Gore and More discussion

Born - 21 September 1947

Place of birth - Portland General Hospital, Maine

Stephen Kings actual writing career began January of 1959, when Stephen and his brother David decided to publish their own local newspaper named "Dave's Rag".

David bought a mimeograph machine, and they put together a paper they sold for five cents an issue.

King made his first actual published appearance in 1965 in the magazine Comics Review with his story "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber." The story ran about 6,000 words.

King’s first novel, Carrie, almost never made it to print. King’s wife, Tabitha, rescued it from the garbage and encouraged King to complete the work.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels

In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co. accepted the novel Carrie for publication. On Mother's Day of that year, Stephen learned from his new editor at Doubleday, Bill Thompson, that a major paperback sale would provide him with the means to leave teaching and write full-time

Stephen King, his brother and mother were abandoned by his father when he was young, who claimed he was going to the store and then never returned.

When King wrote "Carrie" he actually didn't like it and dumped it in the trash. His wife picked it out of the trash and read it and told him it was amazing and that he needed to publish it.

When filming "The Shining" King and Stanley Kubrick did not see eye to eye on several things. King did not like Shelley Duvall as Wendy, did not want a maze and wanted the movie to focus on Danny more rather than Jack Torrance.

King's inspiration for 'The Shining" came when he stayed at the Stanley Hotel as many know. He stayed during the winter time when no one else was just like the family did in the book. When King went to his room he put his bag with all his clothes on the bed and then went downstairs to the desk. When he returned to his room he found all his clothes folded and put in the dressers of the room.

King published under the name "Richard Bachman" because he was only allowed to write so many books at a time under that specific publisher.

King confessed to being Richard Bachman after a man came to him during a convention/book signing and pointed out the similarities of himself and Bachman's work.