82 p o r t l a n d monthly maga ine and to see the way that he approached each particular character and scene. He continu- ally surprised me in the best possible way. I treasure the time we spent talking it all through. I often felt challenged to match him when he wrote something especially great, but I liked that too. “There have been positive reviews, neg- ative reviews, readers who loved it, read- ers who hated it, and plenty in between,” he says. “It all comes with the territory. If you publish a book, you have to accept that you have in a way given it up. Now it belongs to the world, and the world gets to say what- ever it wants. I’m happy that readers are en- gaging with the book.” sensations and inspirations I t took a while for Owen to get here from there. Early on, “I’d had some anxiety about being able to commit myself to the number of solitary hours I knew being a writer required.” The big change came when “I took a class called Senior Composition when I was a college senior, and that made me feel like maybe I could become a writer,” he says. “You had to produce a fairly large number of pages of fiction, and they came pretty easily for me. While I liked to write stories as an ad- olescent, and I felt I had some talent for it, I wasn’t dedicated.” He waits a beat. “That is, I wouldn’t let myself become dedicated. The earliest story I can vaguely remem- ber writing was something in third or fourth grade. It featured Hammett’s de- tective Sam Spade, who I’d learned about by watching a little of The Maltese Falcon with my dad.” ‘Senior Comp.’ changed everything for Owen “so completely that I decided I want- ed to attend graduate school and try to get an MFA in fiction writing.” the Maine ingredient Although Owen chose to keep the name King, he and his wife, bestselling novel- ist Kelly Braffet, moved from Bangor to upstate New York as they both carved out their own careers. Despite living 20 years ‘away,’ Ow- en knows his writing doesn’t stray too far from his roots here. “Maine has always been an accepting place; a place that’s all right with eccentricity.” Owen boosts the “amazing environ- ment” as another lure for writers. “I would