Latest #Halloween Read!

 Yes, I often have several books going at once. Some I quit on, other times I can't resist adding another.

Like this!  I must've been first on the library list. This literally just came out! Great First Line: "It's almost sundown in Los Angeles, and Dracula's ashes won't shut up."

Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste is a historical horror novel that looks at two men of classic literature, Dracula and Mr. Rochester, and the two women who survived them, Bertha and Lucy, who are now undead immortals residing in Los Angeles in 1967 when Dracula and Rochester make a shocking return in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.-- from Amazon.

Giving Old Dolls New "Undead" Life!

Today's Halloween Treat!

What's Old Becomes New and "Undead"

(cv photo)

By Christine Verstraete

Okay, maybe you're not a doll lover. I like dolls myself, but I know that some can be rather, um... creepy...

Well, Wisconsin artisan Kelly Goetzke has the answer. She makes her dolls intentionally scary--in a good way, of course! 

A horror makeup artist and hairstylist by trade, Goetzke has been giving old dolls "new" life as undead dolls for the past five years with her business, Dollface, Inc. The dolls, which she describes as "meant to mirror your darkest fears," range in price from $20 to $75.

Kelly's passion for creating her unique dolls began innocently enough, sparked by her own collecting interests.

 "I collected a very popular series of horror dolls that over the years went up in price," she says. "Even though the prices were going up the quality wasn't.  I figured, you know what? I can make these myself cheaper. It wasn't shortly after that that some friends offered me money to make them one and Dollface was born."

 

Pretty in Pink -- A Terrifying Trio

The dolls come to her from friends and clients from the salon or she finds many at local thrift shops. Then via her makeup and paint magic, the dolls become something from your nightmares. A little crackling, maybe even some cracking and some acrylic paint, and voila! It can take anywhere from four to six hours to transform them from once-innocent playthings, into... well, you decide.

Nightmares do come true.

In refashioning the dolls, Goetzke finds herself inspired by her love of horror, which includes watching The Walking Dead or Supernatural and horror movies, which she admits give her nightmares. Not that she's going to quit watching anytime soon, of course. She also enjoys reading books by Stephen King and Clive Barker.

"I watch a lot of horror movies and in turn have a lot of nightmares," she admits. "I write them down and that gives me my ideas. Horror makes me happy. The love of horror was something I  shared with my father and brother, both of them gone now, so it allows me to feel closer to them."

The best part? Creating the dolls, she says, is "a type of therapy for me. Rough day? I unwind in the creative process."

Oh, and lest you think her zombified dolls are for girls or for kids only... 

"My claim to fame is that I've actually sold a doll to Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead as well as Jim Beaver from Supernatural," she says. "Both the highlight of my career!"

Here's looking at you, kid!   

    --http://girlzombieauthors.blogspot.com

Excerpt! Baby Shoes Anthology #Zombie Story

 Thought I'd share a little teaser from my story, "Second Chances" in the Baby Shoes: 100 Stories by 100 Authors, 100 flash stories under 1,000 words by 100 authors - 

 *** 8/26 - On Sale! Marked down half for at least next 12 hours!

That weird old lady hoarder turns out to have the last laugh when zombies actually do appear.  When she goes to the day care in town, she spots the baby shoes in the hall and hopes she's not too late...


Excerpt from Second Chances by C.A. Verstraete... 

The strange flu came from nowhere. The news blared the rising death tolls hour by hour. Then came the panic and looting, especially once the real disaster became clear—the dead didn’t stay dead.

Lucky for me, being the “crazy hoarder” in the rundown house on the hill has some advantages: the zombies have easy pickings of the panicked citizens below, and I have a house full of goods. With everything I could need on hand from ointments and paper goods, to baby items, and all kinds of food, along with my rain barrels and homemade solar panels, I almost never have to leave home.

As I stood on my roof, rifle in hand, and watched people fleeing and trying to fight off the ghoulish hordes, something hit me. The fate of the adults didn’t matter. Heartless it might sound, but I knew it was them or me. But what about the truly helpless and defenseless? I didn't want to go out, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the day care center in town. I had to find out what had happened there.

I headed inside and threw some supplies into my backpack, my eyes drawn to the old box of baby clothes on the shelf. This time, instead of making me mourn my own loss, it filled me with purpose.

The back roads remained empty, most of the action centered along the main streets where people frantically tried to escape the encroaching undead. My ancient but reliable van putted up and around the hills, my luck holding as I encountered only a few ghouls wandering here and there. They turned and moaned at sight of my vehicle, then shambled after it at a snail's pace. I let them be, not wanting to draw others with the sound of gunfire.

