Maine man Stephen King is the most successful author on the planet. He wrote 50 novels, has sold 350.000.000 books (and counting), won over a hundred international awards and saw a ton of his books being turned into films and TV-series. But those are all just numbers.

 

Stephen King – 1947, Portland, Maine – singlehandedly made popular fiction grow up. While there were many good best-selling writers before him, King brought reality to genre novels, more than anybody else since John D. MacDonald. Fantasy, horror, science fiction and thrillers: King masters every square inch of popular literature.

 

HIS work is stuff dreams are made off. There is no competition for him when it comes to being the darling of Hollywood. Even his lesser books make great movies, but his best work generates the most thrilling ones: The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Misery, Cujo, The Stand, The Mist, It and Christine are just a few of them.

 

King is often named the man who works hardest in literature and there is little proof to state differently. When he started writing in the early seventies, he literally worked day and night, using a great deal of alcohol and a myriad of drugs to see him through the nights. In the eighties he kicked these bad habits again.

 

In 1999, Stephen King was practically road kill when a van knocked him off the road while jogging. He survived and, after numerous operations, found his form back with the best book on writing ever: On writing combines autobiographical elements with admonition, inspiration and instruction.

 

Besides being an author, King is also film director and film producer. Occasionally he likes to act, as well. He is still married to his teenage love-interest Tabitha – also a writer – and has three children.

 

His novel 11-22-1963 will be filmed by director Jonathan Demme in 2013. Until then, enjoy the book and the tunes.

 

text by Ap van der Meulen