Escape Hatch 062: Stake Out in New Orleans

Abraham's Boys Premieres at The Overlook Film Festival; King Sorrow Comes to the UK; Horror's Greatest and Haunted Minds

Britain Has a New King Now

Come on, you know that looks awesome.

I’m pleased to announce the Headline edition of King Sorrow and share their stunning hot-n-scaly U.K. cover. I’m hoping to pay a visit to the British Isles for some Sorrow-ful events in late 2025—details to come—but whether you catch me at an appearance or not, you can still lock down a copy of the novel with my scribble in the front. Waterstones is offering a limited number of signed books which you can preorder here.

My thanks to the Headline gang for pulling out all the stops and delivering such a great looking volume. Here’s hoping my U.K. readers will feel it was worth the wait.

Meet The Van Helsings

Horror wunderkind Natasha Kermani is coming to The Overlook Film Festival this April to premiere her feature, Abraham’s Boys, adapted from the short story of the same name, which first appeared in 20th Century Ghosts. I can’t wait for folks to get a look at it—I had an early screening and thought it was a chilling, claustrophobic, Hitchcockian delight, anchored by an unforgettable performance by Titus Welliver as Stoker’s troubled professor, and showcasing a hard-as-nails appearance by young Brady Hepner as his son. (As it happens, this isn’t even Brady’s first role in a story lifted from Ghosts… he was Pinball Vance Hopper in The Black Phone!)

I’ll be there for the premiere as well. It’s my first time in New Orleans and how is it even possible that I’ve made it through my whole life without ever visiting America’s most haunted city? I’ll also be sitting down for a conversation about Abraham’s Boys, King Sorrow, The Black Phone 2, and I guess anything else people wanna talk about.

Your TV + My Face = ❤️

When I wasn’t looking, the second season of Horror’s Greatest dropped on AMC+ and Shudder. This is an especially good deal for anyone who didn’t get tired of looking at my face in HD during season one.

No, seriously: Horror’s Greatest is full of gross out clips from unrepentantly gruesome films and yet is strangely my idea of… comfort viewing? Its deep dives into half-remembered fright flicks never fails to make me happy. I’ve learned something about my favorite genre in every single episode.

It’s Going To Take FOREVER to Clean this Keyboard

It was very kind of The Haunted Minds Book Club to offer me their Legend of Literature Award for 2025. This beauty, sculpted by Alexandrea Christianson, is now threatening to leak gore all over a shelf in my office. My thanks to the Haunted Minds jury—Nick Roberts, Leigh Kenny, and Rowland Bercy jr.—for thinking of me. I’m honored.

The Dogs Bark…

… and the circus rolls on, I’ve heard my dad say from time to time. This circus right here is still rolling. 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?

I’m reading a crazy-good, balls-to-the-wall horror novel by Nat Cassidy called When The Wolf Comes Home. I tend to frame recommendations by saying, “it’s like The Terminator crossed with Severance!!!” or some such thing. But really, When The Wolf Comes Home is so uniquely itself, comparisons are unhelpful. It moves, that’s the important thing: it’s full throttle from the first pages. Wolf isn’t out yet, but it will be soon and there’s no law against pre-ordering.

I hope you’ve had some peace and happiness here in these early days of 2025. Living in the future isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it? A favorite thinker of mine, Oliver Burkeman, has an essay where he talks about the psychological dangers of “living in the news”… of feeling every new shock, ugly political development, and disheartening world crisis in your nerve endings. Worrying about everything won’t accomplish much beyond turning you into a nervous wreck. It’s okay to step back and catch a breath—to turn to a window and get the sun full on your face. I always think how much better I feel—how much healthier—when I put the phone down and pick up the book. It’s like getting parole… only the jail turned out to be my own thoughts.

Here’s wishing you parole: a good book and time to read it. See you soon.

— Joe Hill, Exeter, NH, March 2025.