60 Fun Facts About Stephen King

In which US state was Stephen King born and where are most of his stories set?

He was born in Portland in 1947, grew up in Durham and lives in Bangor; Castle Rock and Derry are his invented Maine towns.

What was Stephen King's debut novel, published in 1974?

He threw the first three pages in the bin; his wife Tabitha fished them out and told him to keep going.

Who rescued the first pages of King's debut novel from the wastebasket?

She wanted to know what happened next; the story had been meant for the men's magazine Cavalier.

Where was King living, and what was his day job, when he wrote his debut novel?

He sold short stories to men's magazines on the side; Doubleday's Bill Thompson bought the manuscript in 1973.

What was the hardcover print run of King's debut in April 1974?

The 1975 paperback went on to sell four million copies after Brian De Palma's film.

Under what pen name did King publish Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man and Thinner?

Publishers thought the public would only accept one King book a year; the surname came from Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Who exposed King's pseudonym in 1985?

Brown noticed the stylistic similarities and found publisher records at the Library of Congress; King announced Bachman had died of 'cancer of the pseudonym'.

Where did King stay before writing The Shining, which became the model for the Overlook?

The novel is about an alcoholic writer caretaking a hotel for the winter; King later admitted he suspected he was an alcoholic himself at the time.

How did King describe Salem's Lot?

His mother died of cancer around the time it was published.

Which apocalyptic pandemic novel did King say took him longest to write and is his readers' favourite?

He finished it after returning to Auburn in 1975.

Which 1979 King novel about a man with second sight was the first set in his fictional town of Castle Rock?

King said that with it, 'I really hit my stride'; Rob Reiner later named his production company after the town.

Which 1981 novel does King say he 'barely remembers writing' because of his addictions?

His wife staged an intervention after The Tommyknockers, and Needful Things was his first sober novel.

What make and year of car is Christine?

The haunted car comes between 17-year-old misfit Arnie Cunningham and his new girlfriend.

What real event inspired Pet Sematary?

Local children had built a pet cemetery; King found the resulting book too disturbing and only published it to fulfil his Doubleday contract.

King described which novel as a 'final exam on horror', putting in all the monsters kids fear?

Seven children in Derry, Maine, are terrorised by an entity that takes the shape of their fears; it won the 1987 August Derleth Award.

What is the name of the 'number-one fan' who holds a writer captive in Misery?

The novel shared the first Bram Stoker Award; King had planned to publish it as Bachman before the pseudonym was blown.

Which 1982 collection of four novellas produced Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption and Apt Pupil?

The fourth novella, The Breathing Method, won the British Fantasy Award.

How was The Green Mile originally published in 1996?

It held six positions on the New York Times paperback bestseller list at once.

What is the premise of King's 2011 novel 11/22/63?

Errol Morris called it one of the best time-travel stories since H. G. Wells; it won the LA Times Book Prize for mystery/thriller.

Who is the gunslinger hero of The Dark Tower series?

He pursues the Man in Black across an alternate universe; the eight-volume epic ran from 1978 to 2012.

How many volumes make up The Dark Tower, published between 1978 and 2012?

The first, The Gunslinger, appeared in five instalments in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction; King wrote himself into three of the later books.

On June 19, 1999, what happened to Stephen King while walking on Route 5 in Lovell, Maine?

Driver Bryan Smith was distracted by an unrestrained dog; King suffered a collapsed lung and multiple leg fractures, and warned his nurses against Misery jokes.

What was the 2000 book On Writing?

The Wall Street Journal called it 'a one-of-a-kind classic'; his other major nonfiction is Danse Macabre (1981).

Which King story became 'the world's first mass e-book' in 2000, with over 500,000 downloads?

He followed it with The Plant, released in pay-what-you-want instalments and never finished.

Which 2013 novel is a sequel to The Shining?

It follows a grown-up Danny Torrance and was filmed in 2019.

Which 2014 King crime novel about a retired policeman won the Edgar Award for Best Novel?

It introduced Holly Gibney, who has since carried novels including The Outsider, Holly and Never Flinch.

Which fellow horror novelist co-wrote The Talisman and Black House with King?

Straub said only Neil Gaiman could correctly tell which of them wrote which passages.

Which of King's sons is a bestselling horror novelist under the name Joe Hill?

King co-wrote Throttle with Joe Hill and Sleeping Beauties with Owen King.

Which film did King direct himself, in 1986?

It was based on his story 'Trucks'; he has never directed another.

Rob Reiner named his production company after which fictional King town?

Castle Rock Entertainment went on to make Misery and The Shawshank Redemption.

Stand by Me is based on which King novella?

Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell play four boys hunting for a corpse in 1959.

