Stephen King was born in 1947 in Portland, Maine. When he was two, his father went out and never came back, leaving his mother to raise two boys on her own. They moved often while she worked low-paying jobs to keep the family afloat. Young Stephen found his escape in comic books, movies, and stories, and he began writing his own at an early age.
As a teenager, he sent stories to magazines and collected the rejection slips on a nail in his bedroom wall. Eventually the nail couldn’t hold them all, so he replaced it with a spike and kept writing. After college, he married Tabitha Spruce, a fellow writer, and they lived in a trailer while Stephen worked in an industrial laundry and later taught high school English. He wrote at night in the laundry room, typing on a child’s desk balanced on his knees.
One day, frustrated with a story about a bullied teenage girl, he threw the pages in the trash. Tabitha pulled them out, read them, and told him to keep going. That story became Carrie. It sold in 1973, and the paperback rights brought in $400,000, allowing him to quit teaching and write full time. He went on to publish dozens of bestsellers, including The Shining, The Stand, and It.
In 1999, King was struck by a van while walking near his home and nearly died. During his painful recovery, he finished On Writing, part memoir and part guide to the craft. His advice is simple: read a lot, write a lot, and show up every day.
Stephen King’s story is covered in Deeply Driven Episode #32.
Source Book
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
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