Mr Harrigan’s Phone, an American horror film, is releasing on Netflix on October 5. The film is based on a novella of the same name by legendary American novelist Stephen King. Mr Harrigan’s Phone is one of the four novellas in the collection If It Bleeds by the 75-year-old author, which was released on April 28, 2020. This novella can be considered another feather in the master’s well-reputed horror cap.

Who is Stephen King?

Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947, to Edwin King and Nellie Ruth King in Portland, Maine, US. He attended Durham Elementary School and graduated from Lisbon Falls High School in Lisbon Falls, Maine, in 1966. The yet-to-be cultural icon graduated in 1970 with a BA in English. He has been married to Tabitha Spruce since 1971 and has three children with her.

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King is an author of fiction, crime, horror and fantasy novels. He has written 64 novels and five non-fiction books. King’s beginnings in the world of fiction were quite modest. He is said to have also briefly worked as a janitor. His first published novel was Carrie (1974), which portrays the woes of a teenage girl with telekinetic powers. The novel was a major commercial success that not only rid King of all financial insecurities but also established his eminence in the horror genre of fiction. The novel was later made into a film in 1976.

King further wrote Salem’s Lot (1975). which was another experiment of his with horror. In an interview much later in the 80s, King stated that Salem’s Lot was perhaps his greatest work up until that time. King has authored books like Rage (1977), The Long Walk (1979), Roadwork (1981), The Running Man (1982), and Thinner (1984) under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It was the persistent diligence of a Washington DC bookstore clerk named Steve Brown that exposed King as the true author of these five novels.

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King also wrote other successful books like Published It (1986), Dreamcatcher (2001), and Cell (2006). His latest collection, named If It Bleeds contains four novellas namely Mr Harrigan’s Phone, If It Bleeds, The Life of Chuck, and Rat. He has also collaborated with other writers on a few novels. King has co-authored The Talisman (1984) and a sequel Black House (2001) with horror novelist Peter Straub. Though they planned on a third and concluding part named The Tale of Jack Sawyer, Straub’s death in 2022 ended the possibility of the project. He also co-authored the novel Sleeping Beauties with his son Owen King in 2017.

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King has been vocal about the skills and techniques necessary for a writer to commercially succeed. In an article named Everything you need to know about writing successfully (believed to have been originally published in a 1986 edition of The Writer magazine but republished in the 1988 edition of the Writer’s Handbook), King says, “If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”