Stephen King Accomplishments

Did you know that mystery, thriller, and crime books are the most popular to read with a rate of 47% since 2015 (Leading Books). After Stephen King’s parents separated, King and his brother lived with their mom in Fort Wayne Indiana, where his father’s family was at the time. At age twelve, him and his family moved back to Durham, where he was born, to take care of his grandparents. It was there that King graduated from Lisbon Falls High School in 1966, going on to graduate from University of Maine at Orono. During his college years he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, and later for men’s magazines. In the fall of 1971 King started working at Hampden Academy High School as an English teacher. It was there that King wrote his first

Stephen King has changed the way people view horror by bringing in factors to show horror in a way that has never been seen before. “King’s writing has always displayed significant literary qualities, particularly ongoing literary themes that have shaped how we understand horror as well as ourselves” (Romano). Stephen King mad a big impact when he changed the way the characters act. “He [King] can do this because his boys and men tend to be nerds and outcasts who already exist outside traditional masculine norms. The bookish nerdy kid is relatively uncommon in mainstream adult fiction before King came along; now we recognize such characters as hallmarks of genre literature” (Romano). “I believe all those sappy, romantic things: Children are good, good wins out over evil, it is better to have loved and last than never to have loved at all. I see a lot of the so-called “romantic ideal” at work in the world around us” (King qtd. in Romano). King changed the main character from the jock into the nerd, and even changed the story so that the main

King wrote many award winning stories that have been made into some of the most iconic movies of all time. “Without King, we wouldn’t have one of the most iconic and recognizable images in cinema history- Andy Dufresne standing in the rain after escaping from Shawshank prison- nor would we have the never ending horror of Pennywise the Clown, Cujo the slavering St. Bernard, or Kathy Bates’s pitch-perfect stalker fan in Misery” (Romano). Stephen King created some of the most beloved stories of all time. By taking imaginary thoughts and adding real life to them, King has made some of the most beloved movies and films of all time. Stephen King has proven himself to be a major contender as an author by the countless amounts of awards he has been given. “To date, he is the only author in history to have had more than 30 book become NO. 1 bestsellers. He now has more than 70 published books, many of which have become cultural icons, and his achievements extend so far beyond a single genre at this point that it’s impossible to limit him to one” (Romano). “Two to five of his tales have appeared on the New York Times bestseller lists at the same time, and some have remained on the paperback bestseller list for more than a decade. Many of his books have broken record for the number of copies printed. And, of course, such sales have been extremely lucrative: one