NEWS - JOE HILL

An Update From Joe Hill

Posted: October 13, 2026, 15:50
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Joe Hill mention his upcoming book Hunger in his last info mail and now it looks like it will be released in June 2027:

When is that novel coming out? It was May. Then it was September. Looks like now it’s going to be June 2027. The game of trying to find the right week to release isn’t limited to publishing… this exact same thing happened with the release of the first Black Phone movie. The ball dings around the roulette wheel, catching here, and then there, before finally settling into its proper socket. For what it’s worth, I think we’re sticking at June.

He also mention that he's finishing up a spooky story, he won't say much about it yet though...

I’m finishing up a spooky story of my own, but I won’t say anything about it. You don’t start boasting about the fish you’ve caught before you’ve reeled it in. Hopefully I’ll get it done before I slip out of here for London. Maybe I better get back to it.

Hill's Hunger Delayed

Posted: September 9, 2026, 08:51
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Hill’s upcoming book Hunger has been moved back to May 18, 2027, so we need to be patient and wait for another 2 months before we get to read it.

They’re starving in Boston.
It’s the winter of 1776, and the besieged city is running perilously low on supplies. First the American rebels penned in the British soldiers, then frostbite sank its teeth into the city, and now a ravenous ghost has come to feed on the trapped and desperate colonists who remain loyal to the Crown.
Morale is low enough among the besieged British troops without a fiend tempting men with a sumptuous feast of roast meat, pastries, puddings, and pies. It’s a spread many would sell their souls for…which is exactly the deal on offer.
As the ghoul’s withered victims pile up, and panic spreads, British General Howe takes action: he orders Captain Amos Crowe to expel the fiend by any means necessary.
It is an impossible order. But it’s far from the only impossibility in Crowe’s horrifying New World. For the dead have been speaking to him ever since he was injured at the Battle of Bunker Hill. And now, he must track down a witch hidden deep behind enemy lines, a woman who, it is rumored, holds the key to defeating the evil spirit.
A fast-paced and immersive historical yarn from Joe Hill, master of the supernatural fable, this gripping story weaves its way through the heart of the American Revolution as told through British eyes, capturing the spirit of the age in all its high passion, opportunity, and terror.

The book will have 432 pages (according to Amazon) and you can pre-order your copy here.

An update from Joe Hill

Posted: July 2, 2026, 21:27
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Joe Hill updated us about the status of his next book, Hunger and told us he is now working on the book after that in his latest newsletter.

My book-a-year plan is off to more like a book-every-two-years start. All I can tell you is that Hunger is done in second draft, chugging pleasantly along through the next editorial steps, and I’m at work on a new novel. I wrapped up a screenplay—the first time I’ve ever adapted someone else’s work!—and will likely be on to another adaptation in the fall.

Sherlock Cover

Posted: June 23, 2026, 08:28
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Here is the hardback cover for SHERLOCK: Short Story Anthology that includes Joe Hill's new story An Exercise in Murder. Release date for the hardback is December 1st and you can pre-order it here.

My Thoughts On Locke & Key: Comic, TV, Dramatization & Keys

Posted: May 5, 2026, 22:35
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I’ve just spent some time at Keyhouse with the Locke family, and it’s been a very interesting stay. I’ve been meaning to read the Locke & Key comic (story by Joe Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodríguez) for some time, but other things have kept getting in the way. But now I finally decided it was time. I also decided I wanted to check out everything connected to the comic. That means the comic, the audio dramatization, the three-season Netflix series, the unaired Fox pilot, the unaired Hulu pilot and the physical keys that have been created by Skelton Crew Studio.

The keys are magic, and each is unique. One, the Ghost Key, lets you become a ghost if you open the right door with it and go through. Another, the Head Key, lets you open your head and look inside.

With a successful story there are often attempts to turn it into a major movie or a TV series. Locke & Key is no exception. What’s different is that they failed twice before they got it right.

Andy Muschietti directed a brilliant pilot episode… funny, relentlessly paced, and thoroughly terrifying.

Check out my thoughts here.

No More Locke & Key

Posted: April 24, 2026, 17:31
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Just finished Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez’s comic Locke & Key, all 45 issues. Only problem now is that i want more. So I asked Joe but unfortunately it doesn't look like there will be more issues.

Hill Working On A Script and Hunger Pushed To March 2, 2027

Posted: February 2, 2026, 16:15
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In his latest newsletter, Escape Hatch • 72 Joe Hill gives an update on what he’s working on at the moment.

