“The giant Texan slides a shot of “killdevil” rum in my direction, then swings his massive, bootclad feet onto the table” –World War Z

Upon first reading that sentence in World War Z, there’s no way one could know that Max Brooks really loves rum. So how do we at ZWN know he likes rum? It’s simple, he told us.

Not long ago when we interviewed Max we got into a discussion about rum. We didn’t start the conversation, we swear! He disclosed to us that he had lots of bottles of rum. We asked how much and he stated ,”more than I should.” He then proceeded to autograph some poor guy’s book by jotting down his personal rum selections. So we asked him to do the same for us on my notepad. Now we share those selections with you. Who knows, maybe they’ll give you that extra moxie when dealing with zombies.

• Pusser’s British Navy “For a royal kick in the nards”
• Cruzan Single Barrel “Summer sipping”
• Cruzan Blackstrap “Winter warmer”

Around 6:30 pm the zombies appeared on Cherokee Ave and staggered onto Hollywood Blvd. They shuffled along Hollywood Blvd until they got to the Mann’s Chinese theatre where once there they scared tourists and milled
around for awhile before crossing the street and heading back. Tourist buses travelling down Hollywood Blvd got much more than they bargained for and many stopped to take pictures. The obligatory hearse drove by too and caused a small stir amongst the zombies. Local shopkeepers are used to this kind of thing and they don’t seem to mind…well, not that much anyway.

We at ZWN counted about 125 zombies! Some of the zombies included Old Man Boomer zombie, Little Red Riding Hood zombie, Raccoon City Police Department zombies, Giant Grotesque Monster zombie, and Zombie Guy with Zombie dog and the celebrity zombie award went to Marilyn Monroe zombie.

We at ZWN just love Saturday nights in Hollywood, especially with zombies. The next event for So.Cal  ZombieWalk will be in August and the location is being kept a secret at this time. We did speak with Anthony the Event Organizer and he said it will be a good one.

Check out So.Cal ZombieWalk on My Space.

This year, certain minority communities are urging their members to see the 2010 Census as an opportunity to be officially recognized. In the past few months there has been a huge push in the Iranian community to check the “Some other race” box and write in “Iranian” or “Iranian-American.” 338,000 Iranian individuals were counted in the 2000 Census while the actual number is believed to be at least two times greater, according to iranianscount.org.

“Do you really think that’s an accurate count?” UCLA student Payam Parveez said. “It’s not called ‘Tehrangeles’ for nothing.”

Educating Iranians to designate themselves as such, instead of White, could result in minority status, which opens the door to benefits for the community like funding, university admissions or loan qualifications.

“I’m ready to be recognized as a minority,” Parveez said.

But other communities are not seeing the same support and enthusiasm. Jonathan Z. Doe, president and co-founder of Feel Life: Even Sans Hearts, the non-profit organization leading the Zombie community’s integration into the living world, said though members may not share the same lifestyle as their breathing counterparts, they deserve recognition as well.

“It’s negligence when you get right down to it,” Doe said. “We at FLESH just want the U.S. to know that there is another minority group here too, who contributes just as much to society as anyone else.”

However, the government doesn’t seem to agree with Doe’s standpoint.

“Let’s make this perfectly, totally and utterly clear,” Mary Donahue, 2010 U.S. Census supervisor said, “ ‘Undead’ doesn’t qualify as a race, ethnicity or anything. If anything, it would fall under ‘State of life’ or something. We’re not that advanced yet.”

Donahue also expressed that addressing such a matter is ridiculous and “a big fucking waste of time.”

Even with such opposition, Doe believes that his movement can gain speed if enough community members were aware of the situation and willing to be educated. The lack of funds, information of any kind and general interest from the public are only some of the roadblocks FLESH is facing, Doe said. But he has faith that many Zombies are already conscious of this injustice and ready to make a change.

“Uuuuuuhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnmmmmmmmmm,” Zombie Richard Beech said, when asked what he would mark on his Census form.

