Tabitha Spruce King (1949 - )

Genre: Non-Fiction, General Fiction

Tabitha (Tabby) King might be best known for being the wife of Stephen King, but she is also a novelist, photographer, community leader, and philanthropist. A native of Old Town, Maine, Tabitha King attended the University of Maine in Orono, where she met her husband at a writing seminar. The were married in Jan. 1971 and have three grown children. Tabitha King lives in Bangor with her husband.

Tabitha King has been awarded the Maine Humanities Council Constance H. Carlson Public Humanities Prize (1998), for her 'devoted efforts [which] have kindled a passion for reading and a love of ideas in Maine people of all ages. We honor her activism in supporting reading and literacy programs for Mainers of all ages, her leadership and advocacy on behalf of institutions that bring the joy of learning to a wider public, and her powerful work as a writer.' She also received the Maryann Hartman Award (2001), which recognizes women whose achievements provide inspiration to other women. She and Stephen King run the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, which is well-known in Maine for its generosity to libraries and organizations involved with literacy, community services and the arts. Tabitha King has also been cited for her leadership of a capital campaign to renovate the Bangor Public Library and her role as a trustee of Maine Public Broadcasting. As a member of the Maine Humanities Council Board, she encouraged the Council to reach out to at-risk children, adult new readers, library patrons in rural communities, incarcerated men and women, the elderly and the disabled.

Her novels include:

• Small World (1981), story of a woman in a doll's house
• Caretakers (1983), a haunting novel about love against all odds, set in the fictional town of Nodd's Ridge, Maine.
• The Trap (1985), published in the U.K. as Wolves at the Door, a woman's terrifying fight for survival against unspeakable wickedness.
• Pearl (1988), about a violent love triangle in a small Maine town.
• One on One (1993) a coming-of-age story on and off the basketball court, of sexual initiation and an awakening into love.
• The Book of Reuben (1994), prequel to Pearl and One on One, another Nodd's Ridge novel.
• Survivor (1997), in which a beautiful photographer who escapes harm when a car swerves past her, killing two pedestrians, has trouble shaking off the after effects and comes to unsettling crossroads in her life.

She also wrote the foreword to the 1991 edition of Stephen King's Carrie; published Playing Like A Girl: Cindy Blodgett and the Lawrence Bulldogs Season of '93-'94 (1994), a non-fiction work about the high school basketball career of Cindy Blodgett; and photographed the coffee-table book Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America With Three Chords and an Attitude (1994), edited by Dave Marsh, about the all-author band in which she and Stephen King perform. Other members include Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Tad Bartimus, Barbara Kingsolver, Robert Fulghum, Joel Selvin, Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groening, Griel Marcus, Dave Marsh, Al Kooper, and Kathi Goldmark.


Last Update: 08/02/2007

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