I’m closing in on the latest rewrite of this screenplay (adapted from a still-unpublished-but-it’ll-be-out-someday novella of mine).

He's also updating us on his next book Hunger:

I’m also elbow deep in what will probably be the last major rewrite of Hunger (although there will inevitably be at least two more lighter revisions).

HarperCollins announced Hunger, complete with a pretty good sketch of what the thing is about. There’s also a release date, but I wouldn’t Sharpie that on your calendar just yet, I kinda got a feeling it’s gonna get bumped to early 2027. (Hey! I said I’d finish a book a year, I didn’t promise anything about publication dates, which is somewhat out of my control).

The release date for Hunger on HarperCollins website has now been changed to March 2, 2027.

A 25,000 Words Longer King Sorrow?

Posted: February 2, 2026, 15:59
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In his latest newsletter, Escape Hatch • 72 Joe Hill talks about cutting 25,000 words out of his last book, King Sorrow, giving us a very detailed list of what he cut and how long each segment was. He also reveals that there might be a future limited edition in which he'll be able to put that material back into the narrative. I don't know about you but I'm hoping this will happen.

After my editor, Jen Brehl, and some other early readers had a look at the second draft of King Sorrow, it became clear to me that it would be best for the book, commercially if not creatively, to cut 25,000 words. In the end I had to make some hard choices. One of the things I had to clip out was a whole suspenseful subplot about Donovan McBride on Cherokee Island and his not-so-meticulous escape plan. It just about killed me to clip it out, but I saw that it could be excised cleanly, and no one would sense the loss of it. So that was 6,500 words right there.

I had cause to think of it the other day, because while I can’t announce anything just yet (there’s nothing to announce), there might be a future limited edition in which I’m able to put that material back into the narrative. We’ll see. Seems to me that could be pretty cool.

The prospect of restoring one of Van’s best moments to King Sorrow got me looking back on the other things I had to clip out, stuff that’s kind of wild to think about now. In several early drafts, when we first meet Arthur Oakes, he isn’t living with his best friend Van in off-campus housing… he was living with his aunt and uncle, who both had jobs at the school. Yeah, that’s right: Reverend Erin Oakes had a sister! Aunt Kate was a big character too. My mom was especially attached to her, and had real concerns about the way she disappeared from the last third of the novel… I remember my ma wrote me a few hundred words, sketching out what I might do with her.

I hadn’t noticed the way Aunt Kate disappeared from the last third of the book until my mom mentioned it… but that was a good cue that I didn’t need her. She had to go, and that was another 6,500 words.

I fought harder to keep something else: once upon a time, Gwen used to be a smoker. To be specific, she was a pipe smoker. Her father was too, and it was her habit to finish her day by smoking a pipe with him out on the front step. That pipe followed her throughout the story and often appeared at moments of high drama. I remember she banged it down in frustration, in Part I, when her friends were talking about pooling their money to pay off the Nighswanders. Years later, when Gwen is in fairly desperate straits, she goes out on the back step of her house with Robin Fellows and has a pipe while they talk about her options.

It’s a weird but true thing that when I attended John Bapst in Bangor, Maine, several of the girls had corn cob pipes, and would whip them out for a sneaky smoke when teachers weren’t around. I found that indescribably cool and, while working on King Sorrow, it seemed like a little random bit of Maine cultural history worth preserving.

My wife and my U.S. editor didn’t agree with me and one or both of my parents found it a totally valueless affectation. I was dragged kicking and screaming but in the end the pipe went. Maybe if we ever get a TV adaptation (hey! I’m allowed to daydream!) we’ll get the pipe back, but probably not. Although smoking was fairly ubiquitous in the 1980s, you won’t see a single ciggy in The Black Phone movies. Our distributor, Universal, wouldn’t have it. Gwen’s pipe, that was maybe 500 words. More? Maybe more. That pipe kept busy.

If you’re doing the math, you’ve probably realized this tally only gets me to about 14,000 words, and I needed to cut 25,000. Where’d I get the rest? Well, I just made a rule for myself that I was going to cut one sentence from every page, no exceptions. Sometimes I’d get two, or more, but never less than one. I also hacked conversations down to the bare minimum (there is always too much banter in my early drafts). I got there. Barely. And the good news is the psychic wounds have almost healed!

Hill’s Hunger Out On October 13

Posted: January 18, 2026, 01:14
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According to Amazon Joe Hill’s next book Hunger will be released on October 13 and here is a description of it’s plot:

A new novel about the battle for a country's survival — and a malevolent, murderous ghost hell-bent on consuming souls.
 
