107 Fun Facts About Stephen King

What do the children who battle Pennywise in It call their group?

The Losers' Club is the band of seven Derry children—Bill, Ben, Beverly, Richie, Eddie, Mike and Stan—who fight Pennywise in 1958 and again as adults in 1985.

In Carrie, which power does a bullied teenager turn on her classmates at the prom?

Telekinesis: Carrie White learns she can move things with her mind, and when a cruel prank humiliates her at the prom she turns it on her tormentors; King based her on two girls he knew at school.

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

His wife Tabitha pulled the crumpled pages of Carrie from the wastebasket and urged him to finish it, saying she wanted to know what happened next.

What was King's day job when he wrote Carrie in the laundry room of a rented trailer?

High school English teacher: King taught at Hampden Academy in Maine and wrote in the evenings and at weekends in the trailer's laundry room, until the paperback sale of Carrie let him quit to write full time.

Which director filmed Carrie in 1976?

Brian De Palma's Carrie earned Oscar nominations for Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, and its success helped push the novel's paperback sales into the millions.

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

King published five novels as Richard Bachman from 1977 to 1984 because publishers believed readers would buy only one King book a year; the 1996 novel The Regulators also bore the name.

Who exposed King's pseudonym in 1985?

A Washington bookstore clerk noticed that the pen-name novels read like King and found a Library of Congress record naming him; the alias was then declared dead of 'cancer of the pseudonym'.

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

The Stanley in Estes Park, Colorado, was closing for the winter, leaving the Kings its only guests; that night King dreamed of a fire hose chasing his small son down the corridors and woke with the makings of the novel.

How did King describe Salem's Lot?

King called 'Salem's Lot 'Peyton Place meets Dracula': the 1975 novel drops a Dracula-style vampire, Kurt Barlow, into the gossiping small town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine.

In which King novel does a weaponized superflu nicknamed 'Captain Trips' wipe out most of humanity?

The Stand (1978) follows survivors of Captain Trips, which wipes out most of the world's population within weeks, as they gather behind Mother Abagail in Boulder or Randall Flagg in Las Vegas.

Which 1979 King novel follows Johnny Smith, who wakes from a long coma able to see people's futures?

The Dead Zone (1979): after nearly five years in a coma, Johnny shakes the hand of rising politician Greg Stillson, foresees him causing a nuclear war as president and must decide how far to go to stop him.

Which 1981 novel does King say he 'barely remembers writing' because he was drinking so heavily?

Cujo (1981), about a rabid Saint Bernard that traps a mother and son in a stalled car, is the novel King says in On Writing he barely remembers writing; he adds that he likes it and wishes he could recall enjoying the good parts.

What make and year of car is Christine?

Christine is a red-and-white 1958 Plymouth Fury that possesses its teenage owner, Arnie Cunningham; John Carpenter's film reached cinemas in December 1983, little more than seven months after the novel.

What real event inspired Pet Sematary?

His daughter's cat was killed on a nearby road in Orrington, Maine, and buried in a pet cemetery made by local children; King had also once pulled his small son back from that road, and the two frights fused into the novel.

Which King novel about a girl hunted by a secret agency became a 1984 film starring Drew Barrymore?

Firestarter (1980) gives young Charlie McGee the power to set things alight, inherited from parents dosed in a government drug trial; the agency behind it, The Shop, wants her as a weapon.

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

Annie Wilkes, a former nurse, pulls novelist Paul Sheldon from a car wreck, then rages on learning he has killed off her favourite heroine and forces him to write a book bringing Misery back to life.

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

Different Seasons (1982) was King's reply to readers who asked 'Is horror all you write?': four novellas tied to the seasons that lean on drama instead, three of which became films.

How was The Green Mile originally published in 1996?

As a serial novel in six parts: the slim paperbacks began appearing in March 1996, an idea borrowed from Dickens's instalments, and one week all six sat on the New York Times paperback bestseller list at once.

Who is the gunslinger hero of The Dark Tower series?

Roland Deschain, last gunslinger of Gilead, pursues the Man in Black across Mid-World toward the Dark Tower; King modelled him on Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name.

Which Dark Tower book arrived in 2012?

The Wind Through the Keyhole (2012) slots between the fourth and fifth books: sheltering from a ferocious storm, the gunslinger passes the time telling his companions a story with a second tale nested inside it.

What happened to King while out walking in Lovell, Maine, in June 1999?

He was struck by a minivan whose driver was distracted by his dog; badly injured, King went on to finish On Writing, closing it with a postscript about the crash.

