He is credit as a writer for the movies Black Sunday, Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon, and Hannibal Rising in addition to the television series Hannibal. Harris won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bram Stoker Awards in 2007. He graduated from Baylor University and worked as a local newspaper reporter. Harris worked for the Associated Press from 1968 until 1975 before he started working on his book Black Sunday.