Stephen King is one of the greatest American authors of all time. He is well renowned for his contemporary horror and suspense novels. King has received an immense amount of awards for his creativity and skill. Some of the many include the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (2004), several Bram Stoker Awards, and awards from the Horror Guild. Stephen began like many other writers, simply writing for fun while in school for his Bachelors Degree in English. He Graduated from the University of Maine in 1970 and had already sold his first professional short story, The Glass Floor (1967). Whilst teaching high school, King wrote and sold many short stories and also developed a drinking problem. By this time, Stephen had married and wrote his first novel, Carrie in '73. By 1975 he had already finished his fourth novel and in 1977 he was a creative writing professor at the University of Maine, where he had graduated just 7 years before. In the late 70's, King wrote his eight book epic called The Dark Tower. By 2002, King stopped writing, partially due to his physical injuries that resulted from a car accident in 1999. Since that time, Stephen King has resumed writing, but said,
"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."
Between '02 and now, King has written a column in Entertainment Weekly, Marvel Comics published comic books based on the Dark Tower series, and he has written several novels, as well as short stories. Stephen King has had his share of setbacks, however he never let that hold him back from doing what he loved. The authors that King says most influenced him are Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and H.P. Lovecraft. Many of his books have been developed into films like The Shawshank Redemption.
As an English major with hopes to write novels, Stephen King is a great mentor for me to look up to. Not only do I love his books, but I also respect him a great deal as a person after reading his book On Writing, which gave great insight into Stephen King's personal life, the struggles he had to overcome, and the factors that influenced him into becoming the man he is today. I highly recommend anything and everything authored by Stephen King; Truly one of America's great minds.
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