Do you like being scared? Do you sometimes wonder, "What if...?" Do you enjoy stories that often just aren't quite normal? If you do, then you might like reading some of the work of my favorite author, Stephen King.
Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947. His father left the family when Stephen was a young boy so he grew up with his mother and his older brother. The family did not have a lot of money. His mother had to move around to get work and sometimes had to get help from other members of her family. When Stephen was eleven years old his family moved back to Durham, Maine where he stayed for the rest of his childhood.
Stephen started writing at an early age. He wrote when he was in elementary school, middle school and throughout high school and college. He sold his first professional short story when he was 20 years old. As an adult he writes for at least two hours every day. Sometimes he produces a lot during that time, other times he has to push himself to get anything on the paper.
Although he was young when he sold his first story, it was many years before he sold a novel that paid him enough to quit his day job as an English teacher and write full time. For many of the early years of his marriage there was barely enough money to get from month to month. He even had to give up his telephone service at one point because he couldn't afford to pay the bills.
When he sold his first novel, Carrie, it was cause for great celebration in his home. From that point on there wasn't a novel that he couldn't sell. Stephen had so many stories to tell that he often completed more than two novels in a year. His editors were worried that maybe people would not be interested in buying more than one book a year by one person. To solve this problem, Stephen began publishing some of his stories using the name Richard Bachman. Eventually his fans figured out that Bachman was King. By that time Stephen was so popular that his books sold no matter how many of them were published in a year.
Although Stephen's stories are usually found in the horror genre, he has written a variety of other material including, poetry, a non-fiction book on writing, and one on baseball, essays, screenplays and realistic fiction. When asked why he became a writer he says,
"The answer to that is fairly simple-there was nothing else I was made to do. I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. That's why I do it. I really can't imagine doing anything else and I can't imagine not doing what I do."
Stephen has been nominated and won awards for his writing not only in the USA, but also in Great Britian, Germany, Canada and Italy. For more information about Stephen King and his work, visit his official website at:
