Author - Stephen King

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Bibliography of Stephen King
Some of Stephen King's books have tremendous collectible
value. King has made a substantial effort to produce some
of the finest signed limted edition books ever
published. The Asbestos cover limited edition of
Firestarter and the limited edition Dark Tower series
are just two examples that are high collectible and worth
thousands of dollars.
If a title is linked click
on the link to read the first edition points of issue and
other fun facts about that book.
Title
|
Year
|
Genre
|
Length
|
Notes
|
The Aftermath
|
1963
|
Horror
|
200pp
|
Unpublished
|
The 50,000 word manuscript describes life after
a nuclear war. Written at the time of the Cuban
Missile Crisis.
|
Carrie
|
1974
|
Horror
|
199pp
|
|
The book uses fictional documents, such as book
excerpts, news reports, and hearing
transcripts, to frame the story of Carietta
"Carrie" White, a teenage girl from
Chamberlain, Maine. Carrie's mother, Margaret,
a fanatical Christian fundamentalist, has a
vindictive and unstable personality, and over
the years has ruled Carrie with a proverbial
rod of iron.
|
Salem's Lot
|
1975
|
Horror
|
439pp
|
|
Ben Mears, a successful writer who grew up in
the (fictional) town of Jerusalem’s Lot,
Cumberland County, Maine (or “The Lot”, as the
locals call it), has returned home following
the death of his wife. Once in town he meets
local high school teacher Matt Burke and
strikes up a romantic relationship with Susan
Norton, a young college
graduate.
|
Rage
|
1977
|
Horror
|
211pp
|
First book published by
Stephen King
under the
pseudonym Richard
Bachman
|
The narrator, Charlie Decker, a high school
senior, details how he had long been fighting
his growing rage against the authority figures
which populate his world. He finally snapped
and hit one of his teachers with a heavy wrench
he had taken to carrying in his pocket; after
much wrangling and discussion, the incident was
dropped and he was allowed to return to
school.
|
The Shining
|
1977
|
Horror
|
447pp
|
|
Jack Torrance is a temperamental writer who is
trying to rebuild his life (and his family's)
after his alcoholism and volatile temper cause
him to lose his teaching position at a
prestigious New England preparatory school.
Having given up drinking, he accepts a job as a
winter caretaker at a large, isolated Colorado
resort hotel with a gory
history.
|
Night Shift
|
1978
|
Horror
|
368pp
|
Short stories
|
"Jerusalem's Lot, "Graveyard Shift", "Night
Surf", "I Am the Doorway", "The Mangler", "The
Boogeyman", "Gray Matter", "Battleground",
"Trucks", "Sometimes They Come Back",
"Strawberry Spring", "The Ledge", "The
Lawnmower Man", "Quitters, Inc.", "I Know What
You Need", "Children of the Corn", "The Last
Rung on the Ladder", "The Man Who Loved
Flowers", "One for the Road", "The Woman in the
Room"
|
The Stand
|
1978
|
Horror
|
823pp
|
Original, edited version
|
A post-apocalyptic science fiction / horror /
adventure novel. It re-works the scenario in
King’s earlier short story, "Night Surf". It is
widely hailed by critics and fans as one of his
best novels.
|
The Dead Zone
|
1979
|
Horror
|
402pp
|
|
Johnny Smith, who is injured in an accident and
enters a coma for nearly five years. When he
emerges, he can see horrifying secrets, but he
cannot identify all the details because of an
area of his brain being dead.
|
The Long Walk
|
1979
|
Horror
|
384pp
|
Second book published by
Stephen King under the pseudonym
Richard
Bachman
|
One hundred teenage boys (picked at random from
a large pool of applicants) are chosen to
participate in an annual walking contest called
"The Long Walk". Each walker must maintain a
constant speed of no less than four miles an
hour or risk being shot by soldiers monitoring
the event.
|
Firestarter
|
1980
|
Horror
|
416pp
|
|
The title character of Firestarter is Charlene
"Charlie" McGee, a young girl with pyrokinesis
— the ability to create fire with the power of
her mind, along with other psychic powers.
Charlie is a mutant; she was born with her
pyrokinetic talent due to her parents'
involvement in an experimental drug trial in
college.
|
Cujo
|
1981
|
Horror
|
320pp
|
|
The book tells the story of the middle-class
Trenton family and rural Camber clan in Castle
Rock, Maine. Marital and financial difficulties
of the mundane sort plague disgraced
advertising man Vic Trenton and his adulterous
wife Donna. Their domestic problems are dwarfed
by the mortal danger when Donna and her
four-year-old son Tad are terrorized by a rabid
St. Bernard named Cujo.
|
Roadwork
|
1981
|
Horror
|
307pp
|
Third book published by
Stephen King
under the
pseudonym Richard
Bachman
|
The story takes place in an unnamed city in the
1970s. Barton George Dawes, grieving over the
death of his son and the disintegration of his
marriage, is driven off the deep end when he
finds that both his home and his business are
going to be condemned and demolished to make
way for the construction of a new interstate
highway.
|
Danse Macabre
|
1981
|
Horror
|
400pp
|
Nonfiction
|
Danse Macabre examines the various influences
on King's own writing, and important genre
texts of the 20th century. Focusing on horror
and suspense films, comic books, old time
radio, television and fiction from a fan's
perspective, King peppers his book with
informal academic insight, discussing
archetypes, important authors, common narrative
devices, "the psychology of terror", and his
key theory of "Dionysian
horror."
|
The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
|
1982
|
Horror, fantasy, western,
science-fiction
|
224pp
|
|
The story centers upon "the gunslinger", who
has been chasing after his adversary, "the man
in black", for many years. Chronicled is the
gunslinger's quest through a large desert, and
then a mountain, in search of the
man.
|
Different Seasons
|
1982
|
Horror
|
508pp
|
Short stories
|
"Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption"
Hope Springs Eternal, "Apt Pupil"
Summer of Corruption, "The Body" Fall
From Innocence, "The Breathing Method" A
Winter's Tale
|
The Running Man
|
1982
|
Horror, science-fiction
|
214pp
|
Fourth book published by
Stephen King under the pseudonym
Richard
Bachman
|
Ben Richards needs money to get medicine for
his gravely ill daughter Cathy. Not wanting his
wife Sheila to continue prostitution to pay the
bills, Richards turns to the Games Federation.
