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 publicati
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