Well, I am kind of hoping that an author/actor will fit in here, because I have chosen Stephen King. (Pen names used: Richard Bachman, and John Swithin)

Stephen King has been my favorite author since I was in high school. The man is just brilliant! I currently own 29 of his hard covers, including his book "On Writing"

King was born in 1947, and has lived most of his life in Maine. He attended the University of Maine at Orono, where he met his wife, Tabitha, and they have three children, Naomi, Joe, and Owen.

Stephen King began writing when he was nine years old, and his aunt paid him a quarter each time he finished a story. He and his brother used a printing machine as kids, and Stephen King used this to print out school newspapers he had typed up in his basement.

In 1987, Kings family and friends confronted him with his addictions, after going through his garbage and finding beer cans, cigerette butts, cocain, marijuana, pills, and cough medicines. After this, he got help, and has been sober every since.

In 1999, King finished the memoir section of "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" but left it unfinished for nearly a year and a half as he didn't know how to proceed with it. On June 19th, when walking on the side of the road, a minivan struck King, throwing him 14 feet from the road side. He spent three weeks in the hospital, with a collapsed lung, cuts to the right leg, scalp lacerations and a broken hip.

In 2002 King announced he was going to stop writing, due to his injuries. He has kept writing, but also stated on his website:

"I'm writing but I'm writing at a much slower pace than previously and I think that if I come up with something really, really good, I would be perfectly willing to publish it because that still feels like the final act of the creative process, publishing it so people can read it and you can get feedback and people can talk about it with each other and with you, the writer, but the force of my invention has slowed down a lot over the years and that's as it should be."

King was a high school English teacher when his first novel, "Carrie" was accepted for publication. He has since written and published more than 30 novels, including, but not limited to:

~The Shining, The Stand, It, Desperation, The Green Mile, Cujo, Christine, The Dark Tower Series, Cycle of the Werewolf, Deloris Claiborne, From a Buick 8, Misery, and many, many more...

I especially enjoyed "Bag of Bones" which was printed in 1998. This haunted love story, of course takes place in Maine. A novelist by the name of Mike Noonan, is grieving the loss of his wife, and gets a writers block. He begins having nightmares about his summer home on the lake, and eventually is drawn back there, where he meets a little girl named Ki, and her mother, who are being tormented by her father-in-law. Mike falls in love with Ki and her mother over time, and tries to help them out. In the midst of revealing ghostly encounters, and nightmares, out of the blue, his writers block disappears... There are other forces at work... What do they want from him? Read the book and find out!

Films made from his books:

Silver Bullet, Cujo, Carrie, Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption, It, Dreamcatcher, Creepshow, The Green Mile, The Shining, Maximum Overdrive, Pet Semetary (I and II), The Lawnmower Man, Rose Red, The Langoliers, Salem's Lot, Secret Window, and many others also.