They’re starving in Boston.
It’s the winter of 1776, and the besieged city is running perilously low on supplies. First the American rebels penned in the British soldiers, then frostbite sank its teeth into the city, and now a ravenous ghost has come to feed on the trapped and desperate colonists who remain loyal to the Crown.
Morale is low enough among the besieged British troops without a fiend tempting men with a sumptuous feast of roast meat, pastries, puddings, and pies. It’s a spread many would sell their souls for…which is exactly the deal on offer.
As the ghoul’s withered victims pile up, and panic spreads, British General Howe takes action: he orders Captain Amos Crowe to expel the fiend by any means necessary.
It is an impossible order. But it’s far from the only impossibility in Crowe’s horrifying New World. For the dead have been speaking to him ever since he was injured at the Battle of Bunker Hill. And now, he must track down a witch hidden deep behind enemy lines, a woman who, it is rumored, holds the key to defeating the evil spirit.
A fast-paced and immersive historical yarn from Joe Hill, master of the supernatural fable, this gripping story weaves its way through the heart of the American Revolution as told through British eyes, capturing the spirit of the age in all its high passion, opportunity, and terror.

The book will have 432 pages (according to Amazon) and you can pre-order your copy here.

My Interview With Joe Hill

Posted: November 3, 2025, 15:28
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Here is my inteview with Joe Hill. In it we talk about his new book King Sorrow, his upcoming book Hunger and Stephen King among other things.

Yeah, so Hunger is in one sense the kind of story I feel very comfortable writing. It’s a ghost story and it’s very much a horror novel. In some way the last third of the book is THE most horror novel I have ever written, you know the most, goes the deepest into the sort of horror genre. In another sense though it’s way outside my comfort zone.

The Day I Met Joe Hill

Posted: November 1, 2025, 23:47
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The day I met Joe Hill was in late October this year, 2025, in London. Joe was there to promote his book King Sorrow, and I was there to interview him and hopefully get a copy signed and a photo taken with him. I was traveling light and figured I’d get a copy of the book to bring with me to our meeting once I got to London. I would be there two days before I was scheduled to meet him, so I thought that would be an easy fix.


On Thursday (I was scheduled to meet him on Friday at 4:30 PM), I set out to get my copy, and I thought that Forbidden Planet, where I would meet up with him the day after, would be a great place to get a copy of the book. I would also get a chance to check out the place so I’d know where I was going and what it looked like the next day. Well, that was what I thought. Once I got there, I couldn’t find the book in the store anywhere, and I thought it must be me looking in the wrong place. The man is scheduled to be there the next day to sign his book. He can’t do that if they don’t have the book, right? Well, I asked a gentleman who worked there if they had it, and he went to look for it. When he came back, he said, “Sorry, but I can’t sell you the book. There is a signing tomorrow between 5 PM and 7 PM, and then after that we will sell any leftovers that we have, so you can come back then.”

Well, OK, I thought. I can understand that they want to have books in stock for everyone that had bought a ticket for the signing, which I hadn’t. But I didn’t sweat it. London is huge and filled with bookstores. I was sure I’d find one that had the book.

During the rest of that day I didn’t run into a single bookstore that had the book, and I started to get stressed out. I couldn’t miss the chance to get a book signed in person when I was meeting Joe Hill. So that evening I went online, and at Waterstones on Piccadilly I found one. I ordered it for Click & Collect, and a couple of hours later I got an email that the book was ready for me to pick up.

During Friday I did a bit of sightseeing and happened to run into another Waterstones bookstore. I decided to see if the book was available there, and if so, I could buy it there, cancel my other one, and save me the extra trip to collect it. They had one copy in the back that they got for me after almost five minutes of searching for it. Only problem with that was that it was already signed. Good thing I noticed. It would have been strange to arrive with a book already signed by Joe, asking him to sign it. So, on my way to Forbidden Planet, I stopped by Waterstones at Piccadilly, and thank God they had the book. It wasn’t already signed, and they allowed me to buy it. With the book in hand, I headed for Forbidden Planet and my meeting with Joe. Of course, it started to rain the second I stepped outside the bookstore. But I was prepared. I had my umbrella, and I had my plastic bag to put the book in, and both I and the book arrived safely.