After rigorous testing, both physical and
mental, Richards is selected for the most
popular game, The Running Man.
|
Creepshow
|
1982
|
Horror
|
64pp
|
Comic Book Illustrated by Bernie
Wrightson
|
A comic book adaptation of the classic
anthology horror movie.
|
Christine
|
1983
|
Horror
|
503pp
|
|
The story revolves around teenage nerd Arnie
Cunningham and his 1958 red and white Plymouth
Fury, dubbed "Christine" by the previous owner.
The story is set in Libertyville (supposedly a
suburb of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania between the
summer of 1978 and the spring of
1979.
|
Pet Sematary
|
1983
|
Horror
|
416pp
|
|
Louis Creed, a doctor from Chicago, moves to a
large house near the small town of Ludlow with
his wife Rachel and their two young children.
From the moment they arrive the family runs
into trouble but fortunately their new
neighbor, Jud Crandall, is there to help. He
warns them about the highway that runs past
their house; it is constantly used by big
trucks.
|
Cycle of the Werewolf
|
1983
|
Horror
|
127pp
|
Illustrated by Bernie Wrightson
|
Set in the fictional small town of Tarker's
Mills, Maine, a werewolf is viciously killing
people and animals and strange incidents takes
place every full moon. Marty Coslaw, an
eleven-year-old boy in a wheelchair, goes back
and forth from the terrifying incidents to his
normal day-to-day life.
|
The Cannibals
|
1983
|
Horror
|
|
Unpublished, likely unfinished
|
|
The Talisman
|
1984
|
Horror
|
672pp
|
Co-author Peter Straub
|
This book charts the adventure of a twelve year
old boy named Jack Sawyer. The young hero sets
out from the East Coast of the USA in a bid to
save his mother, who is dying from cancer, by
finding an artifact called 'The
Talisman'.
|
Thinner
|
1984
|
Horror
|
309pp
|
Fifth book published by
Stephen King
under the
pseudonym Richard
Bachman
|
An obese lawyer named William "Billy" Halleck
who has just been through an agonizing court
case in which he was charged with vehicular
manslaughter after receiving a handjob from his
wife Heidi while driving, causing him to run
over an old woman who was part of a group of
traveling Gypsies. Halleck is acquitted thanks
to the judge, who happens to be a close friend
of Billy's. As Halleck leaves the courthouse,
the old woman's ancient father strokes his
cheeks and whispers one word to him:
"Thinner."
|
Skeleton Crew
|
1985
|
Horror
|
576pp
|
Short stories
|
"The Mist", "Here There Be Tygers", "The
Monkey", "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut", "The Jaunt",
"The Wedding Gig", "Paranoid: A Chant", "The
Raft", "Word Processor of the Gods", "The Man
Who Would Not Shake Hands", "Beachworld",
"Nona", "For Owen", "Survivor Type", "Uncle
Otto's Truck", "Morning Deliveries (Milkman
#1)", "Big Wheels: A Tale of The Laundry Game
(Milkman #2)", "Gramma", "The Ballad of The
Flexible Bullet", "The Reach"
|
The Bachman Books
|
1985
|
Horror
|
704pp
|
Selected works as Richard Bachman
|
Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running
Man
|
It
|
1986
|
Horror
|
1142pp
|
|
"It" takes place in two separate time periods:
In 1985, when the book was first published, and
the main characters are adults, and in 1958,
when they are eleven years old. The seven
self-proclaimed members of the "Losers' Club"
are united in seeking refuge from a gang of
bullies led by Henry Bowers. The children each
individually discover the existence of a
terrifying, child-murdering, shape-changing
monster.
|
The Eyes of the Dragon
|
1987
|
Fantasy
|
384pp
|
|
This book is a work of classic fantasy with a
clearly established battle between good and
evil and magic playing a lead role. It is told
from the perspective of an unnamed
story-teller, who speaks casually and frankly
to the reader, frequently adding his own
commentary on character's
motivations.
|
Misery
|
1987
|
Horror
|
310pp
|
|
Paul Sheldon is the author of a best-selling
series of romance novels featuring the
Victorian-era heroine Misery Chastain. Paul is
rescued from the car wreck by a woman named
Annie Wilkes, an experienced nurse who lives
nearby. She feeds and bathes him and splints
his broken legs. Annie reads his new manuscript
and doesn't like it, believing that there is
too much use of profanity.
|
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the
Three
|
1987
|
Horror, fantasy, western,
science-fiction
|
399pp
|
|
This story is the continuation of The
Gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, and his quest
towards the Dark Tower. The book begins with
Roland waking up from unconsciousness on a
beach where he is suddenly attacked by a
strange lobster-like creature, dubbed
"lobstrosities." He manages to kill the
creature but not before losing the index and
middle finger of his right hand, and most of
his right big toe.
|
The Tommyknockers
|
1988
|
Horror
|
558pp
|
|
While maintaining a horror style, the novel is
more of an excursion into the realm of science
fiction for King, as the residents of the Maine
town of Haven gradually fall under the
influence of a mysterious object buried in the
woods.
|
Nightmares in the Sky
|
1988
|
Nonfiction
|
|
Photos by f-stop fitzgerald
|
A coffee table book about architectural
gargoyles with text by King.
|
The Dark Half
|
1989
|
Horror
|
448pp
|
|
Thad Beaumont is an author and recovering
alcoholic who lives in the tiny Maine town of
Ludlow (the setting of Pet Sematary and about
an hour away from the fictional town of Castle
Rock, often used in King's novels). His own
books are not very successful, but under the
pen name George Stark, Thad writes gritty crime
novels about a violent killer named Alexis
Machine, which are very popular and
successful.
|
Dolan's Cadillac
|
1989
|
Horror
|
128pp
|
Limited edition
|
Robinson finds himself a childless widower when
Dolan, a wealthy crime-boss, has Robinson's
wife murdered in order to prevent her from
testifying against him. Robinson, unskilled in
the arts of revenge, has no
recourse.
|
My Pretty Pony
|
1989
|
Horror
|
|
Limited edition
|
An elderly man, his death rapidly approaching,
takes his young grandson up onto a hill behind
his house and gives the boy his pocketwatch.
