...Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right- as right as you can, anyway- it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it....

American fiction writer. Born in Portland, Maine, King grew up fascinated with horror comics and began writing macabre tales while still a teenager. Not long after graduating with a degree in English from the University of Maine in 1970, he began his first novel, Carrie (1973), a best-selling supernatural thriller soon followed by Salem's Lot (1975), The Shining (1977), and the serialized fantasy The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger (1977–1981). Today King is a publishing phenomenon; his forty-nine novels, five nonfiction books, and nine collections of short stories have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide. Even after sustaining severe injuries in a 1999 road accident, he has managed to fulfill his daily quota of 2,000 words. See also stephenking.com.