(During late 1990’s when this writer resided in Los Angeles for nearly a year working as screenwriter on Hollywood movies, he had the pleasure of and privilege of having an ‘Across the American Continent- long distance’ chat- with Stephen King who lives in a Victorian mansion in Bangor, Maine, one of the states of New England. During the chat he spoke of his life and career in detail. Memorable milestone moments in this writer's life!)

News has just reached this writer in Madras that the National Book Foundation has awarded Stephen King its 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Thus King now joins the glittering galaxy of American Literature which includes classic writers like John Updike, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Toni Morrison. A signal achievement indeed for the maestro of the horror genre. Bravo Stephen! Congrats from a friend in India!

The Award, given by the organizers of the National Book Award, carries a $10,000 prize but King would return it to the Foundation for the carrying out its projects and objectives for the support of education, especially children. Of course King said with glee that he would keep Commemoration Medal!

As it often happens in such cases some ‘groaners’ and ‘moaners’ among eye-brow -knitting critics have commented that the award is to be given only to writers of classic literature and not of light entertainment and ‘time pass’ stuff written for the unwashed multitude! This is a kind of ‘racism’ and intellectual snobbery in American Literature and needs to be condemned. Some critics even divide writer as 'classic', and 'commercial'. This is nonsense. A book is a book is a book, as they say, and as Oscar Wilde commented there are only two kinds of books, the good and the bad. If a book entertains and pleases worldwide readers its writer is to be applauded and awarded.

More than three hundred million copies of King’s books have been sold in thirty-five countries and translated into thirty languages. and the number of books sold is continuously creeping up like shadows of the dark weird scary night! Some of this successful novels include `Carrie` (1974), `The Shining` (1977), `Pet Sematary` (1983), and `Misery` (1987) -- all of which were made into popular films. His other books have topped the List of Best-Sellers for months are `Salem’s Lot`, `The Eyes of the Dragon`, `Different Seasons`, `Night Shift`, `Skeleton Crew`, `Wizard and Glass`, all these and many more have been best sellers around the world

`The Shining` was a major success made by Stanley Kubric with the celebrated Hollywood star Jack Nicholson in the lead. Even though the film was a hit, critics complained that Kubric had made so many changes that King's novel was barely recognizable. Well, that’s movies, as they say.

There is an interesting sidelight connected with the writing of `The Shining` which needs to be told. King wrote a good part of the novel at ‘Stanley Hotel’ in Estes Park, Colorado. This is a vintage hotel of some historic importance. King stayed at ‘room number ‘217’ and worked on the novel. Later when the book was made into a mini TV series he went back to the same hotel and stayed in the same room working on the project. Superstition? Numerology? One wonders!

Because of its association with King and his famous novel, his fans around the world visit the hotel and take their pictures standing in front of it!

King has been called by many alluring epithets. `The Master of the Macabre`, `King of Horror`, `Wizard of the Weird` and `Artist of Darkness` and such. In late 1990’s he sent sizzling shocks of shivers up the spines of New York publishers when he demanded an unheard-of mega buck advance of $17 million for his work in progress, `Bag of Bones`! As a professor at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) told this writer, "Stephen King found dollars in the darkness of the human mind!"

Stephen Edwin King was born on September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine, USA, as the second son of Donald and Nellie King. He went to school in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Stratford, Connecticut. He graduated from the University of Maine in 1970 with a degree in English. Unable to get his tales and novels published he worked as a laborer in a laundry. Later he taught English at Hampden Academy, Hampden, Maine.

He began writing in 1954 and published his first tale of terror in 1965 `I Was a Teen-age Grave Robber`. Many of his early novels met with rejection from publishers. One novel, `Sword in the Darkness` toured as many as twelve publishers’ offices and came back like an ardent homing pigeon! But he persisted and hit the bull’s eye with `Carrie` in 1974. Since then he has never looked back. He received many awards, like World Fantasy Award, Nebula Award and British Fantasy Award.

His success had never been easy. Success rarely is! As his biographer, Douglas Winter put it, "There were more than two thousand pages of unpublished manuscripts, years of collecting rejection slips and publishing short fiction in obscure and unnoticed magazines."

What drew him to the genre of Horror Fiction?