I had gotten instructions from Caitlin from Joe’s publisher to wait by the main entrance at 4:15, and she would come and get me. I was there by 4:13 and waited. By 4:20 I was still waiting and got a bit nervous that I had gotten it wrong and was supposed to wait somewhere else. I texted her, and she said Joe hadn’t arrived yet, but that she would come and get me as soon as he had. Puh, I was at the right place, I was at the right spot, and at the right time. So, I waited. After a while I heard a familiar voice. “Should I just go down there? OK.” When I looked up, it was Joe himself entering the store like any shopper would, checking where he was supposed to be with the clerk, and then went past me and down one floor. It felt so unreal that I didn’t even react. I just looked at him as he passed. And in fact, no one else seemed to realize that Joe Hill had just passed them. Very strange. I waited some more, but now I wasn’t nervous that I was in the wrong place — now I started to get a bit nervous that there wouldn’t be time for me to interview him before he was due upstairs to sign books for everyone that was lining up.


While I waited, I met some people I knew and some I didn’t know before but got to know then, and then it was time. Caitlin fetched me, and we went downstairs and into a backroom where I was told to wait — Joe was on his way.

When he arrived, there were also a few of the staff with him carrying books. Those were the staff’s books that Joe was asked to sign, and he did. I quickly understood that Joe is one of those authors that really takes the time to sign a book — he doesn’t just scribble his name and be done with it. I didn’t see what he wrote, but I did see that he took the time to sign and dedicate each and every one of the books. Just like we fans want it. Then it was my turn. My turn to interview Joe Hill face to face.

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE

The interview went great, and Joe answered all my questions, and not once, even though there were a lot of fans waiting to get their books signed one floor up, did Joe feel stressed or make me feel like I had to hurry up with my questions. He took the time to answer everything, and he was a joy to interview.


Once I was done, I asked if he had time to sign my copy of King Sorrow, which he did. As with all the other copies I saw him sign, he didn’t just sign his name but also wrote a great inscription and he drew a dragon. After that we took a picture, I thanked him for everything, and he went upstairs to sign books and chat with his fans for two hours. I can only hope that all of you had the same good experience as I did.

Big thanks to Joe and Caitlin for making this happen. I really appreciate it.

Loads Of Updates From Joe Hill

Posted: October 12, 2025, 17:30
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Joe Hill just did a great interview with The Loser’s Club and quite a lot of news and interesting info was revealed.

Joe revealed that the first story his dad wrote for him was called something like Joe and Naomi in the Fart Cookies of Death. My guess is that it was The King Family and the Wicked Witch that involves a witch that begins farting so explosively that she blows herself to the moon. The first real Stephen King book he read was IT and that he read it in manuscript form that was about 200 pages longer than the finished book.

As for Joe’s upcoming publication there are a lot to look forward to. Besides King Sorrow who was called both Coil and Serpentine in early stages Joe revealed that a limited edition of the book will be out in 2 volumes from PS Publishing in the future and in that edition, he hopes to be able to include a major subplot with Donovan McBride that he cut from the original version of the book.

He also confirmed that his next book will be called Hunger and revealed that it will be out in October 2026 if everything goes as planned. b>Hunger is a historical ghost novel taking place in the 18th century and he’s been doing research for it for the last 7 years.

And as if that isn’t enough, he has two more books that he is working on as well as a finished novella that probably will be released as an illustrated stand-alone book. Joe has also written a screenplay based on that same novella.

And, to make things even better Joe reveals that the plan for the next 10 years is to release 1 book and 1 screenplay a year for the next 10 years. This means we will have a lot more to read from Joe up until 2035, at least.

Check out the entire interview over at The Loser’s Club podcast. It’s really worth a listening.

My Thoughts On King Sorrow

Posted: October 9, 2025, 14:50
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Here are my thoughs about King Sorrow by Joe Hill out on October 21st.

Having finished the book, I realize how much I’ve missed Hill’s books. I know he has released a few collections and short stories over the years, but a full novel is something else entirely.

We Have A Dragon Winner!

Posted: October 1, 2025, 08:45
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The Contest is over and we have a winner. But before we come to that, let’s check on the question.

The question was:
Joe Hill has written two short stories with his father Stephen King. Name the title of one of them.


The answer is:

Throttle, published in He Is Legend in 2009.
In the Tall Grass, published in Esquire in 2012.

Both stories can also be found in Joe’s collection Full Throttle from 2019 so if you haven’t read them, order the book here and do that now. In the Tall Grass can also be found as a feature film on Netflix.

And now to the winner. From over 1,000 entries I have drawn one winner. This person gave the correct answer and followed me on social media as required and will now receive an ARC (Advanced Readers Copy) of Joe Hill’s upcoming book King Sorrow, signed by Joe.

