Friday, May 16, 2014

Finalizing the Nonfiction Zombie Book

As you may recall, last week, I told you that I was rewriting my nonfiction zombie book.  I worked my butt off and got the manuscript to a place that I'm much happier with.  The text still needs to be edited, and I have an editor who is going to go through it, but it's well on it's way to being final.  Since I'm feeling better about the direction of the book, and I'm really not planning on another major rewrite, here is my query letter so you can get a better idea of what I've done.  What do you think?

"My obsession with zombie films started when I was in junior high. They are a great lens to examine concerns society has about modern science. Let’s face it, when it comes to horror movies, science has a bad reputation. Blind ambition, experimental serums, and genetic experiments are often blamed for the giant monster terrorizing the city or the reason aliens are taking human prisoners or the cause of the dead rising from the grave to consume living flesh.

Using film, literature, and interviews with experts, my nonfiction book, Undead Obsessed: Finding Meaning in Zombies (approximately 65,000 words), examines how zombies portray real-world fears such as epidemics, mind control, what may or may not exist in space, the repercussions of playing God, and the science behind the fears.

Science has made it possible for us to live the way we do; it has given us numerous advances in all fields of life from medicine to agriculture to entertainment. Yet, with all of these advantages, there are a multitude of disadvantages that could prove to be detrimental to humans and society. Weapon technology used in wars is one of these major disadvantages, but anything that is beneficial to humanity, including medicine, has the potential to harm us. My goal is to explore how zombies become a metaphor for our fears of science and what could happen if science gets out of hand. The manuscript is completed.

This isn’t my first look at society’s fears. My nonfiction book, Life Lessons from Slasher Films, examines the social significance of slasher movies and was published by Scarecrow Press in 2012. I am a weekly contributor to a blog that features female zombie authors. I have my master’s in English, I was a technical editor for an environmental consulting firm for 6 years, I wrote freelance science articles, and I am now an editor and writer for a university foundation. I’ve also published two YA zombie novels, a novella, and short stories written under the pen name of Pembroke Sinclair, as well as children’s books."

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