I’d never heard of Joe Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box, a novel so promising that its movie rights were sold six months’ prior to its publication. But apparently he’s the son of well-known novelist Stephen King. He chose to use his first and middle names as his pen name so that he could break into writing without riding on his father’s coat tails (or his mother’s—she’s writer Tabitha King). His younger brother is also a writer, and his older sister is at work on a non-fiction book. So, how did they all end up to be writers? According to an article I read:

The King children’s interest in books and writing took root early on. “It sounds very Victorian, but we would sit around and read aloud nightly, in the living room or on the porch,” Hill recalled. “This was something we kept on doing until I was in high school, at least.”

This is a good lesson for those of us homeschooling parents who think our older children and teens are too old for read-aloud family time: it obviously worked for the King family!

Originally posted 3/17/07