Since October of 2004, Gallery Nucleus is open 7 days a week and strives to be a welcoming gathering place for the art loving community by offering quality art, art-related goods, and rarities. Focusing primarily on gallery exhibits, they have also had benefit auctions, product signings, music events, and artist lectures. Having exhibited both local artists and artists from abroad, and catering to an international customer base, they offer an extensive collection of original contemporary, illustrated, graphic, commercial, and narrative art. (from http://www.gallerynucleus.com)

Discover the true meaning of undying love…

Gathering recognized names in the field of zombie culture and other zombie enthusiasts contributing paintings, sculptures, and live performance paying homage to the reanimated dead and true love that persists beyond the grave.

Featured artists include:

Amy Ortiz, Anna Chambers, Barth, Becky Cloonan, Ben Zhu, Brian Smith, Chito Arellano, Chris Lane, Damon Bard, D’Holbachie-Yoko, Graham Annable, Greg Nicotero (KNB efx group), Ippei Gyoubu, J. Shea, Jim McPherson, Jeremy Enecio, JJ Villard, John Pham, Jonathan Wayshak, Jordu Schell, JPG, Junko Mizuno, Martin Astles, Mindy Lee, Pendleton Ward, Robh Ruppel, Rodney Fuentebella, Scott C., Sebastien Mesnard, Tony Lombardo, William B. Hand, William Stout.

When asked “Why a zombies in love art exhibit?” Ben Zhu, Manager at Gallery Nucleus stated that he wanted to do a Valentines themed show but nothing really piqued his interest. He liked zombies and had been wanting to do a show on zombies for awhile. He feels that even though some people think zombies are relatively recent, that they’ve actually been around for a long time.

While anticipating this event I didn’t quite know what to expect to be honest.  I had seen the ad, known the concept and thought it would be kind of like the cover of “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” (i.e. a lot of famous art reworked with zombies).  As we found out, it was not, but that did not sway my opinion either.  Overall, I would say that the exhibit was less “zombies in love” and more “in love with zombies” as there were more pieces that did not seem to have “love” as a theme.  Still, all of the art was quite amazing.  Particularly grotesque, in a train wreck kind of way, were the 3D pieces that looked like real skin with eyes, teeth, and whatever he wanted to add.  I know that normally “train wreck” is usually used in a negative connotation, but these were so awesomely gruesome I had to turn away, then look back to see if I thought they were as realistic and disturbing as I had thought, and yup…they certainly were.  This process was repeated a good four or five times with each piece of his there.   My favorite piece, being the hopeless romantic I am, was probably the one of a male and female zombie out of the coffin, but still underground together.  It was more cartoony than realistic just so none of the readers think I am some sort of necrophile.  Lol  I would definitely recommend this exhibit to anyone who loves zombies.  -Michael Funk (from ZWN)

One would expect certain themes from a zombie art exhibit-brains, horror, decay, hunger, sadness…and well, more brains. I really wasn’t sure what to expect from an art exhibit called “zombies in love”, but honestly, I didn’t really care because I just wanted to see some zombies! I’d say probably less than half of the exhibit kept to the theme of “zombies in love”, but that’s fine with me. There was a good smorgasbord of zombie art; pictures, sculptures, paintings, busts, and even zombie plushes. Some were quite grotesque, but that’s to be expected from a zombie art exhibit, right? While some of the art I would graciously accept in my home, others I wouldn’t want in the same city.The “Zombie Fair” would make a great print to hang on a wall as a kind of “Where’s Waldo” of zombies while the most puzzling piece was a giant statue of an alien creature over 7 feet tall, which posed the question-Can aliens be zombies? My favorite pieces were probably the zombie plushes (Blue, Green, and Pink Zombie Babies), but I’m weird that way. I really enjoyed the exhibit and would highly recommend it to those of you weirdoes that love zombies as much as me. -Marcel “Dangermouse” Sarfati (from ZWN)

If you can’t make it to the gallery before the exhibit ends, you can view it on the Gallery Nucleus website.

Gallery Nucleus is located at:

210 East Main Street
Alhambra, CA 91801
(626) 458-7482

Mon-Thurs: 12pm-9pm, Fri-Sun: 11am-10pm

http://www.gallerynucleus.com

ZWN attended several panels while we were there. We also got bumped into by Cindy Brady, met Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy), laughed at Carol Channing (how can she still be alive?), and had words with Bob Barker (he really did do his own fighting in Happy Gilmore). But ZWN was there with really only one panel on our mind-The Zombies and Other Creatures of the Night.