To my relief, the downtown appeared pretty deserted as well, due to most people having been at work or home sick with the flu. The worst part is that many died at home, alone and forgotten, until they emerged undead.

*** Read  the rest in Baby Shoes: 100 Stories by 100 Authors

(Well, I did say it was a teaser!)

U is for the Undead - Who's Worried?

*A to Z Blog Challenge  - U is for the Undead - Who's Worried?*

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to travel to Riverton to do my zombie presentation through the Wyoming Humanities Council and my Surviving Zombies workshop. It is a 3.5-hour drive from my hometown, and the vast majority of it takes place on a two-lane highway. I was amazed once again how beautiful my state is.

But it also became apparent how incredibly open, vast, and unpopulated it is. I couldn’t help but think that the people of Wyoming will have nothing to worry about if the undead rise from the grave. Sure, we have some populated areas, but nothing like New York or LA. We also have terrain that the undead would find difficult to navigate, and we get some really cold winters days. On top of that, a lot of people carry guns in this state.

As I drove down those lonely, long stretches of highway, I thought about how lucky I am to live in Wyoming. Let the undead rise. We’ll be ready.

Now Reading.... Undead Obsessed

Look what came in  the mail yesterday!

Now I better finish my reading so I can put a review. 

In Undead Obsessed: Finding Meaning in Zombies, Jessica Robinson (Pembroke Sinclair)  uses film, literature and interviews with experts to examine 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. Robinson's goal is to explore how zombies become a metaphor for our fears of science and what could happen if science gets out of hand.

New Zombie Book Undead Obsessed!

Today I'm talking with co-blogger Pembroke Sinclair, writing as Jessica Robinson, who just released a fantastic new, nonfiction zombie book, Undead Obsessed: Finding Meaning in Zombies. (Available in paperback and Kindle).  Read on for her comments and an excerpt.

About the Book:

Using film, literature, and interviews with experts, Robinson 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. Robinson's goal is to explore how zombies become a metaphor for our fears of science and what could happen if science gets out of hand.

Table of contents

Chapter 1: The Obsession Begins

Chapter 2: Defining Zombies

Chapter 3: A Question of Tranmission

Chapter 4: Treating Water

Chapter 5: Pandemic Zombies

Chapter 6: Zoonosis

Chapter 7: Biological Warfare Zombies

Chapter 8: The People with Power

Chapter 9: Improving Nature

Chapter 10: Playing God

Chapter 11: Haitian Zombies

Chapter 12: Zombie Recovery

Chapter 13: Zombie from Space

Chapter 14: Surviving the Zompocalypse: Don’t Trust the Military

Chapter 15: Surviving the Zompocalypse: Learn to Work Together

Talking with the Author:

What inspired the book?

I’ve always wanted to write about zombies, but I didn’t know what I wanted to write about.  After watching World War Z, it inspired me to look at the scientific side of zombies.  After all, most zombie films have a scientist or science in them in some form—and that form isn’t usually very flattering.

What was the most surprising thing you learned?

The most surprising thing I learned while writing this book was how helpful and willing people were to be interviewed.  They may not have wanted their name to be used in the book (or they may not have been zombie fans), but they were more than happy to answer my questions.  I couldn’t have done it without them, and I am so grateful for their help.

What do you hope others take away from the book?

I learned so much while I was researching, and I really enjoyed doing it, so I hope that others discover something new and look at zombies and science in a slightly different light.

Excerpt from Undead Obsessed: Finding Meaning in Zombies:

CHAPTER 1:

THE OBSESSION BEGINS

Zombie films serve as 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, this book 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.

Throughout this book, I examine the fictional world of zombies and the real world of science. Often, I refer to “truths” about zombies, but since they don’t really exist, these are “truths” that exist within the context of zombie films and books.

I was in junior high the first time I ever saw Night of the Living Dead (1968). It was one of several movies my dad had on VHS, and it sat on the shelf in a closet with row upon row of other VHS tapes. I remember being scared, but not cover-my-eyes-I’m-going-to-scream-my-lungs-out scared. I didn’t jump, but there was this uneasiness that settled over me. I was afraid to look out my bedroom window at night for fear that the same lifeless eyes the creatures in the film had would be looking right back at me. I glanced over my shoulder while walking down the street to make sure a slow-moving corpse wasn’t following me. For a while, I avoided cemeteries.

