I can find no better way to describe this complex man than in his own 
words.The following is from the Introduction of Nightmares and Dreamscapes,
Copyright 1993,Stephen King.

"When I was a kid I believed everything I was told,everything I read,
and every dispatch sent out by my own overheated imagination.This made for
a few sleepless nights,but it also filled the world I live in with colors
and textures I would not have traded for a lifetime of restful nights. I 
knew even then,you see,that there were people in the world-too many of them,
actually-whose imaginative senses were either numb or completely deadened,
and who lived in a mental state akin to colorblindness. I always felt 
sorry for them,never dreaming(at least then) that many of these 
unimaginative types either pitied me or held me in contempt,not just because
I suffered from any number of irrational fears but because I was deeply
and unreservedly credulous on almost every subject. "There's a boy," some of
them might have thought(I know my mother did),"who will buy the Brooklyn
Bridge not just once,but over and over again,all his life." 

It was in Ripley's Believe it or Not! that I first began to see 
how fine the line between the fabulous and the humdrum could sometimes be,
and to undertsand that the juxtaposition of the two did as much to illuminate 
the ordinary aspects of life as it did to illuminate its occasional weird
outbreaks. Remember it's belief we're talking about here, and belief is
the cradle of myth. What about reality, you ask? Well, as far as I'm
concerned, reality can go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. I've
never held much of a brief for reality,at least in my written work. All
too often it is to the imagination what ash stakes are to vampires."
SK Bangor Maine, Novemeber 6,1992

I won't repeat the entire introduction. I think that much suffices
to prove my point. Stephen King is a perfectly normal,almost boring fellow.
But,unlike most people,he calls upon those inner demons of childhood, the
ones most people put away after entering adulthood. A child whimpers at
monsters in the dark, or under the bed. A child believes that there are
things out there,and imagined or otherwise they play a very big part
in a person's life. Stephen King never locked up his childhood beliefs and
fears. He released them,as words and images conjured up in the mind of
an unsuspecting reader. King is not a demonic figure with red eyes and
a maniacial laugh. He's a boy,an imaginative,fearful,naive boy,trapped
in the body of a very talented writer. Together, they produce the stories
that have kept myself and many other constant readers awake for years.

Stephen King,as some faithful readers may have noticed, almost
invariably sets his stories in Maine. King himself was born,went to
college,and currently resides in  central Maine.He has 3 children,
Naomi Rachel,Joseph Hillstrom,and Owen Phillip, and is married to Tabitha 
King,also a novelist.Although he is rapidly approaching the age of 50, 
Stephen King will undoubtedly continue to churn out nightmares in ink and
paper for quite a while to come. And I,for one,can't wait to see what's 
next.








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