Standing among falling apple blossoms, the man
also gives instruction on the nature of
time.
|
The Stand
The Complete & Uncut Edition
|
1990
|
Horror
|
1168pp
|
|
The Stand is a post-apocalyptic science fiction
/ horror / adventure novel by Stephen King
originally published in 1978. It re-works the
scenario in King’s earlier short story, "Night
Surf" (included in the short story collection
Night Shift). It is widely hailed by critics
and fans as one of his best
novels.
|
Four Past Midnight
|
1990
|
Horror
|
804pp
|
Short stories
|
"The Langoliers", "Secret Window, Secret
Garden", "The Library Policeman", "The Sun
Dog"
|
Needful Things
|
1990
|
Horror
|
792pp
|
|
Set in the small fictional town of Castle Rock,
Maine, a new shop named "Needful Things" opens,
to the curiosity of the townspeople. One by
one, they start to come into the shop, drawn
there by something they want more than anything
else.
|
The Dark Tower III: The Waste
Lands
|
1991
|
Horror, fantasy, western,
science-fiction
|
422pp
|
|
|
Gerald's Game
|
1992
|
Horror
|
448pp
|
|
Jessie Burlingame and her husband Gerald are
simply trying to spice up their sex life with a
little bondage game. But the game turns into a
nightmare for Jessie, handcuffed to the
bedposts and forced to face her deepest
fears.
|
Dolores Claiborne
|
1993
|
Horror
|
305pp
|
|
Dolores Claiborne decides to tell the truth
when her longtime employer, Vera Donovan, dies
under suspicious circumstances. Including the
mysterious death of her husband during a solar
eclipse thirty years before.
|
Nightmares & Dreamscapes
|
1993
|
Horror
|
692pp
|
Short stories
|
|
Insomnia
|
1994
|
Horror
|
591pp
|
|
Set in Derry, Maine, this novel features Ralph
Roberts, who falls victim to insomnia, which
gives him the remarkable ability to see visions
of his fellow townspeople turning into demons.
He knows he's not dreaming. He knows he's not
crazy, because someone else sees what he sees.
But knowing doesn't tell him how to stop the
visions coming true.
|
Rose Madder
|
1995
|
Horror
|
600pp
|
|
Rose Daniels has been dreaming away her life.
One single drop of blood is enough to rouse her
from her sleep, and sends her on a journey
hundreds of miles away from her abusive cop
husband, Norman. She begins to find happiness
in her new home, until Norman figures out where
she is.
|
Umney's Last Case
|
1995
|
Horror
|
96pp
|
|
|
The Green Mile
|
1996
|
Horror
|
105pp
|
Originally published as a monthly serial
consisting of six parts: The Two Dead
Girls, The Mouse on the Mile,
Coffey's Hands, The Bad Death of
Eduard Delacroix, Night Journey, and
Coffey on the Mile
|
The Green Mile is Cold Mountain Penitentiary's
Death Row. Paul Edgecombe has seen many men
come and go through E Block, but none quite
like John Coffey. The giant, sentenced to death
for a horrifying crime, reveals a fascinating
truth to Paul, shaking the very foundations of
his world.
|
Desperation
|
1996
|
Horror
|
690pp
|
|
|
The Regulators
|
1996
|
Horror
|
512pp
|
Sixth book published by
Stephen King
under the
pseudonym Richard
Bachman
|
|
Six Stories
|
1997
|
Horror
|
384pp
|
Short stories
|
|
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and
Glass
|
1997
|
Horror, fantasy, western,
science-fiction
|
840pp
|
|
|
Bag of Bones
|
1998
|
Horror
|
529pp
|
|
|
Storm of the Century
|
1999
|
Horror
|
400pp
|
|
|
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
|
1999
|
Horror
|
224pp
|
|
|
The New Lieutenant's Rap
|
1999
|
Horror
|
24pp
|
Limited edition
|
|
Hearts in Atlantis
|
1999
|
Horror
|
523pp
|
|
"Low Men in Yellow Coats", "Hearts in
Atlantis", "Blind Willie", "Why We're in
Vietnam", "Heavenly Shades of Night are
Falling"
|
Blood and Smoke
|
2000
|
Horror
|
|
Audio book
|
Stephen King reads three of his own short
stories. All the stories in Blood and Smoke are
about smoking in one way or the
other.
|
The Plant
Book 1-Zenith Rising
|
2000
|
Horror
|
270pp
|
Ebook, unfinished
|
The first part was put on his web site for
anyone to download. The last installment was
published on December 18, 2000. The book was
never completed.
|
On Writing
A Memoir of the Craft
|
2000
|
Nonfiction
|
384pp
|
|
A book about the prolific author's experiences
as a writer. Although he discusses several of
his books, one doesn't need to have read them
or even be familiar with them.
|
Secret Windows
Essays and Fiction on the Craft of
Writing
|
2000
|
Nonfiction
|
433pp
|
Both fiction and non-fiction
|
A collection of stories and essays that are
primarily concerned with writing and the horror
genre. Several of the entries have been
published elsewhere, including introductions
for other authors' novels.
|
Dreamcatcher
|
2001
|
Horror
|
896pp
|
|
|
Black House
|
2001
|
Horror
|
640pp
|
Sequel to The Talisman
Written with Peter Straub
|
|
From a Buick 8
|
2002
|
Horror
|
pp
|
|
When a mysterious vehicle is left at a
Pennsylvania gas station, it becomes the
property of Troop D. Officers soon realize this
is no ordinary car. The steering wheel doesn't
move, the buttons and knobs on the dashboard
can't be pushed or turned, and it can't even be
started. They realize there is much more to the
car than it seems, as the horror unfolds
through two decades of day-to-day Troop D
life.
|
Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark
Tales
|
2002
|
Horror
|
368pp
|
Short stories
|
|
The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
|
2003
|
Horror, fantasy, western,
science-fiction
|
256pp
|
Revised edition
|
|
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the
Calla
|
2003
|
Horror, fantasy, western,
science-fiction
|
736pp
|
|
|
The Dark Tower VI: Song of
Susannah
|
2004
|
Horror, fantasy, western,
science-fiction
|
432pp
|
|
|
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark
Tower
|
2004
|
Horror, fantasy, western,
science-fiction
|
pp
|
|
|
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
|
2004
|
Horror
|
pp
|
Pop-up book version
|
Patricia "Trisha" McFarland, a Red Sox fan,
gets lost in the woods during a camping trip
toilet break. As the days pass, she wanders
deeper and deeper into the impregnable forest,
home to the God of the Lost. To comfort and
guide her, her idol, Tom Gordon, a Red Sox
player, occasionally speaks to her through her
walkman.
|
Faithful
Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the
Historic 2004 Season
|
2005
|
Nonfiction, baseball
|
432pp
|
Co-written with Stewart O'Nan
|
Chronicled exchanges between King and O'Nan
about the Red Sox's upcoming 2004 season,
beginning with an e-mail in summer 2003, and
throughout the 2004 season, from Spring
Training to the World Series.
|
The Colorado Kid
|
2005
|
Mystery
|
184pp
|
|
|
Cell
|
2006
|
Horror
|
384pp
|
|
Clayton Riddell is in Boston to sell his comic
books when something horrifying happens. Anyone
who uses a cell phone becomes insane and
violent, attacking anyone around them. Clay
must, with the help of survivors Tom and Alice,
return to Maine to find out if his wife and
young son are among the survivors or the
monsters.
|
Lisey's Story
|
2006
|
Horror, Romance
|
528pp
|
|
Widow Lisey Landon has finally gotten around to
cleaning out her dead writer husband's study.
