Richard Rebel
Richard Rebel asked Joe Hill:

Hi (from Australia) Joe. I enjoyed the FB live thing last week! I've noticed a lot of literary allusion in your books (overt and covert) - eg the 'Ozymandias' nod in NOS4A2. Is this something that happens organically in your writing, or do you contrive ways to deliberately acknowledge books you love?

Joe Hill It's pretty organic. Quite a bit of what I've written is a response to something I read (I just slagged The End of the Affair in a blog post, but I admit that book: Horns was at least partly a reaction to it). I see Heart-Shaped Box as a commentary on M.R. James and a certain kind of Dean Koontz novel (Koontz always has great dogs). NOS4A2 was definitely a conscious response to It. If not for Mary Poppins and J.K. Rowling, The Fireman would be very different, if it existed at all.

Basically, I'm a geek, and in my fiction, I am geeking out to the max about the novels and stories and poems that thrilled me.

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