Stephen King is an American author, who has made great contributions to the book industry. He was born in Portland, Maine in 1947. As a young boy, he admired scary comic books and other science fiction movies such as Tales from the Vault and Creature from the Black Lagoon. His admiration led him to start writing unusual short stories in high school. Stephen sent the stories to science-fiction magazines but none were ever published. Oddly enough, he had always linked the small towns in his stories to the ones he had actually lived in. During and after college, King had made a living by doing odd jobs such as pumping gas and washing dishes. Despite his high school failure, at age 20, King had finally published his first story, “The Glass Floor”