The panel consisted of:  Amber Benson, Francesca Lia Block, S.G. Browne, Seth Grahame-Smith, and E. Van Lowe   The moderator was: Del Howison.

The two highlights of the panel were Amber Benson and Seth Grahame-Smith.

You may remember Amber Benson; she spent three seasons as Tara Maclay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It turns out that there is life after Buffy. Amber is an actress, but she’s also a director, producer and a writer. Up till now she has co-authored with Christopher Golden, but February of 2009 saw the release of her first solo book Death’s Daughter, whose main character is called Calliope Reaper-Jones (she’d better have a talk with her parents about who named her).  

Here’s the synopsis of her book:

Calliope Reaper-Jones so just wanted a normal life: buying designer shoes on sale, dating guys from Craig’s List, web-surfing for organic dim-sum for her boss… But when her father — who happens to be Death himself — is kidnapped, and the Devil’s protégé embarks on a hostile takeover of the family business, Death, Inc., Callie returns home to assume the CEO mantle — only to discover she must complete three nearly impossible tasks in the realm of the afterlife first. Buy it here:

She co-wrote and directed the animated web-series, Ghosts of Albion, (with Christopher Golden) for the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ghosts/embers/one/

She’s also doing a spinoff of Death’s Daughter called The New Newbridge Academy; it’s a kid’s book for Simon and Schuster and it should be out in 2010. Amber keeps herself busy.

The moderator Del Howison (of Dark Delicacies) asked, “What’s the weirdest question you’ve been asked about your writing?” Amber replied, “Most people don’t know I wrote a book. They’re mostly interested in Buffy. They say Tara wrote a book? Some people ask if I actually wrote it.” Check out Amber’s blog here: http://amberbensonwrotethis.blogspot.com/

We got to hear from Francesca Lia Block, controversial author of many young adult books, most famously the Weetzie Bat series.  She briefly discussed Weetzie Bat, as she is writing the screenplay to take it to the big screen. She also discussed her new book: Wood Nymph Seeks Centaur: A Mythological Dating Guide. It is exactly what it sounds like, a dating book to find your compatible type, be it Minotaur, Satyr, or whatever. You can see what she’s up to here:

Next up was our pal S.G. Browne, author of Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament. Scott seemed mild mannered on stage with everyone; ZWN was rooting for him. He spoke about his current book, the process of it being turned into a movie and also his upcoming book, Fated. Del asked Scott, “Is there a lot of Scott in your stories?” To which he replied, “In this one not so much. My first 3 books were a lot like me. But in this book, each character has a little of all of me. I was inside a fraternity in college, which gave me some insight as to how they operate, which can be seen in Breathers.” He’s very intellectual in person and has a firm grasp of language. He’s articulate and has a strange sense of humor. We love the zombie haikus by the way. Make sure to check out ZWN’s one on one interview with him as well. If you haven’t read the book, why not? Go out and get it already. It’s in nearly every bookstore and if not, you can buy it online:

Also, Scott’s blogs are quite funny and sometimes thought provoking; check them out at: http://sgbrowne.com/blog/