In On Writing, King insists that 'the road to hell is paved with' which part of speech?

Adverbs: in his 2000 memoir of the craft, King calls them weeds that spread like dandelions and tells writers to cut them, above all after 'he said' and 'she said'.

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

Riding the Bullet, a ghost story sold only as a download by Simon & Schuster, drew so many orders in its first day that the servers jammed; its success pushed King to try publishing The Plant online himself.

Which 2013 novel is a sequel to The Shining?

Doctor Sleep (2013) follows a grown-up Dan Torrance, now a hospice worker, protecting a gifted girl from the True Knot; Mike Flanagan's film version starred Ewan McGregor in 2019.

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

Mr. Mercedes (2014), in which retired detective Bill Hodges hunts the driver who ploughed a stolen car into a job-fair crowd, won the 2015 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

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

Peter Straub, author of Ghost Story, wrote The Talisman with King in 1984, sending twelve-year-old Jack Sawyer across America and a parallel world to save his dying mother; they reunited for Black House in 2001.

What is bestselling novelist Joe Hill's relationship to Stephen King?

His eldest son: Joe Hill, born Joseph Hillström King in 1972, five years before his brother Owen, wrote Heart-Shaped Box, Horns and NOS4A2 under the pen name to succeed on his own merits.

Which film did King direct himself, in 1986?

Maximum Overdrive (1986) adapts King's story 'Trucks', in which machines turn on humans at a truck stop; King later admitted he was 'coked out of my mind' while directing it.

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

Castle Rock Entertainment was founded in 1987, a year after Reiner's hit Stand by Me, which is set in the town; the company went on to make Misery and The Shawshank Redemption.

Stand by Me is based on which King novella?

The Body follows four boys who hike out to find a dead boy's corpse; Rob Reiner's film moved its town from Maine to Oregon, where it was shot, and took its new title from the Ben E. King song over the end credits.

Unhappy that Kubrick's The Shining strayed from his novel, what did King do in 1997?

He wrote his own TV miniseries: the three-part ABC version, directed by Mick Garris from King's teleplay, starred Steven Weber as Jack and gave King a cameo as an orchestra conductor.

Kubrick's The Shining was shot almost entirely on soundstages at which studio?

Elstree Studios in England housed the whole Overlook, built as sets across several stages; only a few exterior shots show a real building, a mountain lodge in Oregon.

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

Room 237 is the one Dick Hallorann tells Danny to avoid; the novel's room is 217, changed at the request of the lodge used for the film's exterior, which feared guests would shun its real Room 217.

Which novella did Frank Darabont adapt into his 1994 prison film?

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption takes its title from the pin-up poster Andy hangs in his cell; Darabont paid $5,000 for the rights in 1987, and King never cashed the cheque, later sending it back framed.

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

Mansfield, Ohio, lent the film its Ohio State Reformatory, closed by court order in 1990, for exteriors and offices; the vast cellblock was a set built nearby, and fans now tour the sites on the Shawshank Trail.

Which film beat The Shawshank Redemption to Best Picture?

Forrest Gump won six Oscars at the 1995 ceremony, including Best Actor over Morgan Freeman, while Shawshank lost all seven of its nominations; a box-office disappointment, it found its audience as the top video rental of 1995.

Which star did Rob Reiner want as Andy Dufresne when he offered a fortune to direct The Shawshank Redemption himself?

Tom Cruise had just starred in Reiner's A Few Good Men; Darabont turned the money down to direct his own script, and Cruise later passed on the part, wary of a first-time director.

Where does Andy dream of living after Shawshank?

Zihuatanejo, Mexico, is the Pacific town Andy calls a place with no memory; the beach reunion was added at a producer's urging, since Darabont's script ended with Red on a bus heading for the border.

Who plays Pennywise in the 2017 film It?

Bill Skarsgård won the part only after Will Poulter, cast first, left the project when its original director departed; he returned as the clown in HBO's 2025 prequel series Welcome to Derry.

Roughly how much did the 2017 film It gross at the worldwide box office?

It (2017) took about $700 million worldwide on a $35 million budget, the biggest total for a horror film up to that point, and the 2019 sequel It Chapter Two added roughly $470 million.

Which organisation gave King its 2003 medal for distinguished contribution to American letters?

The National Book Foundation gave King its lifetime medal in 2003; accepting it, he quoted the novelist Frank Norris, 'I never truckled, I never lied. I told the truth', and called that his own bottom line.

Which novel did a bookmobile driver hand young King when he asked for 'stories about how kids really are'?

