by Shawn Chesser Stage 1: Oh Crap! I promised what, to whom, when? Like one of those well-dressed Sunday morning callers bearing flimsy paper pamphlets, this gut-clenching realization comes a’ knocking the moment my book release party is over and I’m shutting the laptop—“For a month, honey. I promise”—and pushing away from the office desk. …
by Armand Rosamilia I wrote my first piece of zombie fiction in 2008. Had it published in an anthology in late 2010. By then I’d written Highway To Hell, which really started me on my path to writing zombie fiction each year. Dying Days was supposed to be one big book, but halfway through the …
by Jay Wilburn The smart money is on writing a series. Maybe the smart money is on not writing zombies or not writing at all, but if a person is already hopelessly committed to writing, then the smart money is on a series. Committed readers often gravitate to a series over standalone novels because once …
by Jay Wilburn This is one of the funny things about humans and real life. In many situations we observe, we try to imagine what we would do which leads to us thinking what we would do differently. It is a version of “Monday morning quarterbacking.” We see the consequences of an event and then …
by Jay Wilburn Every good apocalypse struggles with coming up with a great Big Bad. The villain needs to provide the right challenge for the heroes and interest for the audience. They can be crazy or zealots of their own system. That excuses a lot of bad behavior which fits perfectly into an apocalypse. Their …
by Jay Wilburn I started writing book 4 of the Dead Song Legend series in fall of 2016. I finished it in spring of 2017. That seems simple enough. At the beginning of the book, I was in stage 4 kidney failure. When I finished, I had a renal transplant and was healthy for the …
by Jay Wilburn Ray Bradbury recommended that authors write short stories before they attempt novels. Many writers steer away from short story work as their careers progress because the smart money is on novels. Bradbury also suggested that authors not try to make money as they are building up their craft. Jeez, what is this …
by Jay Wilburn I wrote about some of this a bit in the essay that opened the Jay Wilburn’s Terrible Tiny Zine Yule Time Issue that went out recently with the Jay Wilburn’s Terrible Boxes of Yule Time Things. The response was good for the Christmas edition of the mystery boxes, so a good many …
by Jay Wilburn When I set out in the stolen car with New Jersey plates toward the frozen tundra of Northern Florida, I did not expect an adventure. What happened next will surprise you more than any clickbait you have read today. First, Chuck Buda brought my family New Jersey bagels. These are easily distinguished …
by Jack Wallen It sounds a bit antithetical…keeping a genre about rotting flesh fresh. But after decades of zombie stomping around celluloid, paper, and ereaders, one might easily begin to wonder (or wander, if you’re so inclined) how a sub-genre has managed to not become stale. Considering how this issue is exponentially exacerbated by the …