Second to last was heavy hitter and another ZWN pal Seth Grahame-Smith. You all should know by now that he is the author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into 18 languages. He is also a film and television writer and producer, semi-frequent political blogger (Huffington Post), and the co-Creator/Executive Producer of the new MTV comedy series, Hard Times. We don’t want to tell you what Hard Times is all about; you should look on the Internet and find out for yourself. His next book, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, will be out in hardcover this spring. Seth was asked about his book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is in its 20^th printing. When it first came out, it was 3^rd on the New York Times bestseller list. It promptly dropped to 7^th because there were not enough available. So stores had to order more. Then it made its way back up to 3^rd. Quirk Publishers originally planned for an April 1^st release date, but everybody thought that was a joke so they moved it.”   When asked about writing fiction and doing another Jane Austen mash-up book, he replied, “I love fiction, I want to continue writing fiction. I didn’t want to be the Jane Austen mash-up guy again. I would love to continue doing twisted genres, but I don’t want to be gimmicky forever, because that’s a short career.” When asked about his new book, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, he stated, “It’s a darker book; our 16^th president, the Great Emancipator, was also one of the greatest vampire hunters of all time. He’s like the original goth; he’s dark and brooding. I wanted the book to be as historically accurate as possible; God bless Wikipedia and the Lincoln Log. There’s a lot we don’t know about Abe, especially in his first 30 years. He was lean, buff, could throw an axe 30 feet and split a log… or a vampire.” That’s it— we’re sold! We know it’s not about zombies, but we can’t wait for that book to come out. As for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, we’re not going to tell you to go out and buy the book, because if you haven’t by now then you’re just plain stubborn. However, the deluxe edition is out now, with 30% more zombies, so go buy that instead:

Last but not least was E. Van Lowe, a veritable unknown (to us anyway), but we found out he used to write for the Cosby Show and that makes him okay in our book. He co-wrote the Academy Award nominated short film Cadillac Dreams and most recently a teen book called Never Slow Dance with a Zombie. He stated that this was not his last teen novel, but we’re not sure if he’ll be doing another zombie book. We’ll have to see. Buy the book. It’s great for kids; really it is:

and check out his website at: http://evanlowe.com/

After the panel they all did a signing at the Dark Delicacies booth. By the way, if you’re ever in Los Angeles, it pays to stop in at the Dark Delicacies store in Burbank. It’s one of the coolest stores ever, with all manner of horror items throughout the store (books, magazines, DVD’s, music, clothing, etc).They’re open every day except Monday and the owner Del Howison is quite a writer himself. If you can’t make it to the shop, that’s what the internet is for, check them out at: http://www.darkdel.com/

We also met another quirky author by the name of Dana Fredsti; it turns out that she’s working on a zombie anthology. The title is Hunger for Your Love and it will be published by Ravenous Romance; the editor is Lori Perkins. Keep an eye out for it in stores possibly as early as Halloween and check back here as we have more information on it, along with possible interviews and reviews.

We enjoyed the West Hollywood Book Fair and it was great to meet authors that we admire and put a face to a name. Until next year, then.

Check out the pics on our Facebook page!

Near to 5:00pm the zombies flooded the Metro Red Line station underneath Hollywood and Highland. Shambling through the station and somehow negotiating the stairs they emerged ready to search for brains and wreak havoc on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Funny enough, in the movie Zombieland there’s a scene where the main characters are driving through Hollywood, past Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and zombies are moving about. The whole zombie walk was very reminiscent of that scene.

ZWN followed the group of zombies, maybe a hundred in all up Hollywood Blvd for several blocks and then back down to the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Tourists there for the Hollywood glitter got a little scare and many stopped to take pictures, but the zombies rarely stopped to pose for them.

Some of the zombies included Skateboard zombie, Golfer zombie (with arms instead of clubs in his golf bag), Raccoon City Police Department zombie, a mother and her little daughter (in a cheerleader outfit) zombie, fisherman zombie (in yellow slacker with a plastic crab) and the celebrity zombie award went to Charles Manson looking zombie (or was he trying to be Rob Zombie?…hmm, not too sure).

Jeff Schiffman, self appointed tour guide of the zombie walk decided that was how he wanted to spend his 30^th birthday. We at ZWN found out about the Hollywood Zombie Walk through Jeff’s post on www.ZombieWalk.com. He also set up a Twitter account for the walk. ZWN met with Schiffman and other zombies before they all disappeared back into the Hollywood underground.

Saturday nights in Hollywood are always fun, but Saturday nights in October are always better.  : )

You can check out all the photos on our Facebook page.

ZWN: You were inspired to write Breathers from a short story that you wrote, but what inspired you to write the short story in the first place?

