Shortly after King married his wife, Tabitha, he struggled to find work as a teacher. What did he do to make ends meet during this period?

Shortly after marrying Tabitha, Stephen King wrote and published short stories in men’s magazines to help make ends meet while struggling to find a teaching job.

King married Tabitha Spruce in 1971 after they met at the University of Maine. Although he had earned a teaching certificate, a high-school teaching position did not come immediately. The couple lived on limited income, with Tabitha also working while King took jobs such as laboring at an industrial laundry.

King had already begun selling fiction to magazines, including Cavalier and Adam. These were modest but important payments, arriving occasionally to help cover necessities such as rent, food, telephone bills, and medical expenses. He continued writing while working and eventually became an English teacher at Hampden Academy in Maine later in 1971.

A common mix-up is that writing stories was not his only source of income during this period: King also worked at the laundry. The answer refers to the writing-related way he supplemented the household’s earnings. His early magazine work helped sustain him before Carrie became a major breakthrough in 1974.