Lord of the Flies was, King wrote in a 2011 introduction, 'the first book with hands', one that seized him by the throat and showed him what novels are for.

King played guitar in which charity band made up of bestselling authors?

The Rock Bottom Remainders, named for unsold books sold off cheap, first played at a 1992 booksellers' convention with Amy Tan and Dave Barry; Bruce Springsteen once sat in and told them not to get any better.

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

Bag of Bones took King to Scribner after talks with Viking, his publisher of nearly two decades, broke down over a reported $18 million advance; he took far less up front in return for a share of the profits.

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

Sarasota, Florida, on the Gulf Coast, is the Kings' winter base; in 2019 they arranged to turn the Bangor house into an archive and writers' retreat.

Stephen King is tied to Bangor, but in which Maine city was he born in 1947?

Portland was King's birthplace, but his father left when he was two and the family moved between relatives' towns before his mother settled them in Durham, Maine, when he was 11.

Who changed the King family's surname?

Stephen's father, Donald, was born under another surname, reported as Pollock, and took the name King as an adult, years before he walked out on the family when Stephen was two.

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

Cavalier, a men's magazine, bought early King stories such as 'Graveyard Shift', and the cheques gave the young family occasional extra cash; Carrie began as a short story he meant to sell there.

In King's 11/22/63, a man travels back in time to prevent which event?

The Kennedy assassination: the title is its date, 22 November 1963, but the portal in a friend's diner always opens onto 1958, so Jake Epping must live five years in the past before he can act.

Which 2009 King novel, set in Chester's Mill, Maine, became a CBS summer series in 2013?

Under the Dome (2009) seals Chester's Mill off from the world beneath an invisible barrier, and selectman Big Jim Rennie uses the crisis to seize control of the town.

Which 1987 novel, full of addiction metaphors, was King's last before his wife staged an intervention?

The Tommyknockers (1987), about townsfolk changed by a buried alien ship, is a book King now calls awful; soon after it, Tabitha and the family confronted him with a trash bag of his beer cans, cocaine and pills.

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

The Eyes of the Dragon was written for Naomi, then 13, who had read none of his novels and had little interest in his monsters; she picked up the manuscript without enthusiasm, and the story won her over.

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

Gerald's Game and Dolores Claiborne, both published in 1992, share the total solar eclipse of 20 July 1963, during which Jessie Burlingame and Dolores each glimpse the other's ordeal.

Which 2008 King novel follows a man who loses an arm in an accident and takes up painting?

Duma Key (2008) sends Edgar Freemantle from Minnesota to a rented house on a Florida island, where his new paintings begin to change reality.

Which novel did King co-write with his son Owen, set around a women's prison in a small Appalachian town?

Sleeping Beauties (2017), written with Owen King, imagines a sickness that wraps women in cocoons as they fall asleep, all except the mysterious Evie, an inmate of the town's prison.

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

Creepshow (1982), five comic-book-style tales scripted by King and directed by George A. Romero, pays tribute to the EC horror comics of the 1950s; King himself acts in 'The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill'.

Which critic attacked King's 2003 literary honour as 'dumbing down our cultural life'?

Harold Bloom, the Yale critic, wrote in the Boston Globe that honouring King was 'another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life', calling him 'an immensely inadequate writer'.

The title of Stephen King's The Shining was inspired by a song from which former Beatle?

John Lennon's 1970 single Instant Karma! supplied the title. An earlier King idea, about a psychic boy in an amusement park, had been called Darkshine.

Which pop superstar co-wrote the 1996 short horror film Ghosts with Stephen King and starred in it?

Michael Jackson played five roles in Ghosts, which ran over 38 minutes and held the Guinness record for the longest music video until 2013.

For decades, Stephen King let student filmmakers adapt his short stories for what token fee?

$1 was the price of his Dollar Baby deal, and a 20-year-old Frank Darabont used it to film The Woman in the Room before directing three King features.

Why is the word cemetery spelled wrongly in the title of Stephen King's novel Pet Sematary?

It copies a graveyard's sign: in the story the town's children tend a woodland burial plot for their animals, and its sign carries the misspelling.

In Stephen King's It, what is six-year-old Georgie chasing when he meets Pennywise at a storm drain?

A paper boat sails down a flooded gutter and into the drain, and the clown coaxes Georgie to reach in after it, the killing that opens the story.

Which actress won an Academy Award as the obsessive nurse in the 1990 film of Stephen King's Misery?

Kathy Bates won Best Actress for the part, which made Misery the first film of a Stephen King novel to take home an Academy Award.