The cleaning stirs up old memories, many of
which she has blocked out and fights to keep
blocked. But those memories become vitally
important as her life is threatened. She must
use every ounce of courage and willpower to go
"beyond the purple" and
remember.
|
Stationary Bike
|
2006
|
Horror
|
audiobook
|
Read by Ron MacLarty
|
The story depicts the struggle of Richard
Sifkitz — a commercial artist and widower — to
suppress a passion for consuming unhealthy
foods by using a stationary bike. Originally
published in the fifth edition of From the
Borderlands in 2003.
|
The Secretary of Dreams
|
2006
|
Horror, comic
|
|
Illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne
|
A graphic short story
collection.
|
Blaze
|
2007
|
Horror
|
pp
|
Seventh book published
by Stephen King under the pseudonym
Richard
Bachman
|
|
Duma Key
|
2008
|
Horror
|
pp
|
To be published on January 8, 2008
|
|
Stephen King - Autograph and Signature Samples

Stephen King - Biography
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American
author of over 200 stories including over 50 bestselling horror
and fantasy novels. King was the 2003 recipient of The National
Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to
American Letters, and his numerous literary awards place him
among the most-honored horror authors in recent
history.[1]
King evinces a thorough knowledge of the horror genre, as
shown in his 1981 nonfiction book Danse Macabre, which
chronicles several decades of notable works in literature,
cinema, television and radio. He has also written stories
outside the horror genre, including the novella collection
Different Seasons, The Green Mile, The Eyes of
the Dragon, Hearts in Atlantis and his
self-described "magnum opus," The Dark Tower series. In
the past, Stephen King has written under the pen names Richard
Bachman and (once) as John Swithen.
Early life
Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine. When King
was two years old, his father, Donald Edwin King, deserted his
family. His mother, Nellie Ruth (née Pillsbury), raised King
and his adopted older brother David by herself, sometimes under
great financial strain. The family moved to home town of
Durham, Maine, but also spent brief periods in Fort Wayne,
Indiana, and Stratford, Connecticut.
As a child, he apparently witnessed a gruesome accident —
one of his friends was struck and killed by a
train.[2] Some commentators have suggested
this event may have inspired King's dark, disturbing
creations, but King himself dismisses the idea, noting
that he has no memory of the event: his family told him
that after leaving home to play with the boy, King
returned, speechless and seemingly in shock. Only later
did the family learn of the friend's death.[3]
King attended Durham Elementary School and Lisbon Falls High
School. As a young boy, King was an avid reader of EC's horror
comics including Tales from the Crypt, which provided
the genesis for his love of horror. His screenplay for
Creepshow would later pay tribute to the comics. When in
school, he wrote stories based on movies he had seen, copying
them with a mimeo machine his brother used to publish a
newspaper, Dave's Rag, to which King contributed. King
sold the stories to friends, but his teachers disapproved and
forced him to return his profits.
His first published story was "In a Half-World of Terror"
(retitled from "I Was a Teen-Age Grave-robber"), published in a
horror fanzine issued by Marshall Henderson of Birmingham,
Alabama.
From 1966 to 1970, King studied English at the University of
Maine at Orono, where he wrote a column entitled "King's
Garbage Truck" for the student newspaper, the Maine
Campus. He met Tabitha Spruce there; they married in
January, 1971. The campus period in his life is readily evident
in the second part of Hearts in Atlantis, and the odd
jobs he took on to pay for his studies, including one at an
industrial laundry, would later inspire stories such as "The
Mangler" and the novel Roadwork (as Richard
Bachman).
After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in English and a
certificate to teach high school, King taught English at
Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He and his family lived in a
trailer, and he wrote short stories, most for men's magazines,
to help make ends meet. As Carrie's introduction
relates, if one of his kids got a cold, Tabitha would joke,
"Come on, Steve, think of a monster."[4] King also developed a drinking
problem, which would stay with him for over a decade.
Becoming
famous
King soon began a number of novels. One of his first ideas
was of a young girl with psychic powers, but he grew
discouraged and discarded it. His wife later rescued it from
the trash and encouraged him to finish it.[5] After completing the novel, he
titled it Carrie and sent it to Doubleday. He
received a $2,500 advance (not large for a novel, even at
that time) but the paperback rights eventually earned
$400,000, with half going to the publisher. Soon following
its release, his mother died of uterine cancer. His Aunt
Emrine read the novel to her before she died.
In On Writing, King admits that at this time he was
often drunk and was even intoxicated

Stephen King's Home in Maine
while delivering his mother’s eulogy.[6] He states he was the basis
for The Shining's alcoholic father, though he would
not admit it (even to himself) for several years.
Shortly after The Tommyknockers publication, King's
family and friends finally intervened, dumping his trash—beer
cans, cigarette butts, grams of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil,
dextromethorphan (cough medicine), and marijuana—on the rug in
front of him to show the evidence of his addictions. As King
related in his memoir, he sought help and quit all forms of
drugs and alcohol in the late 1980s, and has remained sober
since.[6]
King will not sign photographs in person. He feels that is
something that should be reserved for movie stars. However,
some of his fans have received autographed photos simply by
asking.
King spends winter seasons in a waterfront mansion located
off the Gulf of Mexico in Sarasota, Florida. Their three
children, Naomi Rachel, Joseph Hillstrom (who appeared in the
film Creepshow), and Owen Phillip, are grown and live on
their own.
Owen and Joseph are writers; Owen published his first
collection of stories, We're All in This Together: A Novella
and Stories in 2005. The first collection of stories by Joe
Hill (Joseph's pen name), 20th Century Ghosts, was
published in 2005 by PS Publishing in a very limited edition,
winning the Crawford Award for best new fantasy writer,
together with the Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy
Award for Best Fiction Collection. Tom Pabst will adapt Hill's
upcoming novel, Heart-Shaped Box, for a 2007 Warner Bros
release.