Why did King dislike Stanley Kubrick's The Shining enough to make his own miniseries in 1997?

Kubrick's film also received two Razzie nominations, and Shelley Duvall's was rescinded in 2022 over her treatment on set.

Where was Kubrick's The Shining mostly filmed?

The Overlook set was the largest ever built at Elstree, with the Ahwahnee Hotel's lounge as a model.

Which number is Danny warned to stay away from in Kubrick's The Shining?

The novel's room is 217; Kubrick changed the number for the film.

Frank Darabont's 1994 prison film is based on which King novella?

Frank Darabont got a $25 million budget from Castle Rock two weeks after submitting the script.

Although set in Maine, where was The Shawshank Redemption actually filmed?

The Ohio State Reformatory served as the penitentiary; the film flopped in cinemas before TNT broadcasts made it a classic.

How many Oscar nominations did The Shawshank Redemption receive, winning none?

Its box-office failure was blamed on Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump and a confusing title; the reissue and overseas takings lifted it to $73 million.

Which stars were attracted to the role of Andy Dufresne before Tim Robbins?

Morgan Freeman's Red was written as an Irishman in the novella, hence the 'maybe it's because I'm Irish' joke.

Where does Andy dream of living after Shawshank?

He asks Red to dig up a package he buried in a hayfield near Buxton once Red is released.

Who plays Pennywise in the 2017 film It?

Tim Curry played the clown in the 1990 miniseries; Skarsgård returned for the HBO prequel Welcome to Derry in 2025.

It (2017) became the highest-grossing horror film ever, unadjusted for inflation, with roughly how much?

It was the third-highest-grossing R-rated film at release; the kids of the Losers' Club were played by, among others, Jaeden Lieberher and Finn Wolfhard.

Which prestigious 2003 award did King receive, to the annoyance of some literary critics?

He received the National Medal of Arts in 2014 and the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master award in 2007.

Which novel did a bookmobile librarian hand young King, who wanted 'stories about how kids really are'?

He called it 'the first book with hands' and said it represented what novels are for.

What was King's first professionally sold short story, bought by Startling Mystery Stories in 1967?

He was a student at the University of Maine at Orono, where he met Tabitha Spruce in a writing workshop.

King plays guitar in which charity band made up of authors?

Bandmates have included Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Scott Turow, Mitch Albom and Matt Groening.

Which 1998 novel about a widowed novelist was King's first with Scribner and won a Bram Stoker Award?

Reviewers saw it as a sign of a maturing writer with 'far more insight into the human condition'.

Besides Bangor and Lovell in Maine, where do the Kings winter?

Duma Key (2008) was his first novel set in Florida; the Bangor house is set to become an archive and writers' retreat.

In which Maine city was Stephen King born on September 21, 1947?

His father, a travelling vacuum salesman, walked out when Stephen was two, leaving his mother to raise the boys alone.

What was King's father's original surname before he changed it to King as an adult?

Donald Edwin King, born in Indiana, left the family when Stephen was two; his mother Nellie Ruth raised the boys alone.

Where did King study on a scholarship from 1966, graduating in English in 1970?

He wrote for the student paper The Maine Campus and later returned to teach creative writing there in 1977.

Which magazine published many of King's early short stories, and was the intended home of Carrie?

Carrie grew from a short story meant for the men's magazine after King combined adolescent cruelty with telekinesis.

Under what one-off pseudonym did King publish 'The Fifth Quarter' in 1972?

The name belongs to a character in Carrie; Bachman came later and was exposed in 1985.

The surname of King's best-known pseudonym was borrowed from which band?

The first name nodded to Richard Stark, the pen name of crime writer Donald Westlake.

Which 1987 novel, full of addiction metaphors, prompted King's wife to stage an intervention?

He agreed to seek treatment, and Needful Things in 1991 became his first novel written sober.

Which high-fantasy novel did King originally write for his daughter Naomi?

It was a departure from the horror that had made him famous in the mid-1980s.

Which two 1992 novels about women are loosely linked by a solar eclipse?

Dolores Claiborne became a 1995 film starring Kathy Bates.

Which 2008 novel was King's first set in Florida, where he winters?

It was published alongside the collection Just After Sunset.

Which novel did King co-write with his son Owen, set in a West Virginia women's prison?

He wrote the novella Throttle with his other son, Joe Hill, in 2009.

Which George A. Romero film marked King's screenwriting debut in 1982?

It was a tribute to the EC horror comics King devoured as a boy.

Which critic blasted King's 2003 National Book Foundation medal as 'dumbing down our cultural life'?

That year's fiction winner Shirley Hazzard also criticised King, later admitting she had never read him.