ELLSWORTH — Lizz Cannon admits she isn’t the biggest Stephen King fan.

But the Bradley native’s affinity for the best-selling Maine author was enough to make her bid $2,850 for a rare, signed copy of one of King’s books, the proceeds of which will benefit the Emmaus Homeless Shelter’s efforts to keep needy Mainers warm this winter.

When the auction closed Friday evening, Cannon, now an immigration attorney in Cambridge, Mass., was the winner.

“Because of where I grew up and how I grew up, I feel a strange affinity for Stephen King,” Cannon said in an interview Monday. “My mom and his wife were friends in college, and I went to high school with his son.”

Cannon said that her mother, Millie Cannon, was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society with King at the University of Maine in Orono. Her mother later attended the wedding of King and his wife, Tabitha, and Lizz Cannon said she met the author several times as a child.

“We have been introduced, when I was young, but he’d probably never remember me,” she said.

The book was one of only 500 copies of “The Regulators” to be sold with a hand-crafted slipcase cover made by a Minnesota bookbinder, Tim Clark. King wrote the novel in 1996 under the pseudonym “Richard Bachman.”

Before his death in 2006, Clark gave the book to a friend in Maine, who donated the tome to the Emmaus Center. The donor has chosen to remain anonymous. King signed the book recently in an effort to raise its value on the auction block. The auction was coordinated by Michael Riggs, owner of Scottie’s Bookhouse in Hancock.

Cannon said she heard about the auction through a small story in The Boston Globe. She is a regular donor to other Maine charities, she said, but had never heard of the Emmaus shelter.

“My main thing is I was just trying to encourage people to bid more so we could donate more to Emmaus,” she said. “I think donating to local organizations is key.”

Cannon said she’ll likely read the book — she’s read other King books — but after that she’s not sure what she’ll do. Maybe, she said, the book will play a role in her charitable giving again.

“The plan is to hold on to it and have it, and who knows? Maybe I’ll auction it off someday for another organization,” she said.