King's daughter Naomi spent the past two years as a minister
in the Unitarian Universalist Church in Utica, New York, where
she lived with her partner Thandelka; she has since been
reassigned.
Baseball
Stephen King is a fan of the Boston Red Sox and frequently
attends home and away baseball games.
King helped coach his son Owen's Bangor West team to the
Maine Little League Championship in 1989. He recounts this
experience in the New Yorker essay "Head Down", which
also appears in the collection Nightmares and
Dreamscapes. King has called "Head Down" his best piece of
nonfiction writing.
In 1992 King and his wife Tabitha's donations allowed the
opening of Mansfield Stadium, a Little League ballpark in
Bangor, Maine.
In 1999, King wrote The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,
which featured former Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon as the
protagonist's imaginary companion. King recently co-wrote a
book titled Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans
Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season with Stewart O'Nan,
recounting the authors' roller coaster reaction to the Red
Sox's 2004 season, a season culminating in the Sox winning the
2004 American League Championship Series and World Series.
In the 2005 film Fever Pitch, about an obsessive
Boston Red Sox fan, King tosses out the first pitch of the
Sox's opening day game.
Philanthropy
Since becoming commercially successful, King and his wife
have donated money to causes around their home state of
Maine.
The Kings' early nineties donation to the University of
Maine Swim Team saved the program from elimination from the
school's athletics department. Donations to local YMCA and YWCA
programs have allowed renovations and improvements that would
otherwise have been impossible. Additionally, King annually
sponsors a number of scholarships for high school and college
students.
The Kings do not desire recognition for their bankrolling of
Bangor-area facilities: they named the Shawn T. Mansfield
Stadium for a prominent local little league coach's cerebral
palsy victim son, while the Beth Pancoe Aquatic Park
memorializes an accomplished area swimmer who died of
cancer.
Car accident
In the summer of 1999, King had finished the memoir section
of On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft but had abandoned
the book for nearly eighteen months, unsure of how or whether
to proceed. King says that it was the first book that he'd
abandoned since writing The Stand decades earlier. He
had just decided to continue the book and on June 17 wrote a
list of questions fans frequently asked him about writing; on
June 18, he wrote four pages of the writing section.
On June 19, at about 4:30 p.m., he was walking on the right
shoulder of Route 5 in Center Lovell, Maine. Driver Bryan
Smith, distracted by an unrestrained Rottweiler named Bullet,
moving in the back of his 1985 Dodge Caravan,[7] struck King, who landed in a
depression in the ground about 14 feet from the pavement
of Route 5.[6]
Smith was leaning to the rear of his vehicle trying to
restrain his dog and was not watching the road when he struck
King. According to Oxford County Sheriff deputy Matt Baker,
King was struck from behind and witnesses said the driver was
not speeding or reckless.[8] King's website, however, states this
is incorrect and that King was walking facing traffic.
King was conscious enough to give the deputy phone numbers
to contact his family but was in considerable pain. King
mentioned in an interview that he told a paramedic he knew he
was going into shock, as he had done research on the subject
for his writing. The author was first transported to Northern
Cumberland Hospital in Bridgton and then flown by helicopter to
Central Maine Hospital in Lewiston. His injuries — a collapsed
right lung, multiple fractures of the right leg, scalp
laceration and a broken hip — kept him in Central Maine Medical
Center until July 9, almost three weeks later.
Earlier that year, King had finished most of From a Buick
8, a novel in which a character dies after getting struck
by a car. Of the similarities, King says that he tries "not to
make too much of it." King's work had certainly featured car
accidents and their horrors before. His 1987 novel
Misery also concerned a writer who experiences severe
injuries in an auto accident, and auto wrecks figure
prominently in The Dead Zone and Thinner. In
Christine, a 1958 Plymouth Fury runs down its enemies.
1994's Insomnia has a main character struck dead by a
car, and central to Pet Sematary's plot is the scene in
which a tractor-trailer strikes and kills the protagonist's
young son. Following his accident, King wrote
Dreamcatcher, in which a central character suffers
injuries similar to King's own after being struck by a car.
After five operations in ten days and physical therapy, King
resumed work on On Writing in July, though his hip was
still shattered and he could only sit for about forty minutes
before the pain became intolerable.
King's lawyer and two others purchased Smith's van for
$1,500, reportedly to avoid it appearing on eBay. The van was
later crushed at a junkyard, though King mentioned during an
interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he wanted to
destroy the vehicle with a sledgehammer.[9] Smith, a disabled construction
worker, died of an overdose of pain medication on
September 21, 2000 (King's birthday) at the age of 43.
Two years later, King suffered a severe case of pneumonia as
a direct result of the puncturing of his lung at the time of
the accident. The lower portion of one lung became infected and
had putrified. During this time Tabitha King was inspired to
redesign his studio. Stephen visited the space while his books
and belongings were packed away. What he saw was an image of
what his studio would look like if he died, providing a seed
for his novel Lisey's Story.
Recent years
In 2000, King published a serialised novel "The Plant" over
the internet, bypassing print publication. Sales were
unsuccessful, and he abandoned the project.[10] In 2002, King announced he would
stop writing, apparently motivated in part by frustration
with his injuries, which had made sitting uncomfortable
and reduced his stamina.
- "I'm writing but I'm writing at a much slower pace than
previously and I think that if I come up with something
really, really good, I would be perfectly willing to
publish it because that still feels like the final act of
the creative process, publishing it so people can read it
and you can get feedback and people can talk about it with
each other and with you, the writer, but the force of my
invention has slowed down a lot over the years and that's
as it should be. I'm not a kid of 25 anymore and I'm not a
young middle-aged man of 35 anymore — I'm 55 years old and
I have grandchildren, two new puppies to house-train and I
have a lot of things to do besides writing and that in and
of itself is a wonderful thing but writing is still a big,
important part of my life and of everyday."[11]
Since 2003, King has provided his take on pop culture in a
column appearing on the back page of Entertainment
Weekly, usually every third week. The column is
called "The Pop of King", a reference to "The King of Pop",
Michael
Jackson.
In October 2005, King signed a deal with Marvel Comics, to
publish a seven-issue, miniseries spinoff of The Dark
Tower series called The Gunslinger Born. The series,
which focuses on a young Roland Deschain, is plotted by Robin
Furth, dialogued by Peter David, and illustrated by Eisner
Award-winning artist Jae Lee. The first issue was published on
February 7, 2007, and because of its connection with King,
David, Lee, and Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada appeared at
a midnight signing at a Times Square, New York comic book store
to promote it.[12][13] The work had sold over 200,000
copies by March 2007.[14]
In June 2006, King appeared on the first installment of
Amazon Fishbowl, a live web-program hosted by Bill
Maher.
