seanan_mcguire (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seanan_mcguire) wrote2012-09-21 08:42 am
seanan_mcguire) wrote2012-09-21 08:42 am
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Happy birthday, Stephen King.
Growing 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.
no subject
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.
Yes. Yes to all of this.
I was always the precocious girl, the smart kid, and I dove into Stephen King hard around fourth grade, when things were really starting to goto shit socially--or, more aptly, I started really being aware of the power structures and what was really going on. And I decided to just read instead of subject myself to further attempts at being a Normal Popular Girl.
My mom, bless her forever, started me on horror young, probably because she had me in her twenties and she wasn't ready to stop watching horror just because she had a six year old. So I got to watch the Exorcist and pepper her with a thousand questions on what I thought was the COOLEST THING EVAR about being Catholic. (It made Catholicism cool for me, for a time. Cause, fighting monsters/demons, yo! Then I found out I couldn't be a priest and that sucked.) When my mom brought home Carrie, it piqued my 4th grade interest because the movie was a part of my extensive favorites list. However, she worked all day as a nurse, so when she came home, she wanted to read. As I had just gotten home from school, this interfered with my plans.
I solved the problem by taking it to school the next day so I could read it and give it back to her when she got home. I was so thoughtful, I know.
My fourth grade math teacher, Mrs. Caputo, saw me reading while in line and pulled me out to kindly ask me, "Honey, does your mother know you are reading that book?"
I replied, "Oh yes! She reads them herself and I am reading it now to keep us from fighting over it!"
Mrs. Caputo, "....oh. Oh, well, when your mom is done with it, could you ask her if I could borrow it?"
Thus became the start of a great friendship with my fourth grade math teacher.
To this day, I also think that It saved me from the horrible depression of middle school. Or at least mitigated it to survivable levels. It was tied with Pet Semetary for my favorite King book. Also? My Master's thesis was on Arthurian legend and the Dark Tower series. Go me.
And now I think I need to go reread It.
no subject
I am glad it got you through. And your Master's thesis rocks.