The next night, I had a friend come over to stay the night and I exposed her to the film. Again, it didn’t scare us in the make-you-jump-out-of-your-skin way, but as she sat on the floor tightly hugging a pillow, I knew she had experienced the same creepiness I had the night before. It was a feeling neither of us could put into words. Despite the unease, I enjoyed the feeling and wanted to explore it further.

Coffin Hop: Monsters in History

Welcome to Day 2 of Coffin Hop 2014!

** Be sure to stop by the main Coffin Hop site and visit a bunch of authors, artists, etc. Coffin Hopping through Halloween. There'll be prizes, giveaways, ghoulish fun and more!  (See all the Coffin Hop books at the bookstore. Don't forget the giveaways we have on most of our posts here. See page tab at top or side logo for day one.)

This week, I and some interesting guest authors will be talking MONSTERS. 

Specifically, Linda S. Godfrey, author of American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America; Christian A. Larsen, author of Losing Touch; and W.D. Gagliani  (Wolf's Trap) are among those coming up who'll talk about their favorite monsters. You won't want to miss it!

Today, I'm talking about monsters in general.

by Christine Verstraete

Throughout history, people have created monsters to help them cope with real life.

  Think Grimm's Fairy Tales.... "moral" stories that usually had a lesson presented as an evil character, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, (see Neil Gaiman's text in this illustrated version - Hansel and Gretel Standard Edition (A Toon Graphic) or the original story of the wicked stepmother (a witch) who turns the brother into a buck in the story, "Brother and Sister."

Then there are the monsters who help humans face problems or challenge their belief systems. 

  Besides being a great horror novel, several messages can be seen in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: the story could address the fear of death, challenging God, the fear of science going too far, or other themes. 

On the surface, Bram Stoker's Dracula (download a free version

at Project Gutenberg) addresses the fear of death and the desire for immortality, but  instead of a foul, evil creature like Nosferatu, he has become a noble Count, a man of mystery, an object of desire. He is the allure of the forbidden, the lure of what is behind the curtain. 

On the other hand, the zombie is the ultimate monster. It can be viewed not only as a symbol of the death of society, or the death of humanity, it can be a symbol of a lack of faith or rejection of God. 

Or in simpler terms, it can be the thing we fear the most - the thing we cannot escape, the horror that can, and will, consume us. Un-death becomes the ultimate mockery of  life and true death.

The common denominator in these classic monsters is the authors' and people's fear of death. It is the one thing we cannot escape 

That fear is becoming even more real in places like West Africa where the ebola epidemic is raging  (4,000 dead and counting since April, see chart) ,and where fear has people being label as dead before they are, giving the illusion of coming back to life. 

You hate to bring such real life fears into Halloween. Despite its pagan background, the holiday today focuses on treats, costumes, and getting scared by spooks and monsters. It's supposed to be a fun escape, an escape from reality. 

Some, however, may choose to thumb their noses at reality by choosing the topic as their Halloween costume - dressing as aid workers, or... the disease itself, reports Reuters. (Hmm, does it seem rather hardhearted and thoughtless to make light of tragedy? Comments?) 

Given the news of today, there are enough real life events to get scared about. It almost makes a horde of zombies preferable.

 * For a "lighter" look at monsters and what happens when a girl turns part-zombie? Becca copes with that, and more. in Girl Z: My Life As A Teenage Zombie.


* See Monstropedia for other monsters.

* Get it while you can! Halloween gift - sale 99 cents for 24 hours to 10/26. Changes to 1.99 (still a deal!) 

 ** Please LIKE my Amazon Author page!
** Comment on your fears or favorite Halloween memory to win a copy of GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie. (US shipping only.) 

World War Z: Max Brooks Talks Zombies

(Max Brooks, author of zombie books, World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide. C. Verstraete photo)

(Note: this is a two-part story. See part 2 at Zombie Pop)

Max Brooks Still Talks - and Fears - Zombies

By Christine Verstraete

Max Brooks is a man of two natures.

   There is the serious Brooks, the man who talks about zombies and links them with real life issues. Then there is the entertainer who gets his point across with wry and often hysterical humor.

  But in whatever persona he is, to this author of the still popular zombie books, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War and The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, zombies are more than just scary monsters. They are real life--just in another form and body. And that real stuff is what actually has kept him interested in the whole zombie thing for the past decade.

   "It's fear," he said in a phone interview Friday prior to his lecture appearance at Harper College in Palatine, Ill. "For me, they're a global threat."

