It is my pleasure this week to welcome Jack Wallen author of several books including A Blade Away. I've been waiting to interview Jack since he did my interview a while ago for this tour. I was facinated by his web site and all the information he had on zombies. Now we get to delve deeper into his zombie world .....
Zombies zombies everywhere!
I was recently asked what attracted readers and viewers to zombies. My usual response to this question is often simple with a layer of complexity that could be added for extra flavor. That reason is this: The zombie has not changed much since George A. Romero brought to ‘unlife’ the beast. Zombies are still shambling, thoughtless, monsters that want but one thing – your brain (and not in the I don’t love you only for your looks kinda way.) Zombies have not been sparkle-fied, shimmered, or hunked up. That familiarity is like a security blanket to the horror fan. But the attraction to zombies is much more than that. For many a film maker or writer, zombies so easily represent the mindlessness that has become the human race. The workaday nature of our lives has made us nothing more than stare-into-the-void beings going about our daily lives with little feeling and little thought.
What writer wouldn’t be all over that?
I have been a fan of horror most of my life. When writing became a profession I knew that horror was my calling – but zombies being my bread and butter was certainly a surprise. I started writing my first zombie novel (I Zombie I) when I posed myself the question “What would it be like to transform into a zombie?” It was a question I had to answer, and from that question the first book in my I Zombie trilogy was born. That book has been received with rave reviews and I believe the next book will do it one better. That book is “My Zombie My”. The challenge with the second novel was how to make this as unique as the first, without just rehashing the same old thing. I don’t want to give anything away – but I believe the voice in My Zombie My is just as unique as was the voice in I Zombie I. And what is truly exciting about My Zombie My is the amount of layering I was able to add to the story. Wrapped inside that layering was a particular device I used to help the main character, Bethany Nitshimi, keep her sanity among the chaos. That device turned out to be one of most enjoyable PR tools I’ve used to date – Zombie Radio. Zombie Radio has been a real treat for both me and the fans of the I Zombie trilogy. This podcast offers the readers a completely different perspective of the state of things in the Mengele Virus infected world I have created. Not only does the DeeJay play some great tunes, he discusses the world around him, reacts to emails, phone calls, twitter feeds, and does everything he can to reconnect the pieces of the broken world. Tune in to see what’s happening with DeeJay now!
Shortly after the release of My Zombie My (some time in October or November 2011) the final book of the I Zombie trilogy, Die Zombie Die, will hit the shelves. Once that is complete, I have decided I cannot leave the zombie genre behind and will start a yet-to-be-named series based on the world created in the I Zombie books. I can’t give anything away about that yet, but one of the characters from the current trilogy will be the main character and this series will be much darker and bleaker than what you’ve seen from me so far. Check out my Blog, Get Jack’d, for news about this upcoming series.
I love hearing from my fans and readers. If you would like to make your mark in my little zombie world, send me an email as a survivor of the Mengele virus and it might be used on Zombie Radio. You can even send me your best zombie poem and I’ll give it a reading.
Links
Twitter: @jlwallen
Interview by Sue Owen
This is part one of a series of interviews for my blog tour through Indie Writers Unite. Look for the Support Indie Authors logo for further submissions. Please support these authors, check out their blogs and purchase their books. They are the best of the best. /Sue Owen.
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