STEPHEN KING Students: Kevin Skeff y Tomas Guilman Course: 3 P Docente: Cynthia Mauas

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland in 1947 Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland in 1947. He is an American writer of comtemporary horror, supernatural fiction, science fiction and fantasy. His books have sold more than 350 million copies

EARLY LIFE When King was two years old, his father left the family under the excuse of "going to buy a pack of cigarettes", leaving his mother to raise King and his adopted older brother, David, by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. The family moved to De Wisconsin, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Stratford, Connecticut.  As a child, King apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train, though he has no memory of the event. King related in detail his primary inspiration for writing horror fiction in his non-fiction Danse Macabre (1981). King attended Durham Elementary School and graduated from Lisbon Falls High School, in Lisbon Falls, Maine.

University In 1966, King started studying English at the University of Maine, graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. In the same year, his daughter Naomi Rachel was born. He wrote a column for the student newspaper and took odd jobs to pay for his studies, including one at an industrial laundry. He sold his first professional short story after leaving University. King earned a certificate to teach at High School but, unable to find a teaching post immediately, initially supplemented his laboring wage by selling short stories to men's magazines such as Cavalier.  In 1971, King married Tabitha Spruce, a fellow student at the University of Maine.  It was during this time that King developed a drinking problem which would plague him for more than a decade.

Firsts Works In 1973, King's first novel Carrie was accepted by publishing house Doubleday. King had thrown an early draft of the novel into the trash after becoming discouraged with his progress writing about a teenage girl with psychic powers. His wife retrieved the manuscript and encouraged him to finish it. After his mother's death, King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where King wrote The Shining (published 1977). The family returned to Western Maine in 1975, where King completed his fourth novel, The Stand (published 1978).

On June 19th, 1999, at about 430 p.m., King was walking on the shoulder of Route 5, in Lovell, Maine. Driver Bryan Edwin Smith (July 16, 1957 – September 21, 2000), distracted by an unrestrained dog moving in the back of his minivan, struck King, who landed in a depression on the ground about 14 feet from the pavement of Route 5,. After this, he felt in retirement.

PERSONAL LIFE King and his wife own three different houses, one in Bangor, Maine, one in Lovell, Maine, and they regularly winter in their waterfront mansion located off the Gulf of Mexico, in Sarasota, Florida. He and Tabitha have three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen, and four grandchildren. Tabitha King has published nine of her own novels. Both King's sons are published authors: Owen King published his first collection of stories, We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories, in 2005. Joseph Hillstrom King, who writes under the professional name Joe Hill, published a collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, in 2005. His debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was published in 2007 and will be adapted into a feature film by director Neil Jordan.