“If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it?”                                                        Stephen King

 1972 – Hampden, Maine: Tabitha was emptying the wastebasket when she found Stephen’s three wadded-up typewritten pages. After knocking off the cigarette ashes and smoothing out the pages, she began to read. It was good. She wondered how the story ended.

Tabitha was keenly aware that her 26-year-old husband was depressed and doubting himself as a writer. When he got home from his janitorial job that evening, she handed him the crumpled pages and encouraged him to finish the story.

Her husband, Stephen King, had been born in Portland, Maine, in 1947. His father left to buy a pack of cigarettes when Stephen was two years old and never came back, leaving his mother to raise Stephen and his older brother. She worked in the kitchen of a mental hospital to support them.

While exploring in the attic as a young boy, Stephen found some of his father’s books, a paperback collection of horror fiction short stories by H. P. Lovecraft. The short stories had such an emotional impact on him that he later recalled, “I knew that I had found my love when I read that book.” At age 12, he submitted his first short story to a magazine, and was published for the first time as a high school senior when Comics Review Magazine ran a story he had written.

In 1966, Stephen enrolled at the University of Maine. During his sophomore year, he started writing a column in the school newspaper. He earned a degree in English in 1970 and married Tabitha Spruce a few months later. Unable to land a teaching job, Stephen took a position as a janitor and also worked in an industrial laundry. Living in an old mobile home and struggling to make ends meet, he wrote short stories at night and on weekends and continued to send stories to magazines and occasionally got paid for one.

On the night that Tabitha asked Stephen about the wadded-up pages, he responded, “I’m not going to waste my time on another story that doesn’t sell. Besides,” he said, “I don’t know anything about writing about high school girls.” Tabitha wasn’t done. “Stephen, the story is really good. I am anxious to hear how it ends. Promise me that you will finish the manuscript, and I promise that I will help with the female perspective.”

Stephen finished the story several months later. He mailed the manuscript to 30 publishers, all of whom rejected his work. He was ready to throw in the towel, until a call on Mother’s Day 1973 from Double Day Publishing changed his and Tabitha’s life. They were advanced $2,500 and Stephen’s novel Carrie was released on April 5, 1974, with an initial printing of 30,000 copies. The paperback book sold more than four million copies.

With the success of Carrie, Stephen was able to devote himself to a full-time writing career. He followed up with three novels – Salem’s Lot (1975), The Shining (1977), and The Stand (1978), all of which enjoyed success. In 1977, Stephen joined the faculty at the University of Maine as a creative writing professor.  

Stephen King is the first author to have five books simultaneously on the New York Times bestseller list. He has published more that 70 novels and non-fiction books with sales of more than 350 million copies. Forty of his books and short stories have been adapted for movies and TV.

Today, 76-year-old Stephen and Tabitha, who is also a writer, divide their time between Maine and Florida. They have three children, two of whom are writers. Stephen writes four to six hours each day until he reaches his quota is 2,000 words per day.

When asked why he writes, Stephen responds, “The answer to that is fairly simple. There was nothing else I was made to do. I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. I really can’t imagine doing anything else, and I can’t imagine not doing what I do.”