King, a long time supporter of small publishing, has
recently allowed the publication of two past novels in limited
edition form. The Green Mile and Colorado Kid
will receive special treatment from two small publishing
houses. Both books will be produced and be signed by both King
and the artist contributing work to the book. Half of King's
published work has been re-published in limited (signed)
edition format.
On February 14, 2007, Joblo.com announced[15] that plans were underway for
Lost co-creator J. J. Abrams to do an adaptation of
King's epic Dark Tower series.
In June 2007, King's novel Blaze, which was written
in the early 1970s, under his long-time pseudonym Richard
Bachman, was published. He is also finishing the novel Duma
Key and writing a play with John Mellencamp titled Ghost
Brothers of Darkland County.
On April 20, 2007, Entertainment Weekly asked King if
he felt there was a correlation between Seung-Hui Cho's writing
and the Virginia Tech massacre. King stated, "Certainly in this
sensitized day and age, my own college writing would have
raised red flags, and I'm certain someone would have tabbed me
as mentally ill because of them" and "Cho doesn't strike me as
in the least creative, however. Dude was crazy. Dude was, in
the memorable phrasing of Nikki Giovanni, 'just mean.'
Essentially there's no story here, except for a paranoid
a**hole who went DEFCON-1." King felt that Cho's work had
issues because of its themes and the lack of writing ability
and a meaningful story.[16]
On August 15, 2007, King was mistaken for a vandal in an
Alice Springs bookstore. King signed six books in total, after
a customer thought she had caught a vandal scribbling in
volumes in the fiction section and reported him to store
manager Bev Ellis.[17]
In the late 1970s-early 1980s, after becoming a popular
horror writer, King published a handful of novels — Rage
(1977), The Long Walk (1979), Road Work (1981),
The Running Man (1982) and Thinner (1984) — under
the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The idea behind this was largely
an experiment to measure for himself whether or not he could
replicate his own success again, and allay at least part of the
notion inside his own head that popularity might all be just an
accident of fate. An alternate (or additional) explanation was
because of publishing standards back then allowing only a
single book a year.[18]
But there's another part that suggests it's all a
lottery, a real-life game-show not much different from
Wheel of Fortune or The New Price Is Right
(two of the Bachman books, incidentally, are about
game-show-type competitions). It is for some reason
depressing to think it was all — or even mostly — an
accident. So maybe you try to find out if you could do it
again.[19]
The Bachman novels contained hints to the author's actual
identity that were picked up on by fans, leading to King's
admission of authorship in 1985. King dedicated his 1989 book
The Dark Half about a pseudonym turning on a writer to
"the deceased Richard Bachman", and in 1996, when the Stephen
King novel Desperation was released, the companion novel
The Regulators carried the Bachman byline.
In 2006, during a London UK press conference, King declared
that he had discovered another Bachman novel, titled
Blaze. It was published on June 12, 2007 in the UK and
US. In fact, the manuscript had been held at King's alma mater,
the University of Maine in Orono for many years and had been
covered by numerous King experts. King completely rewrote the
1973 manuscript for its publication.
Writing style
In his nonfiction book, On Writing: A Memoir of the
Craft, King discusses his writing style at great length.
King believes that, generally speaking, good stories cannot be
called consciously and should not be plotted out beforehand,
they are better served by focusing on a single "seed" of a
story and letting the story grow itself. King often begins a
story with no idea how it will end. He mentions in the Dark
Tower series that halfway through its nearly 30-year
writing period a terminally-ill woman asked how it would end,
certain she would die before the series's completion. He told
her he did not know. King believes strongly in this style,
stating that his best writing comes from "freewriting." In
On Writing, King stated that he believed stories to
exist fully formed, like fossils, and that his role as a writer
was to excavate the fossil as well as he could. When asked for
the source of his story ideas in interviews, however, he has
several times, including the appearance on Amazon.com's
Fishbowl, answered, "I have the heart of a small
boy……and I keep it in a jar on my desk." (This quote is most
often attributed to Robert Bloch, author of Psycho.)
He is known for his great eye for detail, for continuity and
for inside references; many stories that may seem unrelated are
often linked by secondary characters, fictional towns, or
off-hand references to events in previous books. Many of the
settings for King's books are in Maine, though often fictional
locations.
King's books are filled with references to American history
and American culture, particularly the darker, more fearful
side of these. These references are generally spun into the
stories of characters, often explaining their fears. Recurrent
references include crime, war (especially the Vietnam War),
violence, the supernatural and racism.
King is also known for his folksy, informal narration, often
referring to his fans as "Constant Readers" or "friends and
neighbors." This familiar style contrasts with the horrific
content of many of his stories.
King has a very simple formula for learning to write well:
"Read four hours a day and write four hours a day. If you
cannot find the time for that, you can't expect to become a
good writer." He also has a simple definition for talent in
writing: "If you wrote something for which someone sent you a
check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you
then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you
talented."[20]
Shortly after his accident, King wrote the first draft of
the book Dreamcatcher with a notebook and a Waterman
fountain pen, which he called "the world's finest word
processor."
King's writing style throughout his novels alternates from
future to past, character development (including character
illumination, dynamics and revelation), and setting in each
chapter — leaving a cliffhanger at the end. He then continues
this process until the novel is finished.
When asked why he writes, King responds: "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."[21]
Influences
King has called
Richard Matheson
"the author who influenced me
most as a writer."[6] Both authors casually integrate
characters' thoughts into the third person narration, just one
of several parallels between their writing styles. In a current
edition of Matheson's The Incredible Shrinking
Man, King is quoted: "A
horror story if there ever was one…a great adventure story — it
is certainly one of that select handful that I have given to
people, envying them the experience of the first
reading."
King is a fan of
H. P. Lovecraft
and refers to him several
times in Danse
Macabre. Lovecraft's
influence shows in King's invention of bizarre, ancient
deities, subtle connections among all of his tales and the
integration of fabricated newspaper clippings, trial
transcripts and documents as narrative devices. King's invented
trio of afflicted New England towns — Jerusalem's Lot, Castle Rock and Derry — are reminiscent of Lovecraft's
Arkham, Dunwich and Innsmouth. King's short story
"Crouch
End" is an
explicit homage to, and part of, Lovecraft's
Cthulhu Mythos
story cycle.