SB: I’ve always been a fan of zombies, ever since I was young. I saw Night of the Living Dead when I was in 6^th grade; I was 11 years old. I’ve just enjoyed zombies all the way through, but I wanted to do something a little bit differently and I actually imagined, Well, what would I do if I was a zombie and I wasn’t your typical flesh eating mindless monster, but I reanimated and all of a sudden was a non human? What would I do? Would I have any rights? Would I be able to get a job or go to school? Could I eat out in public? What would that be like? So that’s where it came about and I’ve been writing for about 12 years and I’ve never written anything zombie-ish. So I wanted to write some kind of zombie story, but I wanted to do a different take than most everybody else.

ZWN: Breathers is your first published book, but can you give us an idea of the kind of stuff you wrote before Breathers?

SB: Sure, the general answer is kind of straight supernatural stuff inspired by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, F.O. Wilson, the holy grail of cool authors that I grew up reading. But, the first book was about witchcraft, reincarnation and demons. The second one was about supernatural creatures that lived in a town that haunted the town and there was a ghost story involved as well. The third one, which is the only one that I might go back to and try to redo is called Obsession. It’s about a main character that has OCD and because of his OCD he’s able to see these shadows out of the corner of his eye and he thinks it’s just him going crazy but what they actually are, are demons from another dimension intruding upon his town’s reality and gradually taking more and more control of the reality and so he starts to really go crazy but he’s actually the only one that’s sane because he sees what’s going on and how it’s affecting the town. It was a lot of fun to write and I could go back to that one; it’s first person but it wasn’t really dark comedy. It was more straight serious and natural but I think it has the possibility of being rewritten in a darkly comedic manner.

ZWN: The recipes in Breathers were pretty disgusting in a comedic way and some of the stuff described in Breathers seemed like it came from an episode of CSI, with the decomposition and such. Where does that sick stuff come from? Also, what kind of research did you do?

SB: I’ll take the research part first. The research, I went online and found a couple of good articles about human decomposition that were actually by Dr. Tricia McNair and I called her and I acknowledge her in the book. But the main crux of what I used for my research is Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Cadavers by Mary Roach. It’s an awesome book, if you’re curious about what happens to your body after death, what it’s used for in terms of medical experiments, those that are donated to science, the history of embalming. She tackles it with a somewhat irreverent flair, but it’s very humorous and it was a great source of material for me to use. It had all the stuff in there like I have one zombie haiku that says, “Maggots feast on flesh / Subcutaneous buffet / Sounds like rice krispies.” That was actually something that the concept was taken from Stiff. So definitely a lot of that came from there and in terms of the recipes, it just seemed sort of natural when they started eating for him to try to figure out how to cook it up. I actually used a Random House book and they wouldn’t let me use the term; it was a Random House cookbook because Random House is the publisher. So I couldn’t say it was a Random House cookbook. So it had to be a generic cookbook that he used.

ZWN: Breathers is a dark comedy. Is that a type of genre that you enjoy writing in?

SB: Most definitely, and I didn’t realize it until I started writing Breathers. I hadn’t thought about taking any of my short stories that were darkly comedic, ’cause I’d written a few, and make them novel length until I read Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk and I thought if he was able to make it work for a whole novel that when I started writing that it really resonated with me quite a bit more and so my next book is dark comedy with a supernatural edge. The ideals for my next three are all very definite supernatural, first person dark comedy and so that’s kind of where I see myself fitting in. Whether or not you consider it Christopher Moore or Chuck Palahniuk, it’s that type of deal.

ZWN: Breathers dealt with issues of racism and prejudice. Did that just come natural to you as you were writing it or were you inspired in some other fashion?

SB: Well, even though it became a definite theme throughout the book when I first started writing it, that wasn’t my intention to write something that dealt with issues of racism and prejudice and discrimination. It was just something that really developed out of the natural storytelling and as the story went along I knew that these issues had to be at least broached and I tried to do it without beating the reader over the head with it and making it the reason for telling the story. Really the reason for telling the story is these zombies try to find a purpose in a world in which they have no purpose and that’s really what thrives the narrative through.

ZWN: Breathers takes place in Santa Cruz. Was any of it based on places that you hang out at or knew?

