Stephen King

Stephen King was born in 1947 in Portland, Maine. He studied on a scholarship at the University of Maine. He was teaching English at a high school when his first novel, "Carrie," was accepted for publication. Since then, he has written more than forty novels, all of which became bestsellers, and over two hundred short stories. Today, he is considered the leading author of horror and fantasy in the world, as well as one of the most important writers of our time. He has been honored with numerous awards for his work, including the International Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Awards, the O. Henry Award, the Nebula Award, among others, the 1997 Award from the Poets and Writers, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association. In 2003, the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. His novels and novellas have been adapted into films: "The Mist," "The Shining," "Christine," "Misery," "Hearts in Atlantis," "Dreamcatcher," among others, four of which—"Carrie," "Stand by Me," "The Shawshank Redemption," and "The Green Mile"—were nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture. In June 1999, at the time he had completed the first draft of his book "On Writing," he was struck by a passing van while walking on a road in Maine. The accident caused serious injuries to his head, lung, ribs, hips, and right leg, requiring five surgeries within ten days and months of rehabilitation—during which he completed the book—to restore his health. Memories of the accident and his hospitalization are included in the novels "Dreamcatcher," "Misery," and "Kingdom Hospital" that followed, as well as in the seven-volume fantasy epic "The Dark Tower," the most complex and ambitious work of his career, in the seventh volume of which the protagonist attempts to hypnotize both the author and the driver of the van that hit him. Stephen King lives with his wife Tabitha, also a writer, in Bangor, Maine.