Stephen King once said, "We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones." For those of you who do not know who Stephen King is, he is one of the most fascinating horror writers of this century. This paper will explore Stephen King’s life and writings. By doing this research paper I have learned many things that I did not know. All of these facts will be given explanation in this paper.

He was born on September 21, 1947 and in Portland, Maine. His father is Donald King and mother is Nellie Ruth Pillsbury. David King was Stephen’s older brother, born in 1945. King is of Scots-Irish ancestry. As a child he lived in Durham, Maine where he attended grammar school known as Lisbon Falls High School. Stephen and his brother were mainly raised by their mother. Their dad, one day, went out for a package of cigarettes, but never returned. He graduated high school in 1966, and attended University of Maine at Orono. From his sophomore year at the university he wrote a weekly column in THE MAINE CAMPUS. There he was involved in the student politics as a member on the Student Senate (Stephen King Official website & Stephen King).

King also supported the anti-war movement on the Orono campus. In college is where and when he met his wife Tabitha Spruce. They both worked at the Folger Campus Library. Stephen King graduated college in 1970 and married Tabitha in 1971. King graduated college with a Bachelors of Arts degree in English. Without any delay after graduation there was a draft board examination which found out that Stephen King developed high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums (Stephen King Official Website & Stephen King).

Stephen and Tabitha had three children by the names of Naomi Rachel, Joe Hill, and Owen Phillip. They also had three grandchildren. He was unable to find a teaching job right away. He and his wife lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industry laundry, and her student loans and savings. At that time Stephen King was also selling short stories to men’s magazines. His first teaching job started in 1971 at Hampden Public High School in Maine (Stephen King Official Website & Stephen King).

At the end of summer of 1973 the King’s moved to Southern Maine to help take care of his mother whose health was failing. Nellie Ruth Pillsbury died in 1973 from cancer at the age of fifty-nine (Stephen King Official Website). In the fall of 1974 Stephen King moved his family to Boulder, Colorado. They then moved back to Maine in 1975 to the Lakes Region in the western part of Maine. Mid-December of 1977 the Kings returned from England after a three month stay there, to Center Lovell, Maine. One summer they did move north to Orrington which is near Bangor, but returned in 1979 to Center Lovell. While living up in Orrington he taught creative writing at the University of Maine at Orono. In 1980 Stephen and his wife purchased a second home in Bangor, but kept their house in Center Lovell as a summer home. Stephen and Tabitha now live in Florida during the winter and return to Bangor and Center Lovell for the rest of the year since their kids are adults (Stephen King Official Website).

Stephen King’s writings were and still are influenced by many different kinds of monsters. King’s first published story was in 1967 called "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber." It was published in the Startling Mystery Stories. When he began teaching in 1971 Stephen had time to write only at night and on the weekends producing short stories and novels. He did begin publishing some of those short stories in men’s magazines (Stephen King & Stephen King Official Website).

No novels were accepted until the spring of 1973 when Tabitha fetched one out of the garbage after Stephen threw the novel there during a very bad temper; Doubleday & Co. published Stephen King’s first professional novel, Carrie. Bill Thompson, Doubleday’s new editor, announced to King that a large paperback sale would allow him to quit teaching and write full time. His next published novel was the Second Coming then was changed to Jerusalem’s Lot before becoming the famous title that we know now as Salem’s Lot (Stephen King Official Website).

While living in Boulder, Colorado, Stephen King produced The Shining which was set in Colorado. In 1975, after the Kings left Boulder to return to Maine is when Stephen finished writing The Stand where much of it was set in Boulder, too. There has been some talk as to a release of his new book Duma Key on January 22, 2008. In 2003 Stephen King received the Lifetime Achievement Award, and his latest award was titled Faithful for the Quill Award for sports in 2005 (Stephen King Official Website).

Stephen King also appeared in a lot of the movies that were created from his books. To be exact he has starred in fifteen of them. Knight Riders is where Mr. King had his debut as a director in addition to writing the screenplay for the movie Maximum Overdrive, which was based on his short story "Trucks," in 1985. His son, Joe Hill King, starred in the movie Creepshow with his father that released in 1982. One of the most recent movie releases of his was The Mist (Stephen King Official Website).

Stephen King has been an amazing horror writer of our time. King’s major influences on his dark writings have been authors such as Richard Matheson, Horace Walpole, Shirley Jackson, and Edgar Allen Poe. Most of these writers motivated him to write The Shining. Some other influences that King has had were television shows including "The Twilight Zone" during the 50’s and 60’s. Horror movies like The Thing and The Creature from the Black Lagoon were the ones that had the most impact on his upcoming writings. The new form of American art known as Rock ‘N’ Roll was another influence for Stephen King (King and the Heritage of Horror).

He has devoted many of his stories to various monsters. The monsters that he bases his character on are vampires, werewolves, and other beasts. In most of these stories that includes some monsters, he just recreates old folktales. Two of Stephen King’s most gruesome fantasies like Cujo and Cycle of the Werewolf are just retellings of old werewolf stories (King and the Heritage of Horror).

Stephen King spent most of his life knowing what he wanted to do. In an essay by Garyn G. Roberts he tells about how King noted his earlier writings, "I would have short stories where I started off sounding like Ray Bradbury and ended up sounding like Clark Ashton Smith-or even worse, they would start off as James M. Cain and end up as H.P. Lovecraft," (King and the Heritage of Horror). He has been asked why he started, and when this does happen he usually replies, "There was nothing else I was made to do, I can not imagine doing anything else, and I can no imagine not doing what I do," (Stephen King Official Website).

Now that you know more about where Stephen King came from and why he writes, you can better appreciate his novels and other writings. I will leave with a quote by King "When asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "One word at a time."