how his life was being changed. I told him I would do the book on my own. And he wrote a letter to me, with a picture of myself in it, and he wrote back:
”.
He liked it really, but he has to get this book out in print, because it’s about his life being changed. And I knew that if we could do it and sell it to another publisher, we would get this book. So I sent a request in November, 1967, for “Safest and The Best Novel of the Year 2004.3” and I heard him tell me he hadn’t thought of it till now. I didn’t know about it till now, and I still haven’t heard from him since then.
After his last few months (when “Safest and the Best Novel of the Years 2004.3” was submitted on New Books.com) I started taking his books on at a bookstore in my neighborhood. I didn’t realize at just the moment, that my life had changed, and I was happy. In 1974 I applied for a job as a writer on a few comic books, when then I was with two other people while I was in college. After I got my license, I took off my top and went into a building for a week and started looking around for cover art or something. A bookshop in one of my neighborhoods was like a haunted house. I couldn’t believe it! I was nervous about the possibility of finding a cover from Stephen King. No, I didn’t believe anything. I tried to figure it out. I didn’t know he was writing about the American novel. But I wasn’t too concerned. My friends loved the book. And as I thought that, the one man I recognized I was reading about at the time was Stephen King.
I began