Which hard rock band, a Stephen King favourite, scored the only film he directed?

AC/DC, King's favourite band, scored the whole film and released the music as the album Who Made Who.

In which fictional Maine town does Pennywise the clown prey on children in Stephen King's It?

Derry is King's own portrait of Bangor, as he told a biographer, and the town returns as a setting in several of his other novels.

Which actor played Pennywise the clown in the 1990 television miniseries of Stephen King's It?

Tim Curry gave the clown a Bronx accent, modelling the voice on an old-time Catskills comic, and improvised much of his menace on set.

In Stephen King's novella The Mist, where do townspeople shelter as monsters prowl the fog outside?

A supermarket is the refuge because King dreamed up the story in one, imagining giant insects besieging the building as he shopped after a thunderstorm.

Which of the seven friends in Stephen King's It grows up to become a successful horror writer?

Bill Denbrough, the stuttering older brother of the clown's first victim, becomes a horror author, while Ben turns architect and Richie a disc jockey.

Which school bully leads the gang that hounds the seven friends in Stephen King's It?

Henry Bowers starts by harassing Ben on the last day of school, and the creature later manipulates him into murdering his own abusive father.

Which of the seven friends in Stephen King's It stays in town as the librarian and calls the others back?

Mike Hanlon stays behind while the six others move away and forget the whole ordeal, so it falls to him to phone them when the child killings start again.

In Stephen King's It, what kind of animal is Maturin, the ancient being that created the universe?

A turtle is the monster's cosmic opposite: one of the children meets Maturin in the void during the ritual they use to fight the creature.

Which Saturday Night Live alumnus played the adult Richie in the Stephen King film It Chapter Two?

Bill Hader was the pick of Finn Wolfhard, the young Richie, when the child cast were asked who should play them as adults, and the studio agreed.

In Stephen King's It, what do the children call the marshy wasteland where they escape the school bullies?

The Barrens is where Ben flees his tormentors on the last day of school, and where the group later drives the gang off in a rock fight.

Which filmmaker directed the 2017 film of Stephen King's It after Cary Fukunaga dropped out?

Andy Muschietti, the Argentine director who broke through with the horror film Mama, took over later in 2015 and stayed on for the 2019 sequel.

In the 2019 film It Chapter Two, Stephen King has a cameo as the owner of what kind of business?

A pawn shop is King's patch in the sequel, which also finds room for the veteran director Peter Bogdanovich, playing himself on a film set.

In Stephen King's The Green Mile, what animal does death-row inmate Eduard Delacroix teach to do tricks?

A mouse named Mr. Jingles becomes his closest friend on death row, and after a miraculous healing the animal lives on for another 64 years.

In Stephen King's Children of the Corn, a couple driving through which state find a town with no adults?

Nebraska is where Burt and Vicky reach a deserted town whose abandoned stores show calendars over a decade out of date, with only children's laughter to be heard.

Which real baseball closer is the hero of the lost nine-year-old girl in a 1999 Stephen King novel?

Tom Gordon is the Red Sox pitcher Trisha follows on her Walkman; cornered by a bear, she copies his stance and hurls the radio at its face.

Which Stephen King novel about a writer's murderous pen name was his answer to being unmasked?

The Dark Half gives its novelist a buried alter ego called George Stark, whose surname salutes the alias under which Donald E. Westlake wrote crime fiction.

Which Stephen King novel has shopkeeper Leland Gaunt trade treasures for pranks on the neighbours?

Needful Things is the name of Gaunt's antique shop, where prices are low but each buyer must also play a trick that sets the townspeople against one another.

Which novel about a famous author's widow has Stephen King called his favourite of all his own books?

Lisey's Story follows Lisey Landon as she clears her late husband's study two years after his death and uncovers the other world he used to escape to.

Which Stephen King novel appeared in 1996 at the same time as The Regulators, its mirror-image twin?

Desperation shares its demon, Tak, with the twin book, which King put out on the same day under his old pen name.

Which Victorian poet wrote the poem that chiefly inspired Stephen King's Dark Tower series?

Robert Browning's poem is printed in full in the final volume, and King also credits The Lord of the Rings and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Which 1981 non-fiction book by Stephen King surveys horror in print, film, radio, television and comics?

Danse Macabre opens on 4 October 1957, the day the Soviet launch of Sputnik gave the young King his first taste of what he calls real terror.

In the film of Stephen King's Misery, what tool replaces the axe the nurse wields in the novel?

