Stephen King at King's alma mater, the University of Maine in Orono, for many years and had been covered by numerous King experts. King rewrote the original 1973 manuscript for its publication. King has used other pseudonyms. The short story "The Fifth Quarter" was published under the pseudonym John Swithen (the name of a character in the novel "Carrie"), that was published in "Cavalier" in April 1972. The story was reprinted in King's collection "Nightmares & Dreamscapes" in 1993 under his own name. In the introduction to the Bachman novel "Blaze", King claims, with tongue-in-cheek, that "Bachman" was the person using the
Stephen King What I said was, Stephen King's not in Maine right now. That's what I said." LePage further told King that he should "make me the villain of your next book and I won't charge you royalties". The attention garnered by the LePage criticism has led to efforts to encourage King to run for Governor of Maine in 2018. Bangor city councilor Joe Baldacci posted on his Facebook page that he was starting a Draft Stephen King effort, and Democratic State Rep. Diane Russell launched a petition drive to encourage King to run. His spokeswoman posted to Baldacci's Facebook comment that