Tabitha pulled Carrie from the trash can
Stephen King tossed early Carrie pages; his wife Tabitha fished them out and told him he had something. The 1974 debut made the "King of Horror," whose Maine childhood, addictions, and novellas also fed Shawshank and Stand by Me.
Born 21 September 1947 in Portland, Maine, to vacuum salesman Donald King (born Pollock) and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury, Stephen was two when his father left. Nellie raised him and brother David through Scarborough, Chicago kin, Stratford, and finally Durham, Maine. He copied comic panels from about six, called Bambi his first horror film, and found Matheson's Shrinking Man at eight. A bookmobile Lord of the Flies seized him as "life or death." Lisbon High, Dave's Rag, and the 1965 fanzine serial "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber" preceded University of Maine at Orono (scholarship, 1966–70), mentors Edward Holmes and Burton Hatlen, and marriage to Tabitha Spruce after a Hatlen workshop; daughter Naomi arrived in 1970.
"The Glass Floor" sold to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Teaching English at Hampden Academy while selling to Cavalier, he merged adolescent cruelty and telekinesis into Carrie after Tabitha rescued three trashed pages. 'Salem's Lot followed a Dracula-in-New-England thought; after his mother's uterine-cancer death the family moved to Boulder, where the Stanley Hotel seeded The Shining and he suspected alcoholism. Back in Auburn he wrote The Stand—his longest and, he says, still favorites among longtime readers—then taught Maine horror courses that became Danse Macabre. The Dead Zone (1979) hit his stride and opened Castle Rock.
Different Seasons (1982) proved he could leave pure horror: three of four novellas became Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and Apt Pupil. Cujo he barely remembers writing; Pet Sematary, inspired by a busy highway and his daughter's buried cat, felt too grim until a Doubleday contract forced it out. It (1987) summoned every childhood monster for a last time and won the August Derleth Award. Misery (Bram Stoker co-winner) and The Tommyknockers metaphorized addiction until Tabitha's intervention; The Dark Half thanked "the late Richard Bachman." O. Henry, National Medal of Arts (2014), and Joyce Carol Oates's praise followed a career of roughly 200 short stories—and one rescued draft.
Source: Stephen King
