Stephen King
...ing from Lisbon High School in 1966, he went on to the University of Maine and studied English. While in college he wrote a column in the school magazine named “King’s Garbage Truck”. In 1967 “The Glass Floor” was his first professional sale to Startling Mystery Stories. He graduated from the University of Maine in 1970. While attending the University of Maine he met Tabitha Spruce whom he married in 1971. (Rawstone) He was unable to find work as an English teacher right after completing school, so he took odd jobs one being at industrial laundry. He finally received a teaching position at Hamden Public School in Maine in 1971. The young family had trouble paying their bills. He wrote in the evenings and on the weekends. In 1974 Carrie was published by Double Day, Tabitha literally rescued the manuscript from the garbage can. He received a 2,500 dollar advance on this book. This allowed him to concentrate on writing full time and give up teaching. Carrie was a resounding success and the movie was released in 1976. The first big money came in 1973 when Double Day sold the rights to reprint Carrie in paperback to New American Library for 400,000 and King received half. (Rawstone) He moved his family to a house in southern Maine due to his mother’s failing health. Here he wrote his next book Salem’s Lot originally titled Second Coming and Jerusalem’s Lot. His Mother passed away February 1974. (2004) In a 1998 interview King said “I have a sense of injustice that came I think from my mother being a single parent. Her husband deserted her when I was two, and she went through a lot of menial jobs. We were the little people. We were dragged from pillar to post, and there was none of this equal opportunity stuff going on t that time. We were latchkey kids before there were latchkey kids, and she was a female wage earner when, basically, women did scut work and cleaned up other people’s messes. And she never complained about it a lot. But I wasn’t dumb and I wasn’t blind. And I got a sense of who was being taken advantage of and who was lording it over the other people. A Lot of that sense of injustice stayed. It stuck with me, and it’s still in my books today. (Rawstone)” Stephen eventually left Double Day and joined NAL full time for mainly monetary reasons. Also the cover work and graphic art on the NAL books were brighter and more pleasing to the eye. ( Beahm 378) On Saturday June 19, 1999 Stephen King was walking along the shoulder of the road near his home in Lovell ...