SB: Most definitely. I lived in Santa Cruz from 1992 to 2006 and the house that Andy lives in, even though that’s not my house, the neighborhood is loosely based on it. There’s the ravine he has to go through when he takes his walks and when he goes to the community center for the meetings. That was right next to my house and the mortuary that he would stand in front of, that actually was there at the time I was writing it, but now it’s gone; it’s actually a health center now. The First Baptist Mortuary was definitely there and then a lot of the other landmarks when he’s going on his walks. There’s no real big Santa Cruz landmarks like the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk or anything downtown, or any of the things that most people associate (the Mystery Spot) with it, because that wasn’t necessarily my intention. He was going to spending his time going to specific things, but if you’re from Santa Cruz and you know Sir Froggy’s Pub, or the Crawfords Antiques, or The Pet Pals, or Elaine’s Dance Studio, that are mentioned in there, you’ll recognize it. I played a little bit with the geography in terms of the So Cal Cemetery, but that’s there.

ZWN: The zombies you wrote about in Breathers seem more like the slow George Romero type zombies. Is that true, and which do you prefer, slow or fast zombies?

SB: I would say that they’re not really like the slow moving zombies in Romero’s. Near the end, when they actually are moving and active, I think there’s a scene where Andy actually says, “We’re tenacious and we’re fast” and he actually moves with quite a bit of agility. Andy really is a slow moving zombie because of his injury, because his left ankle was pulverized and his shoulder is pulverized, so he’s your quintessential slow moving zombie. But the rest of them are just normal people who happen to deal with their behaviors and the way they move is based on their injuries. In terms of fast moving or slow moving: I thought the fast moving zombies in 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead really kind of upped the adrenaline factor, but the slow moving zombies- what’s great about them is their sheer mass of numbers that overwhelms you and it’s a little creepier with them. It’s a little more frightening, I think, when they’re moving fast, coming at you with so much ferocity, but when they’re just sort of slowly laboring toward you and there’s so many of them, it’s hard to top that.

Going back to one of the questions you asked me earlier. One of the reasons why I enjoy zombies so much and thought they would be perfect for this is they are tragically comical, they’re shuffling along, they’re decomposing, there’s just something very darkly comedic.

ZWN: Breathers, pro-zombie, anti-zombie, or somewhere in the middle?

SB: I think it’s somewhere in the middle. Somebody made a comment on a review on one of the sites I saw where they thought that I had lost the message in there, which was pro-zombie rights. Well, there wasn’t a message of pro-zombie rights in there. Really the message is that it would be tough to have them co-exist. So, it would be pro-zombie. I wanted to get the perspective of what it would be like inside the head of a zombie, albeit admittedly, these are sentient zombies, it’s not somebody whose brain is completely muddled and they have some grasps of thought, this is somebody who actually has all the emotions and memories and feelings, but they’re just dead.

So, it’s a different type of perspective. To write a perspective from a zombie that’s actually shuffling and wanting human flesh would be a different type of story, but this was definitely, I would say it would be more pro-zombie to give you pause, to think about the other side.

ZWN: What about a sequel to Breathers, or a spinoff, or a prequel?

SB: Never say never, but again if I can come up with something that’s not derivative. I don’t want to be derivative of Breathers, I don’t want to rehash the same material, I don’t want to go over the same stuff. If it’s fresh and it’s a different take on it or it’s something going in a different direction, then I would definitely do something that would be, while if not necessarily a sequel, it would at least be related to it. But, I don’t have any plans at the moment to write a sequel. At the moment all of the books that I’m doing now from here on out, like I said, dark comedy with a supernatural, fantastic, sci-fi, or horror edge, but not necessarily zombies.

ZWN: How goes the progress with the Breathers movie? How will you be involved?

SB: The progress with the Breathers movie right now is that a script is being written and it’s waiting to be approved and then once they are able to do that then the process will continue, obviously, and they’ll start to attach people to it. The studio is very excited about it and they’re looking forward to it. The people involved with it are excited. I have complete confidence that the screenwriter Geoff La Tulippe is going to create a very great script based on the book. In terms of being involved, they’ve let me know what was going on with it, the changes they’ve had to make. I don’t have any specific input saying I don’t like these changes and I don’t need to because I understand that I need to let go of control and let them do what needs to be done to make it the best possible movie it can be and I don’t want to get in the way of that.