   Global meaning real life disasters - the floods, the earthquakes, the Katrinas, that can turn life into an apocalypse at any moment. That is the underlying message of his books, Brooks says: "I like writing about stuff from a real perspective. The only part of a zombie story that should be unreal should be the zombies."

   That message is what he tries to share in the countless lectures he's done across the country since his first book, The Zombie Survival Guide, was published in 2003. He does not take ideas of an apocalypse or natural disaster lightly and says neither should we. Those zombie preppers you read about? Extreme, maybe, but not as crazy as you might think. Being prepared is the one thing they do have right, Brooks says. He can relate.

   "The nice thing is zombie peppers have a kit ready for natural disasters," he says. "...I had an earthquake prep kit as a kid. A student journalist asked me, 'what if you have it wrong?' What's wrong about if you don't know how to purify water, you will die...? Zombies are Katrina. It's all how you look at it."

   How Brooks looks at it is with humor, natural for a guy who was a writer with Saturday Night Live (SNL) from 2001 to 2003. And being the son of legendary actor Mel Brooks must have rubbed off, too. Such credentials certainly helped him make the jump to author, right?

   Wrong.

   Brooks wrote the first book, The Zombie Survival Guide, thinking it would fail - and it almost did. "I thought it was a book that would get stuck in a drawer," he says. "Who would want to buy a real survival guide on something that wasn't real?"

   Being linked to SNL actually made it worse, he adds: "That hurt me. It haunted me the first years of publication. I was at a big disadvantage. (Bookstores) put it (the book) in the humor section. The hardcore (zombie) fans thought I was pissing on them. The humor fans expected a joke book and didn't get it."

   The solution? Brooks began his lectures as a way to promote the book and thanks to a genius suggestion by wife Michelle Kholos, things turned around.

   "I started the lectures to hand-sell the books," he says. "She suggested I go directly to the Better Homes and Gardens of Horror, Fangoria, and ask to plead my case. They did an interview."

   These days he's been doing so many lectures, "I don't know how many," that he says he and his wife had a serious talk. "It was getting to the point, I was afraid to be away from my family (for too long). My son is eight-years-old. He needs a dad more than we need a zombie author."

   So, he may begin cutting down on the lectures, but he hasn't stopped writing or working on other projects. Nor has he left the zombies behind. Just out is a new comic based on his short story, The Extinction Parade.

    The first of a 12-part series tells the story of a zombie plague through the eyes of vampires. Or as he says, again relating back to his preparedness theme, "vampires have always been at the top of the food chain so they never developed survival skills. With zombies, they realize, what are they going to eat? It's an exploration of the downside of privilege, people who don't know how to work, don't know how to struggle, don't know how to (survive). You can apply this to an actual disaster. There is nothing cool or sexy about it. Zombies are just the catalyst."

 * Read more about Max Brooks' Lecture: Zombie Facts, but Funny:

   Zombies and preparing for that zombie apocalypse were never so funny, not unless you are Max Brooks, former Saturday Night Live (SNL) writer and author of the popular zombie books, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War and The Zombie Survival Guide.

  **  Read the rest at ZombiePop.

Student "zombies" added some "reality" to the lecture event. (Photos: C.Verstraete)

Sabrina's Word Wednesday #1 Zombie, what else?

Sabrina's Word Wednesday!

Every Wednesday I'll post a word or phrase that zombie fans either already know, or definitely should. There's almost an entire language of zombie-related idioms, and it keeps growing with each new game, movie, book, and comic book.

So let's start with the basics. The most important word in the entire zombie-related lexicon is.....

Ready?

Here it comes.....

ZOMBIE.

Zombie?? Where???

Told you we were starting with the basics. Anyway, what we think of zombies now are "undead" people, corpses who have been reanimated, either because of some awful virus (28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, etc) or some supernatural or magical means (Dead Before Dawn), and can sit anywhere on the spectrum of uncoordinated, lumbering, body-part dropping, green-skinned zombies to extraordinarily fast, insanely angry, and inhumanly strong zombies. 

But the word zombie actually is an evolved version of the older Haitian word zonbi and the African word nzumbe. In both languages, it was used to describe someone who was either dead and reanimated by witchcraft, or someone who was nearly comatose, answering to no one except for one master, again by witchcraft. 

In some cultures, zombies are still feared and believed to be real; witches or shaman supposedly punish the wicked by turning into zombies and making them slaves. There is even some possible evidence that certain herbs and ingredients can create a zombie-like effect on its victims.