The winner is Will Steven from the US. Now, I know this is a fairly common name so before you get all excited let me tell you that I have been in touch with the right Will and if I haven’t been in touch with you even though your name is Will Steven you are not the winner.

With that said, congratulations to Will and a HUGE thanks to Headline, Joe Hill and all of you that entered the contest.

Writing Books On A Typewriter

Posted: September 24, 2025, 09:47
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Joe Hill just posted his newsletter Escape Hatch: Issue 68 and in it he reveals a very interesting thing. He is writing his books on typewriters. How about that. Here is what he writes.

It’s no secret to regular readers of Escape Hatch that I’m in some kind of managed retreat from the 21st Century. I try to keep the median temperature in my office set to about 1976. I mostly skip streaming my music and opt for vinyl. I don’t bring the cell phone in the office, if I can help it. And I wrote all of The Fireman longhand in a bunch of massive ledgers.

But I don’t know if I can work that way and get a novel done every year. So, just in the last couple months, I’ve shifted over to writing my first drafts on the typewriter instead of the computer. It’s the happy spot halfway between scrawling a story on parchment with a raven’s feather and using some bloated piece of word processing software.
If you even want to call working on the typewriter “writing” at all. In the time since I’ve shifted over, I’ve hardly felt like I was writing at all. It’s more like driving nails—or squeezing the trigger on a nail-gun. The steel keys on my Olivetti go chomp-chomp-chomp and eat up the page and a while later I’ve got another 1600 words. No going back to fix things. No second thoughts.

I’ve got a whole stack of functioning typewriters, and I thought I’d rotate them between pieces, see how it goes. I’ve got a frail Selectric III (with a fancy-pants innovation: Correct-Tape!), a robust olive-colored Selectric II, and the one I’m using currently, my blood-red Olivetti, a 60-year-old manual. So far it seems like there might still be some good words left in this antique. Whether I refer here to the machine or the man sitting behind it, I leave you to decide.

Subscribe to Joe’s Substack to receive the next email.

Excerpt From King Sorrow

Posted: August 30, 2025, 09:42
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USA TODAY has the first exclusive excerpt from Joe Hill’s King Sorrow (out Oct. 21), which takes places over 25 years beginning in 1989 and follows six friends who strike a deal with a dragon to protect them, though that deal pays a bloody toll over time.

Check out the excerpt here.

My Thoughts On Abraham’s Boys

Posted: July 11, 2025, 10:02
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Here are my thoughts of Abraham's Boys based on Joe Hill's story with the same name.

Abraham’s Boys offers a very different take on vampires and the legendary vampire hunter Van Helsing—but a good one. However, if you’re expecting a lot of neck biting and blood pouring all over the screen, you’ll be disappointed. This is not that kind of movie.

The Black Phone 2 Teaser

Posted: June 1, 2025, 02:03
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Teaser for Joe Hill’s The Black Phone 2. Link posted by Joe himself on Threads and since the movies title isn’t shown a few people asked if this was a fan made teaser and it’s not according to Joe.

King Sorrow & More To Come From Joe Hill

Posted: March 17, 2025, 15:48
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Joe Hill's UK edition of King Sorrow is now available to order signed from Waterstones and I must say that the cover looks great.


I'm reading the book as we speak and trust me, you don't want to miss this one.

In his recent newsletter Joe also mentions that he's almost finished with yet another book and that he aims for one new book / year for a few years to come.

I’m in the home stretch on a new novel and have (possibly unfounded) hopes of finishing by the end of the month. It always takes longer than I think it’s going to. Still: I remain optimistic that I might be able to stay on track for a book a year for the next few years. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Joe Hill’s Abraham’s Boys Becomes A Feature Film

Posted: March 9, 2025, 00:11
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Joe Hill’s short story Abraham’s Boys from the collection 20th Century Ghosts has been turned into a feature film staring Titus Welliver (Bosch). In April it will premier on the Overlook Film Festival. Hill will be there and for a wide-ranging career conversation to discuss the methods behind the madness which animate his exquisite body of work.

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Other Worlds Than These
Out now!:
Carrie TV Series
2026:
Stephen King: Not Just Horror (Portuguese ed.)
2026:
Stephen King: Stories From Five Decades of Storytelling (Portuguese edition)
November 5, 2026:
An Exercise in Murder (Short story by Hill)
November 8, 2026:
The Institute season 2
2026:
Stephen King: Stories From Five Decades of Storytelling (German edition)
2026:
Stephen King: Not Just Horror (German ed.)
June:
Hunger (Joe Hill)

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