ZWN: What has Andy been up to lately?

SB: Andy is still answering questions on the blog. You can always ask Andy a question. He does go around and sign books in the guise of me at pretty much any bookstore he comes across. He’s decomposing a little bit, I’m sure, and doing his best. He’s taking his “medicine” to make sure he maintains his personal hygiene.

ZWN: You are the founder of Undead Anonymous, correct? Tell us a bit about UA.

SB: Well, Undead Anonymous is an organization to help the recently reanimated adjust to their new existence and that includes the rules you have to follow within a world ruled by Breathers and twice weekly Undead Anonymous meetings, where you can go in and there’s a moderator who’s also a zombie and you can join with all the other fellow zombie brethren in learning how to cope with all of the challenges you have to face now that you are one of the living dead and have no rights and have been thrown out by society. The UA meetings are overseen by a Breather liaison from the Department of Resurrection through the county, in this case the county of Santa Cruz. So you do have to deal with a little bit of oversight, but for the most part so long as you behave like nice little zombies and you don’t go out and start behaving the way they do in movies, then you can co-exist with the living but you still have to deal with a lot of the problems, but UA is there to help. If you go to the website, it gives you basically some feedback and testimonials about how UA can help. http://www.undeadanonymous.com/

ZWN: One of the Undead Commandments for UA is “You will not develop on-line personalities.” Why is that?

SB: Well, if you go onto the internet, that the internet is communication, and communication, as everybody knows, is power and so if they’re on there and able to communicate with other zombies and they’re finding out what other zombies might be doing, plus the other problem is, they don’t want zombies going on and going into chatrooms talking to people like normal humans do. They’re keeping the zombie down. They don’t want them to have the same access as humans.

ZWN: Your next book is called Fated. Can we get a bit of information on that?

SB: Sure, my problem with Fated is that with Breathers I can tell people that it’s Fight Club meets Shaun of the Dead, only with zombies as the good guys and they’re like, “Ok. I understand completely.” Fated is a little bit  higher concept or different kind of concept and so I don’t have one line. One line would be, “It’s a dark, irreverent comedy about fate, destiny and the cosmic consequences of getting involved in the lives of humans.” But to expand that so that you understand a bit more, the main character is Fate and he has Destiny-envy because she gets to deal with all the people who are destined for greatness while he gets all the people who are slated for mediocrity or to not live up to their full potential. He gets all of the drug addicts. There’s nothing wrong with the people who are garbage collectors, but you’re just not destined to be a garbage collector and most of the politicians are fated to be politicians. He gets the one hit wonders, he gets The Knack and destiny gets The Beatles. His client list is much larger and has exploded with the population explosion, so he’s overwhelmed with his job, and he’s getting worn out and tired and he’s getting a little sick of all of his humans making bad choices and screwing up their lives, so he starts to get involved in their lives and that’s against the rules, which starts to have cosmic consequences. Also, he’s got a problem with Destiny, he’s got a five hundred year old grudge with Death, his best friends are Sloth and Gluttony and he also has to deal with Jerry, who is God, who of course is breathing down his neck about the problems he’s creating. It’s a lot of fun and there is some social commentary in there from the standpoint that Fate’s contagion is that the consumer culture causes people to make a lot of bad decisions about their lives and not live up to their potential because they are constantly accusing things based on what people think they should be or what they should own in order to define who they are rather than looking inside themselves to define who they are. They take the forms of humans; obviously they have some abilities so they can choose to make themselves invisible if they want to. They walk around in what are called “mansuits,” which are highly advanced suits that mimic the appearance of man. They’re also able to travel at the speed of light to be ubiquitous; they can be in New York at one moment, California the next, Las Vegas the next, and Amsterdam, Poland, Sweden, and they can pop all over to deal with all the people that they have to deal with and make sure that they are fulfilling the quotas and keeping up their workloads. It was a lot of fun to write.

ZWN: Time for the standard ZWN questions.

Do you have a zombie survival plan and if so, what is it?

