About the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation
History of the Foundation
The Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation was created in 1986 to provide support for Maine communities.
The Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation is a private non-profit organization that promotes strengthening and supporting communities and draws upon the values and spirituality of the founders. We have a strong interest in libraries, literacy, information access, community health and arts and culture. As community builders, we are particularly interested in organizations and projects that will impact the most members of a community. The Foundation has a special interest in organizations and people who have less recourse to usual channels of resources.
The foundation awards around $3 million in grants each year, almost all of which is given within the state of Maine.
In 2025, the foundation began a writer’s residency program in its historic properties in Bangor. For more information on this program, click here.
Sculpture by Josh Landry
Founders
Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. He made his first professional short story sale in 1967 to Startling Mystery Stories. In the fall of 1971, he began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels. In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co., accepted the novel Carrie for publication, providing him the means to leave teaching and write full-time. He has since published over 50 books and has become one of the world’s most successful writers. King is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to the American Letters and the 2014 National Medal of Arts.
For more information see stephenking.com
Tabitha Spruce King was born in 1949 in Old Town, Maine. She has published eight novels and two works of non-fiction. She published her first novel, Small World, through Signet Books in 1981 and her most recent book, Candles Burning through Berkley Books in 2006. She has served on several boards and committees in the state of Maine, including the Bangor Public Library board and the Maine Public Broadcasting System. She received a Constance Carlson award for her work with literacy for the state of Maine in 1998.
Foundation Staff
Cherie Galyean
Executive Director
Cherie Galyean has worked in Maine’s philanthropic and nonprofit sector for over two decades. She spent most of that time at the Maine Community Foundation, where she held various positions focused on community grantmaking, scholarships, and impact assessment. Prior to her work at the Maine Community Foundation, she worked at the Island Institute in Rockland as a grantwriter and provided support for island libraries. Cherie has a bachelor’s degree in English from Colby College, a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh and a graduate certificate in Applied Research and Evaluation from the Muskie School at the University of Southern Maine.
Mark Poirier
Writers' Residency Director
Mark Poirier is the author of two collections of short stories and two novels, and the coauthor of a graphic novel. In addition, three of his screenplays have been produced. Before coming to the Foundation, he taught creative writing at Bennington College, Columbia University, The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, five years at Harvard University as a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer, and most recently at Colby College as the Forese Writer in Residence.