Those
of you who know me should realize by now that I do NOT like horror stories. And
yes, I’ve hosted a couple of amazing authors who have written in these genres
(Johnny Worthen, Berk and Andy Washburn, Adrienne Monson), but honestly, what scares the living daylights out of me are
ZOMBIES!
Until
now, I’ve avoided everything to do with this topic. But I was curious. And I also
believe that it’s best to face one’s fears than to run from them. So I decided
to read my very first ever book on zombies: Confessions
of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know Of) by F.J.R. Titchenell. To
my shock, I was hooked from page one. It was one of those books I just had to get
back to and finish. Of course, the next step is the interview.
The world is Cassie
Fremont’s playground. Her face is on the cover of every newspaper, she has no
homework, no curfew, and no credit limit, and she spends her days traveling the
country with her friends, including a boy who would flirt with death just to
turn her head. Life is just about perfect—except that those newspaper headlines
are about her bludgeoning her crush to death with a paintball gun, she has to
fight ravenous walking corpses every time she steps outside, and one of her
friends is still missing, trapped somewhere in the distant, practically
impassable wreckage of Manhattan. Still, Cassie’s an optimist. More prone to
hysterical laughter than hysterical tears, she’d rather fight a corpse than be
one, and she won’t leave a friend stranded when she can simply take her road
trip to impossible new places to find her, even if getting there means
admitting to that boy that she might just love him, too. Skillfully blending
effective horror with unexpected humor, this diary-format novel is a fast-paced
and heartwarming read.
Confessions of the Very
First Zombie Slayer (That I Know of) is F.J.R. Titchenell’s debut novel, to be released May 6th,
2014. It is a Young Adult Horror-Comedy.
AMM:
Welcome Fiona. I am delighted to have you hear with me today.
FJRT: The pleasure is
all mine, Ann Marie.
AMM:
Thank you. So, are you one of those zombie lovers or did the idea for your book
simply pop into your head one day?
FJRT: Both, actually.
I am a zombie person and
was before I started Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I
Know of), but I'd never seriously considered writing a zombie book until
Cassie’s voice hijacked my brain. The whole first chapter came pouring out in
one morning, and I just had to follow it from there.
AMM:
Fiona, I’m just going to come right out and ask you this. Can you explain to me
what the fascination with zombies is? Honestly, I don’t get it.
FJRT: Ha, well, gotta respect your honesty there.
Like many geek things, assuming you've taken the time to explore some of the
better examples, if you still have to ask what the appeal is, chances are good
you'll never know, but I'll explain as best I can.
First, of course, if you
enjoy messy, gooey, squishy horror, the fun, cartoony kind with comedic
elements, zombies are ideal. They allow for lots of low-consequence action and
visceral gags, but if you already get the fun in that, I'm sure you don't need
zombies explained to you.
The broader and deeper
appeal zombies also carry comes down to the anarchy they bring with them. No
rules, no jobs, none of the everyday worries about money or schedules. The
zombie apocalypse isn't a place any sane person should want to live, but when
you're feeling buried under all those modern, civilized pressures, it's a very
refreshing fictional place to visit.
AMM:
Refreshing is definitely not a word I’d choose; but if you insist… Here is
another thing that has been on my mind a lot. There are so many dystopian,
apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic books and movies out now. Why do you think
that is?
FJRT: Well, trends are
unpredictable, and once something becomes a trend, you have as many people
following it just because it's a trend as because of its inherent appeal, but
what's the appeal that allowed this particular trend to form in the first
place?
I'm going to go back to
anarchy, in the case of apocalypses, and the chance to fight back against
seeming hopelessness in the case of dystopias. They’re opposites that in many
ways speak to the same needs.
Why now? Well, we've
been in a recession for the better half of my life. Speaking as a member of a
generation that has come of age or is about to come of age in a world where the
old wisdom we've been raised on about going to school and expecting to be able
to build a life at the end of it no longer applies, where it's difficult enough
to stay on your feet let alone get there in the first place, the idea of giving
that injustice a form that you can fight, or escaping from it altogether...
yeah, it sounds pretty good.
AMM:
Hmm. This I can understand. I really enjoyed reading Confessions… Do you plan to
write a sequel?
FJRT: No, I always saw this one as a standalone. I
won't say it's completely impossible that I'll ever return to the Zombie
Slayer universe, but I like where the story begins and ends and didn't
leave any intentional room for more.
I've got plenty more
books in the works though, mostly YA Horror of varying levels of seriousness.
My husband and I have a YA Horror/Sci-Fi series, The Prospero Chronicles,
the first book of which, Splinters, will be out this fall, and to say
we're excited would be a significant understatement.
AMM:
I’ll definitely keep an eye out for Splinters!
Tell me, how did you get into writing?
FJRT: Stories have always been a huge part of my
life. Some of my earliest memories are of my parents taking me to a bookstore
reading circle. I've been writing for as long as I can remember, but I was
about sixteen before I started getting serious about publishing fiction. It's a
very personal thing and really exposing to share at first.
AMM:
I agree. It took me a long time before I told anyone I wanted to be a writer.
And now for my final question, and one that I love to ask. Would you like to
share one or more aspects of yourself most people don’t know about you?
FJRT: I like baking and hate roller coasters. Okay,
if you know me personally, you probably know that by now, but they're both
things that people who only know me as an author of horror stories with
not-to-be-messed-with heroines don't usually expect. I like to be harmlessly
scared, but roller coasters are something completely, soul-scaringly,
I-will-claw-someone's-eyes-out-to-escape different. And I believe in equality
and refusing to be bound by gender stereotypes, but that doesn't mean I think
none of the activities traditionally considered feminine have any value. There's
something very satisfying about making something from scratch and sharing it.
F.J.R. Titchenell is
an author of Young Adult Sci-Fi and Horror fiction. She is represented by
Jennifer Mishler of Literary Counsel and currently lives in San Gabriel,
California with her husband and fellow author, Matt Carter, and their pet king
snake, Mica.
The "F" is for Fiona, and on the rare occasions when she can be pried away from her keyboard, her kindle, and the pages of her latest favorite book, Fi can usually be found over-analyzing the inner workings of various TV Sci-Fi universes or testing out some intriguing new recipe, usually chocolate-related.
The "F" is for Fiona, and on the rare occasions when she can be pried away from her keyboard, her kindle, and the pages of her latest favorite book, Fi can usually be found over-analyzing the inner workings of various TV Sci-Fi universes or testing out some intriguing new recipe, usually chocolate-related.
Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know of) is
F.J.R. Titchenell’s first novel. Her first novel coauthored with Matt Carter, Splinters, will be available fall of
2014.
You can learn more about Fiona and her books here:
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