"Gramma", a short story made into a film
in the 1980s anthology horror show The New Twilight
Zone, mentions
Lovecraft's notorious fictional creation
Necronomicon, also borrowing the names of a
number of the fictional monsters mentioned therein.
"I Know What You
Need" from 1976's
anthology collection Night Shift, and 'Salem's Lot also mention the tome. Another
tribute to Lovecraft is in King's short story
"Jerusalem's
Lot", which opens
Night Shift. King differs markedly from Lovecraft in his
focus on extensive characterization and naturalistic
dialogue, both notably absent in Lovecraft's writing.
In On
Writing, King is
critical of Lovecraft's dialogue-writing skills, using
passages from The
Colour Out of Space as particularly poor examples.
There are also several examples of King referring to
Lovecraftian characters in his work, such as
Nyarlathotep
and Yog-Sothoth.
Edgar Allan Poe exerts a noticeable influence
over King's writing as well. In The Shining, the phrase "And the red death
held sway over all" hearkens back to Poe's "And
Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable
dominion over all" from "The Masque of the Red
Death." The
short story "Dolan's
Cadillac" has
a theme almost identical to Poe's "The Cask of
Amontillado,"
including a paraphrase of Fortunato's famous plea,
"For the love of God, Montresor!" In The Shining, King
refers to Poe as "The Great American Hack".
King acknowledges the
influence of Bram
Stoker, particularly on
his novel ’Salem's Lot, which he envisioned as a retelling
of Dracula.[22] Its related short story "Jerusalem's
Lot", is reminiscent of Stoker's The Lair of the White
Worm.
Alexandre Dumas, père, an
influence on King. |
King has also openly
declared his admiration for another, less prolific
author: Shirley
Jackson. 'Salem's Lot
opens with a quotation from Jackson's The Haunting of Hill
House. Tony, an
imaginary playmate from
The Shining, bears a
striking resemblance to another imaginary playmate with the
same name from Jackson's Hangsaman. A pivotal scene in
Storm of the Century
is based on Jackson's
The
Lottery. A
character in Wolves of the Calla
references the Jackson
book We Have
Always Lived in the Castle.
King is a big fan of
John D. MacDonald
and dedicated the novella Sun
Dog to MacDonald, saying "I miss you, old friend." For his
part, MacDonald wrote an admiring preface to an early paperback
version of Night Shift, and even had his famous character,
Travis McGee, reading Cujo in one of the last McGee
novels.
In an
Amazon.com
interview, King said the
one book he wishes he'd written is William Golding's Lord of the Flies.
King makes references in
several of his books to characters and events in
J. R. R.
Tolkien's
The Hobbit
and The Lord of the
Rings.
Robert A.
Heinlein's book
The Door into Summer
is repeatedly mentioned in
King's Wolves of the
Calla.
Collaborations
King has written two novels with acclaimed horror novelist
Peter Straub, The Talisman and a sequel, Black
House. King has indicated that he and Straub will likely
write the third and concluding book in this series, the tale of
Jack Sawyer, but has set no timeline for its completion.
King also wrote the nonfiction book, Faithful with
novelist and fellow Red Sox fanatic Stewart O'Nan.
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red, was
a paperback tie-in for the King-penned miniseries Rose
Red. The book was published under anonymous authorship, and
written by Ridley Pearson. This spin-off is a rare occasion of
another author being granted permission to write commercial
work using characters and story elements invented by King.
King wrote an introduction to one of Neil Gaiman's many
graphic novel collections, and expressed admiration for him. He
also wrote an introduction to the October 1986 400th issue of
the Batman comic book.
Speculation that King wrote the novel Bad Twin, a
tie-in to the series Lost, under the pseudonym Gary
Troup has been discredited.
King played guitar for the rock band Rock Bottom Remainders,
several of whose members are authors. Other members include
Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, James
McBride, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount Jr., Matt Groening, Kathi
Kamen Goldmark and Greg Iles. None of them claim to have any
musical talent. King is a fan of the rock band AC/DC, who did
the soundtrack for his 1986 film, Maximum Overdrive. He
is also a fan of The Ramones, who wrote the title song for
Pet Sematary and appeared in the music video. They are
referred to several times in various novels and stories. In
addition he wrote the liner notes for their tribute album
We're a Happy Family.
Critical
response
Critical responses to King's works have been mixed.
In his analysis of post-World War II horror fiction, The
Modern Weird Tale (2001), critic S. T.
Joshi[23] devotes a chapter to King's work.
Joshi argues that King's best-known works (his
supernatural novels) are his worst, being mostly bloated,
illogical, maudlin and prone to deus ex machina
endings. Despite these criticisms, Joshi argues that since
Gerald's Game (1993), King has been tempering the
worst of his writing faults, producing books that are
leaner, more believable and generally better written.
Joshi also stresses that, despite his flaws, King almost
unfailingly writes insightfully about the pains and joys
of adolescence, and has produced a few outstanding books,
citing two non-supernatural novels – Rage (1977)
and The Running Man (1982) – as King's best: in
Joshi's estimation, both books are riveting and
well-constructed, with believable characters.
In 1996, King won an O. Henry Award for his short story "The
Man in the Black Suit." In 2003, when King was honored by the
National Book Awards with a lifetime achievement award: Medal
of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, there was an
uproar in the literary community, with literary critic Harold
Bloom denouncing the choice:
The decision to give the National Book Foundation's
annual award for "distinguished contribution" to Stephen
King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process
of dumbing down our cultural life. I've described King in
the past as a writer of penny dreadfuls, but perhaps even
that is too kind. He shares nothing with Edgar Allan Poe.
What he is is an immensely inadequate writer on a
sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book
basis.[24]
However, in giving the award, the Foundation said, "Stephen
King’s writing is securely rooted in the great American
tradition that glorifies spirit-of-place and the abiding power
of narrative. He crafts stylish, mind-bending page-turners that
contain profound moral truths – some beautiful, some harrowing
– about our inner lives. This Award commemorates Mr. King’s
well-earned place of distinction in the wide world of readers
and book lovers of all ages."