A sledgehammer breaks both his ankles on screen because director Rob Reiner insisted on toning down the book, where the foot is cut off and cauterised.

How is the Overlook Hotel destroyed at the end of Stephen King's novel The Shining?

Its boiler explodes after Danny reminds the possessed hotel that his father has forgotten to release the pressure; Kubrick's version leaves the building standing.

In Stephen King's novella The Langoliers, where do a handful of sleepers wake to find everyone else gone?

On a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston, only the passengers who were asleep remain, and the airliner is flying on autopilot with no crew.

Which action star played Ben Richards in the 1987 film of Stephen King's The Running Man?

Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced Christopher Reeve in the lead, and the film made its hero a framed police officer forced onto a deadly game show.

Which British actor played the gunslinger hero in the 2017 film of Stephen King's The Dark Tower?

Idris Elba, whom the film's director had admired since The Wire, faced Matthew McConaughey as his nemesis.

Which actor played the mystery writer Mort Rainey in the 2004 Stephen King film Secret Window?

Johnny Depp's reclusive novelist is accused of plagiarism by a stranger named John Shooter, who turns up at his cabin in upstate New York.

Which horror director's film of Stephen King's Christine came out in the same year as the novel?

John Carpenter took the job when delays stalled two other projects, one of them another King adaptation, Firestarter, and he co-wrote the score himself.

Stephen King sued successfully to have his name removed from which 1992 virtual-reality film?

The Lawnmower Man strayed so far from his short story that a court ordered his name off it, and he won further damages when the home video put it back.

Before his novels sold, Stephen King worked in what kind of business that inspired his story The Mangler?

A laundry gave him the speed ironer of the story, a folding machine the workers nickname the mangler, which starts pulling its operators inside.

Stephen King long owned what kind of business in Bangor, trading as the Zone Corporation?

Radio stations were his sideline: he bought the rock outlet WKIT in 1995 to sit beside WZON, then announced the group's closure in 2024, citing financial losses.

Which British actor played the fugitive Nazi war criminal in the 1998 film of Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

Ian McKellen played Kurt Dussander, who is living quietly in California under a false name when a high school student works out who he really is.

Which alien-invasion novel did Stephen King write out by hand while recovering from serious injuries?

Dreamcatcher was finished in longhand in about half a year, and King found that the slow work of pen and paper helped him recuperate.

Which demonic Stephen King villain recurs across at least nine novels under aliases such as Walter o'Dim?

Randall Flagg usually travels under names sharing his initials, and King traced him back to a poem he wrote in college about a drifter who confesses to murder.

Which death-row prisoner in Stephen King's The Green Mile turns out to have a miraculous healing touch?

John Coffey, a towering man condemned for the murder of two girls, first shows the gift by curing the block supervisor's painful infection.

Which struggling writer takes a winter caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King's The Shining?

Jack Torrance needs the isolated job because his drinking and temper cost him a teaching post, after he assaulted a student.

Which Overlook Hotel chef shares young Danny's psychic gift in Stephen King's The Shining?

Dick Hallorann picks up the boy's psychic distress call while working at a faraway winter resort and rushes back to the snowbound hotel to help.

Which novelist is nursed, then imprisoned, by his rescuer after a car crash in Stephen King's Misery?

Paul Sheldon is made to burn his new crime manuscript and bring his dead romance heroine back to life on an antique Royal typewriter.

Which private detective recurs in Stephen King's crime fiction and got a 2023 novel named after her?

Holly Gibney began as a supporting character and worked her way up to solo cases; King has admitted that she stole his heart.

Which elderly neighbour leads Louis Creed to the ancient burial ground in Stephen King's Pet Sematary?

Jud Crandall knows what the ground can do because, as he later admits, he went through the same thing with a beloved dog when he was a boy.

Which young girl in Stephen King's Firestarter can set things ablaze with her mind?

Charlie McGee is hunted with her father by a government agency called the Shop, which once tested a hallucinogenic drug on him at college.

Who is the only girl among the seven friends who fight the clown in Stephen King's It?

Beverly Marsh sees blood fountain from her bathroom sink that no adult can see, and she grows up to become a fashion designer.

Which sadistic guard in Stephen King's The Green Mile deliberately sabotages a prisoner's execution?

Percy Wetmore leaves the sponge in the electric chair's cap dry, having refused a better job elsewhere until he was allowed to run an execution.

In Stephen King's novel The Shining, what comes to life in the hotel gardens to menace the family?

Topiary animals come alive in the book, but Kubrick's film dropped them for a hedge maze because the special effects of the day could not manage them.