(born 1947) Master of the American macabre in bestselling novels and chilling films. Born and resident in Maine, which provides apparently innocent settings for some stories, King specializes in nearly annual excursions to the horror beneath the normal, beginning with his revisit to high-school proms laced with telekenisis in Carrie (1973). If you cannot trust the prom queen, can you trust your family? No: The Shining (1976). Your car? No: Christine (1983). The dog? No: Cujo (1981). Your fans? No: Misery (1987). King seemed entrapped in his fictional universe when a driver severely injured him as he walked beside the road in 1999. In 2000, he became a pioneer in e-publication.