Who is Stephen King ?

Barely Scraping By
King was raised by a single mother, and his family grew up very poor. His first part-time job was pumping gas, and he eventually started cleaning laundry and working as an English teacher.

King continues to create and be involved in provocative projects. He has worked directly in television, writing for series like Kingdom Hospital and Under the Dome, with the latter based on his 2009 novel.

Making the Grade
King worked as an English teacher starting in 1971. He made $6,400 per year, about $40,000 in 2017.

In 2011 he published 11/22/63, a novel involving time travel as part of an effort to stop the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Anonymous
King has published seven novels under the pen name “Richard Bachman.”

King also wrote Joyland (2013), a pulp-fiction style thriller that takes readers on a journey to uncovering who's behind an unsolved murder.

he surprised audiences by releasing Doctor Sleep (2013), a sequel to The Shining, with Sleep hitting No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Jam Session
King played guitar in the literary super group band the Rock Bottom Remainders. Other members include Amy Tan, Mitch Albom, and Barbara Kingsolver.

King and his novelist wife divide their time between Florida and Maine. They have three children: Naomi Rachel, a reverend; Joseph Hillstrom, who writes under the pen name Joe Hill and is a lauded horror-fiction writer in his own right; and Owen Phillip, whose first collection of stories was published in 2005.

Outside of writing, King is a music fan. He even sometimes plays guitar and sings in a band called Rock Bottom Remainders with fellow literary stars like Dave Barry, Barbara Kingsolver and Amy Tan.

Setting the Mood
Stephen King listens to hard rock while he writes. Two of his favorite bands are AC/DC and The Ramones.

The group has performed a number of times over the years to raise money for charity.

Taking Over The Air Waves
Stephen King and his wife Tabitha own a radio station in Maine called Zone Radio, which plays mostly rock music.

Go, Team!
King is a huge fan of the Boston Red Sox. He even played himself as a Red Sox fan in the movie Fever Pitch, and wrote the story The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon about the Red Sox pitcher.

Giving Back
In 1992, King donated money to his town of Bangor, Maine so the municipality could build the Mansfield Baseball Stadium. King’s only condition was that the score board be positioned so that he could see it from his home while he was working.

Hustle Harder
The best advice Stephen King can give to aspiring writers is: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.

Power Couple
Stephen’s wife Tabitha has written several novels of her own as well, including the titles Candles Burning and Survivor.

Two Thumbs Up
Film critic Roger Ebert once wrote that King’s memoir On Writing was the most insightful book for aspiring writers since The Elements of Style

Tragedy Strikes
In 1999, Stephen King was hit by a van while walking down the street. The accident broke bones in his right leg, hip, and ribs. He also had a punctured lung and a head laceration. A few months later, newspapers reported that King had bought the offending van in order to smash it to pieces. In reality, his lawyers bought the van so that it wouldn’t wing up on eBay, and it was crushed at a scrapyard.

The Big Screen
King has over 22 film appearances on IMDB. These roles are mostly cameos he has played in the movies based on his books. For example, in Pet Semetary he plays a minister.

Age is Just a Number
During an interview with Rolling Stone, King said that he disagrees with the labels of “young adult novels.” He himself is personally a Harry Potter fan.

Winter is Coming
Stephen King and Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin played poker together during Science Fiction conventions back in the 1980s.

Inner Demons
King has been open about his struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction. He has also admitted that he barely remembers writing the novel Cujo because of his alcohol and drug abuse.

The Devil’s Powder
In particular, King has a history of cocaine addiction, and his family had to stage an intervention to get him to stop taking the drug.

The Flash
King is an extremely fast and prolific writer: His 304-page book, The Running Man, was completed in only 10 days.