Others in the writing community expressed their contempt of
the slight towards King. When Richard Snyder, the former CEO of
Simon & Schuster, described King's work as
"non-literature", Orson Scott Card responded: "Let me assure
you that King's work most definitely is literature, because it
was written to be published and is read with admiration. What
Snyder really means is that it is not the literature preferred
by the academic-literary elite."[25]
In Roger Ebert's review of the 2004 movie Secret
Window, he states "A lot of people were outraged that he
[King] was honored at the National Book Awards, as if a popular
writer could not be taken seriously. But after finding that his
book On Writing had more useful and observant things to
say about the craft than any book since Strunk and White's
The Elements of Style, I have gotten over my own
snobbery."[26]
Influence on popular
culture
Since the publication of Carrie, public awareness of
King and his works has reached a high saturation
rate[27], becoming as popular as The
Twilight Zone or the films of Alfred
Hitchcock[28]. As the best-selling novelist in
the world, and the most financially successful horror
writer in history, King is an American horror icon of the
highest order. King's books and characters encompass
primary fears in such an iconic manner that his stories
have become synonymous with certain key genre ideas.
Carrie, Christine, Cujo, It,
and The Shining, for example, are instantly
recognizable to millions as popular shorthand for the
Vengeful Nerd Wronged, the Killer Car, the Evil Dog, the
Evil Clown, and the Haunted Hotel. Even King himself is so
recognizable to the American public that in an American
Express advertisement, the writer was able to satirize his
spooky image in 30 seconds, and Gary Larson could portray
a young Stephen King torturing his toys in a Far
Side panel, without extensive explanation.
Films and TV
Many of King's novels and short stories have been made into
major motion pictures or TV movies and
miniseries.[29] Unlike some authors, King is
untroubled by movies based on his works differing from the
original work. He has contrasted his books and its film
adaptations as "apples and oranges; both delicious, but
very different." The exception to this is The
Shining, which King criticized when it was released in
1980; and The Lawnmower Man (he sued to have his
name removed from the credits). King seems to have gained
greater appreciation for Kubrick's The Shining over
the years. Kubrick had knocked the original novel in an
interview as not "literary," having its merits exclusively
in the plot. This understandably may have upset King. As a
film, The Lawnmower Man bore no resemblance
whatsoever to King's original short story. King's name was
used solely as a faux-brand.
King made his feature film acting debut in Creepshow,
playing Jordy Verrill, a backwoods redneck who, after touching
a fallen meteor in hopes of selling it, grows moss all over his
body. He has since made cameos in several adaptations of his
works. He appeared in Pet Sematary as a minister at a
funeral, in Rose Red as a pizza deliveryman, in The
Stand as "Teddy Wieszack," in the Shining miniseries
as band member Gage Creed and in The Langoliers as Tom
Holby. He has also appeared in The Golden Years, in
Chappelle's Show and, along with fellow author Amy Tan, on
The Simpsons as himself. In addition to acting, King
tried his hand at directing with Maximum Overdrive.
After a private screening of the film Stand By Me
(which was an adaptation of his novella The Body), King
told director Rob Reiner that it was the best film adaptation
of any of his works up to that point. He said it was actually
better than his original novella. King was also very happy with
the job Frank Darabont did with The Green Mile.
King produced and acted in a miniseries, Kingdom
Hospital, which is based on the Danish miniseries
Riget by Lars von Trier. He also co-wrote The
X-Files season 5 episode "Chinga" with the creator of
the series Chris Carter.
He is rumored to have stored in his house many of the film
props from the numerous movies adapted from his original books,
including the car used in Christine and a life-sized
model of Barlow the Vampire from 'Salem's Lot. Since
1977, King has granted permission to student filmmakers to make
adaptations of his short stories for one dollar (see Dollar
Baby).
King is friends with film director George Romero, to whom he
partly dedicated his book Cell, and wrote a tribute
about the filmmaker in Entertainment Weekly for his pop
culture column, as well as an essay for the Elite DVD version
of Night of the Living Dead. Romero is rumored to be
directing the adaptations of King's novels The Girl Who
Loved Tom Gordon and From a Buick 8.
Miscellaneous
King often uses authors as characters, or includes mention
of fictional books in his stories, novellas and novels, such as
Paul Sheldon who is the main character in Misery. See
also List of fictional books in the works of Stephen King for a
complete list.
Radio stations
Stephen and wife Tabitha own The Zone Corporation, a central
Maine radio station group consisting of WDME, WZON, and WKIT.
The latter of the three stations, features a caricature of King
as Frankenstein-esque character as part of the logo and the
tagline "Stephen King's Rock 'n' Roll Station".
References
- Honor roll:Horror authors. Award
Annals (2007-11-17).
- Beahm, George The Stephen King
Story: A Literary Profile Andrews and McMeel. 1991.
ISBN 0-8362-7989-1 : pp.101
- see King's On Writing: A Memoir of
the Craft
-
http://people.monstersandcritics.com/archive/peoplearchive.php/Stephen_King/biog
- King, Stephen (2000).
On Writing. Scribner, 76–77. ISBN
0684853523.
- On Writing: A Memoir of the
Craft
-
http://www.cnn.com/books/news/9906/21/stephen.king.03/
-
http://www.liljas-library.com/accident.html
-
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1124785
-
http://slashdot.org/features/00/11/30/1238204.shtml
-
http://stephenking.com/pages/FAQ/Stephen_King/retired.php
- Peter David discusses the signing on
his blog.
- Another blog entry of the signing
with photos and links to interviews.
- Stephen King Ventures Into Comic
Books
-
http://joblo.com/abrams-on-dark-tower
-
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20036014,00.html
- ABC News, Stephen King mistaken for
vandal in Alice
- King, Stephen. Stephen King
FAQ: "Why did you write books as Richard Bachman?".
StephenKing.com. Retrieved on December 13, 2006.
- The Bachman Books, Stephen King
(1985) p. viii
- Everything You Need to Know About
Writing Successfully — in Ten Minutes
- Stephen King's official site.
Retrieved on 2007-05-14.
-
http://www.stephenking.com/pages/works/salems_lot/
- Joshi, S.T, The Modern Weird
Tale : A Critique of Horror Fiction, McFarland
& Company, 2001, ISBN 978-0786409860
-
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers/
-
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2003-09-21.shtml
-
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040312/REVIEWS/403120306/1023
- Linda Badley, Writing Horror and
the Body: The Fiction of Stephen King, Clive Barker,
and Anne Rice (Contributions to the Study of
Popular Culture) (Greenwood Press, 1996); Michael R.
Collings, Scaring Us to Death: The Impact of Stephen
King on Popular Culture (Borgo Press; 2nd Rev
edition, 1997).
- Amy Keyishian, Stephen King
(Pop Culture Legends) (Chelsea House Publications,
1995).
- Internet Movie Database: Stephen
King. Retrieved on 2007-04-10.
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