SB: My only zombie survival plan-I’ve been asked this. There are five things I’d take with me and I can come up with a handful. A comfortable pair of shoes, definitely. I have my camelback, so I have my water. I probably would have my backpack filled with all my needs in it, but I’d have to make sure that somebody couldn’t grab that. Because if you’re wearing loose clothing, they can grab it, so at least I can shed the backpack. I have a Louisville Slugger that I’ve had since I was four years old, so it’s small and it’s a lot less cumbersome. It’s easy to wield that, because honestly people don’t know, if you hit a zombie in the head, it’s really going to kill them. So if you got a gun and all of a sudden the gun’s not working anymore and a zombie’s coming, you need something to take them down. Also, a gun triggers noise. I don’t have my fifth thing. I would probably hole up somewhere and make sure I had some kind of elevation. I live on the third floor of my apartment building. So I would definitely build up there and make sure I had access to the roof so if I had to take refuge up there I could.

ZWN: In dealing with zombies, what would be your weapon of choice?

SB: If I’m going with something I have in my apartment and I don’t have a gun, I’m not going to take a butcher knife, that’s too much close hand-to-hand. It would probably be my Louisville Slugger. My fifth item from the previous question would be my I-Pod, so I could have a soundtrack to fight with.

ZWN: Do you think zombies are overdone, or is there still room for growth there?

SB: I think there’s room for growth, that’s one of the reasons why I think they’re so popular. The sentient opinion as to why zombies are so popular- most people think it’s because of economic uncertainty and global fears about terrorism and a lot of things are going on right now and zombies are always popular when that happens. But I don’t really think so because they’re extremely popular now; they weren’t this popular back during the Vietnam War and Watergate, in the Iran hostage crisis and the gasoline shortage. They weren’t around during those times. When Wall Street crashed in 1987, they weren’t around then, not to this popularity level. I think it’s because they’ve been brought out of their box and they have more versatility and they’re faster, they’re funnier, they’re sentient, they’re doing marriage counseling, they’re on the internet, and like Jonathon Coulton’s song “Re Your Brains,” they’re serenading their ex co-workers about wanting to devour their brains. They’re doing a whole lot of things that they haven’t done before and so I think the fact that they are doing that adds popularity. I think so long as they’re able to stay some of the same- archetypal, but give them a chance to sort of grow and develop some new abilities, a new type of storyline, then I think they’ll continue to be popular.

ZWN: Who do you think is the best zombie hunter, alive or dead?

SB: I have to take Bruce Campbell. By the way, I would love if Bruce Campbell would play a role in the film version of Breathers. I think he would make a great father of Andy. Bruce Campbell is my favorite zombie hunter.

ZWN: Brains, yummy or gross?

SB: I would say probably yummy.

ZWN: Thank you for your time Scott.

You can see what Scott is up to here: http://sgbrowne.com/

Or you can ask Andy (the main character of Breathers) questions at: http://sgbrowne.com/category/ask-andy/

Or if you’re a recent addition to the Undead, get help, we mean it, get help at: http://www.undeadanonymous.com/

We asked Scott Browne a question on Librarything.com about the writing process:
ZWN: What kind of advice can you give to aspiring writers out there?

SB: Well, there are the usual suspects, like write every day (which we don’t all follow, truth be told), join a supportive writers’ group (which has been invaluable for me), and don’t take rejection personally (which you will, but you’ll get over it).

However, the one piece of advice, or the one suggestion, I like to throw out there is: write something you would want to read.

Don’t listen to what anyone else says you should write. Don’t try to write like a particular author or in a particular style or on a particular subject just because it’s popular or you think it’s what people want to read.

Write something that matters to you. Something that makes you laugh or cry or shudder in fear. Something that resonates with you on some level. Because if it doesn’t resonate with you, then it’s not going to resonate with anyone else.

Buy the book at any Barnes & Noble, Borders, or a bookstore near you, or order it online:

While we aren’t seeing a ton of outbreaks in North America, this is definitely not the last we may see of the outbreaks.  If you aren’t prepared already, you may want to start doing so.  Zombies are among us….it’s only a matter of time.