Stephen King Essay, Research Paper

The second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King was born on 1974 in Portland,

Maine. His name was Stephen Edwin King. After his parents serpertion as a toddler,

Stephen and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Stephen, David, and

their mother lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which was where Stephen?s father?s side of the

family lived. They then moved to Stratford, Connecticut, that was where Stephen King

spent most of his childhood paying frequent visits to his mother?s side of the family that

resided in Malden, Massachusetts and Pownal, Maine. Around his 11th anniversary

Stephen?s mom moved to Durham, Maine, along with Stephen and his brother, to take

care of her parents, whom were to old to take care of themselves.

Stephen?s school days were spent in the Durham Grammar School. He then

attended Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. He went to college at the

University of Maine at Orono, at which, during his spophomore year, he worte a weekly

column for THE MAINE CAMPUS. During his years at college he was opposed to the

war in Vietnam, declaring it unconstitutional. After his graduation in 1970 Stephen had

aquired a Bachelor of Science in English and immediately was qualified to teach at the

high school level.

As a student Stephen worked at the Folger Library, which was on the University of

Maine at Orono?s campus. While working he met a fellow employee named Tabitha

Spruce, who he married in Janurary 1971.

Stephen King?s first publication was a short story he wrote and sent to a men?s

magazine. This is where his first profit from writing came from, throughout the few years

after his graduation he worte stories and sold them to men?s magazines. All of these short

stories would be later gathered into a collection known as the ?Night Shift collection.? In

the fall of ?71 King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy, a public high school in

Hampden, Maine. He still found time to write short stories and work on his novel on the

weekends and evenings.

King?s first big break came on the spring of 1973 upon the acceptence of

Doubleday & Co. to publish Stephen King?s novel Carrie. After learning from his new

editor, Bill Thompson, that a major paperback sale would make him financially secure

enough to quit teaching, Stephen moved his now growing family to southern Maine

because of his grandmother?s ever growing sickness. During the writing of Salem?s Lot

Stephen?s mother grew ill and died of cancer at the age of 59.

Carrie was published in the spring of 1974. During the fall of the same year King

moved his family to Boulder, Colorado. Stephen King wrote The Shining in the half of a

year they lived in Colorado. They then returned to Maine in in the summer of ?75. It was

in his new house that King finished writing The Stand, which was set back in Boulder.

Stephen King eventually moved back to the area around his college so he could teach

creative writing as a professor.

Bibliography

www.horrorking.com

www.stephenking.com