Folklore (with possible truth to it) usually finds its way into contemporary fiction, and George Romero took the obscure idea of zombies and turned them into a household word with his 1968 movie Night of the Living Dead. Zombies were put on the silver screen and made famous in all their shuffling, moaning, brains-eating glory. Since then, zombies have become a pop-culture phenomenon, lately rivaling even vampires. Even the sparkling ones.

So, regardless of whether they are fast, slow, smart, dumb, downright vicious, or mildly pesky, the word zombie has come to encompass much more than just a voodoo'd slave. 

Luckily, no matter what the word technically means, so far it has all been fiction... So far.

Leave a comment with a book, show, movie, comic book, or game about zombies that actually has the word "zombie" in its title. There's not as many as you'd think!

Meet the Girl Zombie Authors!

Meet the Girl Zombie Authors:

Thought we'd kick out the new blog with a little intro about us. Be sure to check out our pages and come back for all kinds of zombie and horror fun! Yes, fun... heh-heh-heh! We'll be talking books, movies, and whatever strikes our collective fancies, so stay tuned...

I'm Chris Verstraete, author of the upcoming YA novel, GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie (coming in 2013 from Intrigue Publishing), and a recent zombie convert.

     

Well, maybe not that recent.... I've been a big horror fan all my life. I mean, what can be better than a good scare, right? I came onto the zombie fiction writing scene a few years ago, though I'd seen some movies before that (good and mostly bad.) But like everyone else, I saw The Walking Dead and was hooked, even if some of the creatures are well, okay. admit it--kind of gross. But it's the story that hooks you.

  I've done some short horror and played with a touch of humor in a previous zombie-related short story, THE KILLER VALENTINE BALL. But thinking about a new twist on zombies led me to  ponder, what if a  young girl is scratched, but only partly transforms? What would happen? And given my penchant for odd humor, I had to make it funny (humor being subjective, of course.) Hence, GIRL Z was born... can't wait to see what you think!
         ** See website for synopsis, ebooks and short book trailer.



Meet co-blogger Karina Fabian: 

I'm Karina Fabian, and I write mostly fantasy and science fiction, though I have delved into horror and written a devotional.  I've got eclectic interests, and invite you to check out my website, http://fabianspace.com, pick a genre and explore.  Many of my stories are humorous and satirical, so when Kim Richards of Damnation Books asked for some zombie stories, that's the angle I took.


The Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator stories are as much an irreverent look at our near future as they are about zombies.  In them, we've managed the zombie contagion, making them less an apocalypse and more a pest control issue.  Neeta Lyffe is an exterminator in California with an unusual specialization--zombies.  With chainsaws, laser swords, napalm grenades and cleaning chemicals, she'll handle your undead issues.  Now, if only she was as good handling her living issues!  You can learn more at http://zombiedeathextreme.com.



Meet co-blogger Pembroke Sinclair:

 I'm Pembroke Sinclair and when I first started writing, my goal was to be classified as a sci fi/fantasy writer.  But as I honed my skills and found my writing style, I found that I enjoyed writing in several different genres.  Now, I write an eclectic mix of fiction ranging from Westerns to horror to sci fi to fantasy.

The first story I had published was based on one of my spouse's guiding adventures.  After that, things just fell into place.  I've had several short stories published in several different places, and I have two novels, with a third on they way, and I recently signed a contract for my fourth.  One of my short stories, Sohei, was even voted as a "Best of 2008" story by the Cynic Online. 

I've written several books including, LIFE AFTER THE UNDEAD and DEATH TO THE UNDEAD. 

* See details at my blog. * Check out the LIFE AFTER THE UNDEAD book trailer.


Meet co-blogger Sabrina James Riley:

I am Sabrina James Riley; Mother, horrible cook, worse athlete, English freak, lover of sushi, and author. My first novel was The Loki Variation, a story about a different kind of zombie outbreak, and how people who start off as strangers become as close as a family in order to make it.

My short zombie story, Wesley, is a pretty rare perspective on the change from human to zombie, and the cycle that starts an epidemic, with maybe a hint of humor. It's being featured in the highly-anticipated horror comic anthology, Skin Crawling Comics, coordinated by Rachel Pandich.

I have a fascination with zombies, and while I like the classic, slow-moving Romero zombies, I love the fast, rage-filled, superhuman 28 Days Later zombies. I live in Florida with my zombie-loving husband, my two daughters, and a few too many pets.