Stephen King
Burton Hatlen formed a writing workshop in the late 1960s, with fellow UM colleague, Jim Bishop, and several other writers. These writers included several of Hatlen's students, including author Stephen King, Tabitha Spruce, poet Sylvester Pollet and Michael Alpert, who currently serves as director of the University of Maine Press as of 2008. Stephen King and Tabitha Spruce later fell in love and married after meeting at Hatlen's workshops.
The members of Hatlen's writing workshop continued to meet on and off for the next 15 years. Hatlen's own contributions to the workshop culminated in 1987, when he published his only book of poetry, I Wanted to Tell You.
King and Hatlen remained personally and professionally close throughout Hatlen's life. Hatlen's helped King develop his own writing style through his workshops. King often sent his unpublished manuscripts to Hatlen for his review and perusal. King told the Bangor Daily News that, "He (Hatlen) saw so much more of what I was doing than I did." In turn, Hatlen wrote several scholarly essays and critiques of Stephen King's works.
Stephen King named a handful of his fictional characters after Burton Hatlen, including the prison librarian in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, whom King named Brooks Hatlen.
Stephen and Tabitha King donated $4 million dollars to the University of Maine in 1997, which included $1 million dollars specifically for Hatlen to hire new arts and humanities professors.
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