Meet Joe Hill: Stephen King's Son

One of three children born to Stephen King, the great genre novelist, Joe Hill, born Joseph Hillstrom, has managed to keep a safe distance from the entertainment media for most of his life. Recently, however, Joe Hill, son of Stephen King has accepted the inevitability of the media's attention, and after winning a string of awards for his first publication, and knowing that the word was going to get out anyway, he revealed his true identity to his editor who agreed to retain the pseudonym and to downplay his father's connection to him.

It was not easy for Joe Hill, son of Stephen King, to make his own way. As the son of the master of modern horror, and having the inclination to be a writer himself, Joe Hill was at first reluctant to allow his father's influence to carry his career. When he was about 12 yrs old, Joe Hill had been published in The Bangor Daily News. However, after publication, he saw a note at the end of the essay that proclaimed he was the son of Stephen King. An interview in The New York Times quotes Joe Hill, "When I read it in the newspaper, I realized for the first time that it was full of trite ideas and windy writing. At the end, they had added a little postscript that said, '[Joe Hill] is the son of best-selling novelist Stephen King,' and when I read that I knew that was the only reason they published the piece."

The son of Stephen King decided to make his own way without the help of his father's, and it allowed Joe Hill to experience the common frustration of publisher rejections that is shared by most writers, and his first completed novel, which resulted in a string of rejections, has yet to be published. Still, Joe Hill was somewhat successful with his short horror stories, which the son of Stephen King had published through several magazines. However, when Joe Hill attempted to publish the stories in a collected volume called 2oth Century Ghosts, American publishers greeted the son of Stephen King with outright rejection. Fortunately, the son of Stephen King was able to find a willing partner in PS Publishing, based in England, and Joe Hill was soon lavished with four Bram Stoker awards, among others.

It wasn't until after the awards and some public appearances that Joe Hill decided it was time to let everyone know that he was the son of Stephen King.

Joe Hill can be found at Myspace.com and the son of Stephen King also runs his own website, Joehillfiction.com, complete with a forum. In addition to the short story collection 20^th Century Ghosts, Joe Hill has published his first novel, Heart-Shaped Box, which became an instant bestseller for the son of Stephen King, and made it into the top ten of the New York Time's list.