Stephen King honoured with endowed chair at Maine alma mater

Best-selling novelist Stephen King, best known for terrifying readers with hair-raising stories including ‘The Stand’ and ‘It’, landed a new distinction when his alma mater, the University of Maine, named an endowed professorship after him.

The ‘Stephen E. King Chair in Literature’ will be the first position at the school’s English department named after a person. The Harold Alfond Foundation is funding it with a $ 1 million grant.

“King is an inspiration for students who are fascinated by literature and its contributions to human culture,” said Emily Haddad, dean of the university’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “The opportunity to study with the King chair gives them one more reason to choose UMaine.”

King’s most recent book, ‘The Bazaar of Bad Dreams’, debuted at the top of the US fiction bestseller list in November.

King graduated from the university in 1970 and published his first novel, ‘Carrie’, three years later.