Happy birthday, Stephen King.
Sep. 21st, 2012 08:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seanan_mcguireGrowing up in the 1980s means that I can't remember when I first heard of Stephen King, because everyone had heard of Stephen King. I know I giggled with recognition and delight when I saw the shirt that Sean was wearing in The Monster Squad (1987). By that point, I had already seen the "Gramma" episode of The New Twilight Zone (1986), and Creepshow (1982; I didn't see the theatrical release, so you can stop freaking out about what kind of movies my family took the four-year-old to see). Stephen King was my background radiation. Bruce Banner got Gamma Rays. I got a baseball fanatic from the state of Maine.
(Had someone told me when I was eight that Stephen King loved baseball, I might have learned to give a damn about the game. Clearly, the universe missed a bet.)
The first really serious piece of writing I can remember doing was a twelve-page essay, when I was nine, explaining to my mother why she had to let me read Stephen King. It had footnotes and a bibliography. I slid it under her bedroom door; she bought me a copy of Christine from the used bookstore down the street. I had already read Cujo and Carrie illicitly, sneaking pages like other kids snuck looks at dirty magazines, but Christine was my first ALLOWED Stephen King. I devoured it. And then, like a horror-fiction-focused Pac-Man, I turned on the rest.
Stephen King, without ever knowing who I was, helped me through some of the hardest times in my life. I read IT all the way through a court case that seemed like it was going to destroy everything I loved, forever. I was nine. My grandmother bought me his new hardcovers every year for Christmas. I bought tattered paperbacks with nickels I had hidden in my pillowcase, where no one else could find them. I skipped meals to buy more books. I read them all, over and over, and I endured. He taught me that sometimes, dead is better, things change, and you own what you build. He taught me to read if I wanted to write, and to love the words, and to never be ashamed of loving whatever the hell it was I wanted to love.
In a weird way, Stephen King gave me permission for a great many things, and since those things are integral to who I grew up to be, I have to say that he, through his work, was just as big an influence on me as any other adult in my life.
He taught me you can get out.
Today is his birthday; he was born in 1947, and he's still writing today, which I appreciate greatly. I may never meet him, and that's probably a good thing, as I'm not sure I'd be able to speak English if I did. But I surely do appreciate the man.
Happy birthday, Stephen King.
Thank you.
(Had someone told me when I was eight that Stephen King loved baseball, I might have learned to give a damn about the game. Clearly, the universe missed a bet.)
The first really serious piece of writing I can remember doing was a twelve-page essay, when I was nine, explaining to my mother why she had to let me read Stephen King. It had footnotes and a bibliography. I slid it under her bedroom door; she bought me a copy of Christine from the used bookstore down the street. I had already read Cujo and Carrie illicitly, sneaking pages like other kids snuck looks at dirty magazines, but Christine was my first ALLOWED Stephen King. I devoured it. And then, like a horror-fiction-focused Pac-Man, I turned on the rest.
Stephen King, without ever knowing who I was, helped me through some of the hardest times in my life. I read IT all the way through a court case that seemed like it was going to destroy everything I loved, forever. I was nine. My grandmother bought me his new hardcovers every year for Christmas. I bought tattered paperbacks with nickels I had hidden in my pillowcase, where no one else could find them. I skipped meals to buy more books. I read them all, over and over, and I endured. He taught me that sometimes, dead is better, things change, and you own what you build. He taught me to read if I wanted to write, and to love the words, and to never be ashamed of loving whatever the hell it was I wanted to love.
In a weird way, Stephen King gave me permission for a great many things, and since those things are integral to who I grew up to be, I have to say that he, through his work, was just as big an influence on me as any other adult in my life.
He taught me you can get out.
Today is his birthday; he was born in 1947, and he's still writing today, which I appreciate greatly. I may never meet him, and that's probably a good thing, as I'm not sure I'd be able to speak English if I did. But I surely do appreciate the man.
Happy birthday, Stephen King.
Thank you.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-09-22 08:41 am (UTC)I hope your books are providing windows and doors for children, which is the best blessing I can wish on a writer.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-22 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-24 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-22 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-22 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-22 08:19 pm (UTC)Also, Monster Squad! I had a minor obsession with that movie in the late 80s; I used to scan the TV Guide to find all the times when HBO might be showing it so I could watch it over and over, until my mom finally bought me a copy. I also had such a crush on Rudy (Ryan Lambert), but that's neither here nor there, lol.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-23 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-28 09:40 am (UTC)I've read The Stand (paperback copy) to tatters-six times. It remains my favorite work. I was also lucky enough to get first edition hard cover copies of The Stand (both the original edition and the full edition published years later once he became a commercial success and the publisher was willing to have him add back the extra pages) signed by Stephen King about twenty years ago. They are locked away in metal safe box in my apartment for safe keeping. I will never, ever sell them.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-01 06:03 pm (UTC)