Joe Hill was born in 1972 to authors Tabitha King (née Spruce) and Stephen King. He was born in Hermon, Maine and grew up in Bangor, Maine. His younger brother Owen King is also a writer. He has an older sister, Naomi King.
At age 9, he appeared in the 1982 film Creepshow, directed by George A. Romero, which co-starred and was written by his father.
Career
Hill chose to use an abbreviated form of his middle name for his professional surname in 1997, out of a desire to succeed based solely on his own merits rather than as the son of one of the world's best-selling and most-recognized living novelists. After achieving a degree of independent success, Hill publicly confirmed his identity in 2007, the year his first novel came out, after an article the previous year in Variety reported his identity.[2][3]
Hill's first book, the limited edition collection 20th Century Ghosts (published in 2005 by PS Publishing), showcases fourteen of his short stories and won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection,[7] together with the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection and Best Short Story for "Best New Horror".[8] In October 2007, Hill's mainstream US and UK publishers reprinted 20th Century Ghosts, without the extras published in the 2005 slipcased versions, but including one new story.
On September 23, 2007, at the thirty-first Fantasycon, the British Fantasy Society awarded Hill the first ever Sydney J. Bounds Best Newcomer Award.[8] Hill's first professional sale was in 1997.
Among Hill's unpublished works is one partly completed story with his father ("But Only Darkness Loves Me"), which is held with the Stephen King papers at the Special Collections Unit of the Raymond H Fogler Library at the University of Maine in Orono, Maine.[10]
Hill is the writer of Locke & Key, a comic book series published by IDW Publishing. The first issue, released on February 20, 2008, sold out of its initial publication run in one day.[11] A collection of the series in limited form from Subterranean Press sold out within 24 hours of being announced.[12]
Hill's second novel, Horns, was published in February 2010. A film based on the novel was released in 2014, directed by Alexandre Aja and starring Daniel Radcliffe and Juno Temple.
Hill's fourth novel, The Fireman, was released in May 2016. It entered the New York Times Best Seller list at number one, making it his highest-ranked novel.
In 2018 a collection of four short novellas was released titled Strange Weather.
In 2019, In the Tall Grass, co-written with his father Stephen King, was released as a Netflix Original film. Filming for the Locke & Key TV series, also by Netflix, began in the middle of January 2019 and the first season aired in February 2020.[13] Also, AMC began broadcasting a TV series of NOS4A2 in July 2019.
Shudder announced in 2017 that their upcoming series reboot of Creepshow would contain an adaptation of Hill's short story "By the Silvery Waters of Lake Champlain". The series aired its first season in September 2019 and was renewed for a second season as well.[14]
Following DC Comics's announcement in June 2019 that it would suspend publication of its Vertigo Comics imprint, they announced that Hill would oversee and share the writing for a new horror line, Hill House Comics.[15] Hill started talking about the Hill House line in 2017 with editor Mark Doyle. The line was originally to be titled Vertigo Fall, then Joe Hill's Vertigo Fall, before eventually being renamed.[16]
Personal life
In 1999, Joe Hill married Leanora King, whom he had met at Vassar College. They had three children, the eldest among them being Ethan King, now an actor. The couple divorced in 2010. In 2018, he married publisher Gillian Redfearn of Gollancz Publishing.
Awards
"Better Than Home" (A. E. Coppard Long Fiction Prize)[17]
Shadow Show: Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury: "By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain" (2014), one-shot, adapted by Jason Ciaramella, illustrated by C. P. Wilson III
"Throttle" (2009, written in collaboration with Stephen King), He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson (also included in the audiobookRoad Rage)
"You Are Released": Flight or Fright (2018), ed. Stephen King and Bev Vincent
Miscellaneous credits
"Pop Art" was reprinted in 2007 by Subterranean Press as a chapbook featuring illustrations by Gahan Wilson. As well, 52 lettered (A–ZZ) hard covers and 150 numbered soft covered chapbooks were signed by Hill.[29]
"Fanboyz", a comic script, was written for Spider-Man Unlimited 8 (2005). The story was illustrated by Seth Fisher.
"The Saved", first published in The Clackamas Literary Review in 2001 and also as part of the bonus material included in the 2005 deluxe slipcased edition of 20th Century Ghosts, was reprinted in December 2007 as part of PS Publishing's annual Holiday Chapbook series, available, free of charge, to subscribers of the quarterly magazine Postscripts.
"Thumbprint", first published in Postscripts #10 in 2007, was reprinted as a chapbook in summer 2008 to accompany the anthology Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy published by Subterranean Press.
