<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Stephen King (Stephen Edwin King), born September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine, received a BA in English from the University of Maine in 1970. His first professional fiction sale was the story "The Glass Floor," which appeared in Startling Mystery Stories in 1967.

His first novel sale came in 1973, to Doubleday & Co. The paperback rights to Carrie, the story of traumatized high-school girl who develops telekinetic powers, brought King a degree of financial security. He followed up in 1975 with 'Salem's Lot, a much heftier tome, engaging one of the staples of the horror genre—vampires.

King found an enormous audience for his tales of adventure and grue. Despite personal turmoil—he acknowledges drug and alcohol addiction, now under control with the support of his family and friends—he continued to satisfy the demand for his work, writing a string of bestselling novels, along with short stories, screenplays, television scripts, and nonfiction. He has also written six books under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.

King made a "handshake deal" with filmmaker Frank Darabont regarding King's story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," upon which Darabont based the film The Shawshank Redemption (1994). The movie received numerous Academy Award nominations. In 1999, Darabont adapted another of King's works to film, The Green Mile, which was equally well received. King's novel The Dead Zone has been adapted both for film (directed by David Cronenberg; released in 1983), and television. The series debuted in 2002 and remains in current production.

A brush with death of his own when he was run over by the roadside near his Maine home in 1999 has directly informed much of his later work (see "Dreamcatcher", "Kingdom Hospital", and "The Dark Tower".

A few of King's numerous honors include the Bram Stoker Award, the O. Henry Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.