On the Feast of Stephen Trivia Quiz

Answer: Stephen King

King was born in 1947 in Portland, Maine. His literary career started with selling short stories to men's magazines while he taught high school and moonlighted in a commercial laundry - while there is no doubt that he always wanted to be a writer, he has made it clear over the years that those early stories were as much about putting food on the table for his young family as they were about literature.

His big break came in 1973 with the publication of "Carrie" and he hasn't had to punch a time clock since.

Answer: Stephen Harper

Harper's government was defeated in October 2015 in an usually long and bitter election, by Canadian standards. His Conservative government was accused by critics of being secretive and undemocratic; there was a long-standing scandal regarding election fraud. Nevertheless, the party under his leadership won three elections in a row, forming two minority and one majority governments.

Harper resigned as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada after the 2015 election, but continued to serve as Member of Parliament for his Calgary riding, as a backbencher.

Answer: Stephen Colbert

Colbert has received many honours over his years on television, but the most interesting, to my mind, are the things named after him, such as Virgin Airlines' Air Colbert. A spider, beetle, wasp and stonefly also bear his name: Aptostichus stephencolberti; Agaporomorphus colberti; Aleiodes colberti; and Diamphipnoa colberti.

Answer: Stephen Fry

"Jeeves" is, of course, the unflappable valet of Bertie Wooster, both created by PG Wodehouse and brought to the small screen in the early '90s by Fry and Hugh Laurie.

Those who mostly know Stephen Fry as an actor and TV host might be surprised to find that he's quite an accomplished fiction author. "The Hippopotamus" (1994) and "Making History" (1997), especially, are amusing, insightful and moving.

Answer: Stephen Hawking

The other thing most of us would know about Hawking is that he lived with a profoundly disabling form of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). This illness is usually fatal within three or four years of diagnosis, but Hawking had the rarer slow-progressing form, and he lived with it from the early 1960s until his death in 2018.

Answer: Stephan Pastis

Pastis is the creator of the syndicated comic strip "Pearls Before Swine". The main characters are Rat and Pig - Rat being a violent psychopath, while Pig is a gentle, not-too-bright soul.

The artist often appears as himself in his strip, usually being punished by Rat for the ridiculously over-wrought pun set-ups that appear in the Sunday strip. He also sometimes is shown as a lonely loser drinking a beer and being taunted by his more heartless characters.

Answer: Steve Earle

Steve Earle was a devotee of another Texas-raised singer-songwriter, Townes Van Zandt, and spent a lot of time as a young songwriter learning from him and other writers such as Guy Clark. The 1975 documentary "Heartworn Highways" is a look into the development of what came to be called "Outlaw Country" that Earle was certainly a part of - he appears in the film.

Answer: Steven Spielberg

Spielberg tells a story of getting his Boy Scout Photography merit badge for a nine minute long 8 mm western. By high school he was regularly making short 8 mm films, and dropped out of college to do TV work for Universal Studios.

"Duel" came out in 1971, directed by Spielberg with a screenplay by Matheson. This story of a car driver menaced by a big rig got a lot of positive critical attention, and Spielberg was on his way. If you've never seen this film, check it out - it's still terrifying!

Answer: Steve Wozniak

Wozniak, along with another Steve (Jobs) was the founder of Apple, Inc and the primary early developer of their product.

It's a little unclear whether he is a Stephen or a Stephan - his birth certificate says "Stephan" but apparently it was originally meant to be "Stephen". There's a similar story in my own family; my mother insisted that my father made a mistake filling out the forms - at any rate, the name on my birth certificate is not "agony"....

Answer: Stephenie Meyer

Love them or hate them, Meyer's "Twilight" novels and the films based on them have been a worldwide phenomenon.

Meyer says that the idea of the books started from a dream; she dreamed of a boy and girl in a meadow, and the boy was sparkling. This became the famous "Meadow scene" in the first book in the series, where Edward shows Bella his sparkle, speed, and vampire strength.

And, yes, the names of the incorrect options were spelled wrong - Ms Meyer spells her name unusually and it was necessary to cheat a little.