My Favorite Author: Stephen King

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My Favorite Author: Stephen King

“It hit you like the flu or a summer cold, only it kept on getting worse, presumably

until you choked to death on your own snot or until the fever burned you down. It was

highly contagious.” (The Stand, 65)

This quote shows what Stephen King as a writer means to me. His writing is

infectious. Once I have read one of his novels, I want more. The desire to read his words

gets worse the longer I wait. No, reading novels by Stephen King won’t kill a person, but

“it [is] highly contagious.”As one can tell from the above excerpt, King has a way of

creating an image in the reader’s mind. The image isn’t always pretty, but it is usually

vivid. Although, King has never been ranked as high as Chaucer, or Shakespeare, or

even C.S. Lewis, he has a way with words that makes the reader want to continue to read.

King has a way to make the reader wonder, understand, and see the worlds he creates in

his stories.

King was the second child to bless his parents home in “Maine in 1947.”The

fascination with his own childhood memories bursts through the lives of his characters as

so many of his stories are set in Maine. This is not to say that he had a horrible

childhood, I only mean that we all cherish our memories of our childhood and where we

grew up. Perhaps this is King’s homage to his childhood home. King attended “the

University of Maine at Orono” where “he wrote a weekly column for the school

newspaper, The Maine Campus.”A writing career was begun. After graduating “with a

Bachelor Degree of Science in English and [being] qualified to teach [at] the high school

level,” he was unable to procure a teaching position and subsisted on his wife’s “student

loan and savings, with an occasional...

... middle of paper ...

...osition has not been easy

even with the prompts provided for a theme. I am always anxious to see another King

book on the shelf, but it wasn’t until now that I could appreciate the time and thought he put into each of his books. King doesn’t get the credit he deserves for being such a

brilliant writer, but yet his books are always top sellers. There has to be something said in that. Write on, Stephen, write on.

Bibliography

King, Stephen. The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King. New York:

NAL Books, 1977.

King, Stephen. Dreamcatcher. New York: Scribner, 2001.

King, Stephen. Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales. New York: Scribner, 2002.

King, Stephen. The Stand: Complete and Uncut. New York, Doubleday, 1978/1990.

The Man: The Official Stephen King Web Presence: Horror Books, Horror Films, Maine.

http://www.stephenking.com/man.html

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