Strawberry Spring

American horror author Stephen King published the short story “Strawberry Spring” in the Fall 1968 edition of Ubris, the literary magazine of the University of Maine, where King received his bachelor’s degree in English. In 1978, the story was included in King’s first collection of short stories, Night Shift.

King is one of the most prolific authors of the late 20th and early 21st centuries and is known as the “King of Horror” for his many iconic novels and short stories in that genre. King has won such prestigious honors as the Bram Stoker Award, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letter, the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, and the National Medal of Arts. King’s work has been widely adapted for film, television, radio, and podcasts. This guide uses the Kindle edition of Night Shift.

“Strawberry Spring” takes place at the fictional New Sharon Teachers’ College in Maine. Most of the story is a flashback set in 1968, told by an unnamed narrator in the story’s present day of 1976. The story is written in the first-person past tense during the flashback and the first-person present tense in the present day.