Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Staking a claim

I was a bit shocked this week when I found out horror writer Joe Hill is actually Joe King, the son of Stephen King.

When I interviewed Ellen Datlow earlier this year she rated Hill's stories amongst the creepiest she has read, which is saying a lot considering thousands of stories have crossed her desk, editing for the horror section of Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.

The name percolated in my mind for a couple of months, and then surfaced again when Hill's debut collection 20th Century Ghosts recently won a Bram Stoker Award for best collection.

And then, when researching for an interview with Hill (Ellen kindly passed on my email, so I'm hoping he will get back to me), I found this post, about plans to turn Hill's upcoming novel Heart-Shaped Box into a film.

There is absolutely no reason why I should have known. I think maybe because I've read so much Stephen King, I feel I should have picked up some sort of disturbance in the force when Joe Hill's name first popped up on my radar. It's almost as though when we connect with someone's creative work we stake a claim on their personal life.

Anyhoo, I tried to buy his book at Pulp Fiction today but they can't seem to find it anywhere, so I may have to buy it direct from here.

(In it's place I bought a copy of Locus, which features an interview with Hill, and also Prismatic, which I've been meaning to pick up since I interviewed the authors a while back.)

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