Happy Birthday to Stephen King!

Press Photo © 2006 Amy Guip
Maine's own favorite son of horror, Stephen King, celebrates his birthday today. We here at Strange Maine have been enjoying his work and its offshoots for years, and we and our wide circle of friends wish him many happy returns -- and not just because we want to keep reading his new books.

It is odd for a person who has written so much about terror and dread and fear to have a name that conjures a warm feeling in the hearts of so many people I know. I think it's because he writes about people and places that feel REAL. People who exist and react within the human condition. Places that remind us of places we know, times we remember, things long gone or yet to happen.

While we know that as a celebrity Mr. King must be showered each year with myriad birthday greetings from strangers he has never met, and that the chances of him seeing our little happy wave "Hello!" from down here in Portland and other places across the state are very slim indeed, we're sending it anyways in the hope that at sometime during the day he feels an unexpected sense of happiness and joy without knowing exactly where it came from.

For those of you giddy with the prospect of more Kingly birthday fodder, please peruse the following elements of fun for your enjoyment:

On Amazon there is a list of "Stephen King's Birthday Books" by a Pennsylvania man by the name of Steven Cullinane.

Elsewhere on the web, someone has taken the time to compile a Stephen King calendar, which lists prominent dates in his stories and life. Yes, it includes his birthday!

The StephenKing.com message board is already awash in virtual greetings.

This tale wouldn't be complete without a really strange element to throw into the pot -- just over a year after King's near miss with death, the driver who caused the accident died. He died on September 21st -- Stephen King's birthday. There is a great 2004 interview with King here at the Guardian in which this and other things are mentioned.