B.J. Burrow has a rotted soft spot for the lingering dead and the trials they face in the living world. How would you like to be inside your body while it falls to decomposing pieces? “Not Dead” isn’t interested in shotguns or brains so much as the life here-after for those the government declares legally dead. It examines the faith-testing struggle faced by Father Carey after he gives Julie Barrette her Last Rites, only to see her embracing life post-death, and Julie’s own struggles to find her place in a world that isn’t thrilled that she isn’t lying nicely in a coffin sunk six-feet down in a green hill somewhere. It’s a careful, realistic sketch of what the world might be like if not everyone who died stayed dead, followed by a gut-punch ending. Check out “Not Dead” in The Zombie Feed Anthology Vol. 1 today!
You can pick up your copy of The Zombie Feed Anthology on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, or from The Zombie Feed directly. Get it on your Kindle or your Nook (or in any e-format from Smashwords) for just $2.99! Seventeen awesome zombie stories for $2.99? Can’t get much better than that! :D
1. The Writing Question: Writing can be a tough profession, particularly for beginning authors who get “no” more often than “yes.” How do you cope with rejection?
I got a little Burgess Meredith sitting on my shoulder, barking at me: “Take it personally! Your writing got rejected. They think it sucks Louis CK’s bag. What are you gonna do about it? You gonna mop? You gonna cry little tears and take your keyboard home? Get pissed, you son-of-a-bitch! What can you do to make the story better? Is it salvageable? Is it time to move on? What are you gonna do to make the next story better? How are you gonna make yourself a better writer? You’re not in competition with the stories being submitted today—you’re in competition with every goddamn story that’s ever been written. Pick up the sledgehammer and break some fucking rocks and get stronger. I’ll be sitting over here chomping on this cigar and glaring at you, kid.”
2. The Horror Question: Blood and gore: scary or not scary?
Scary, sure. But only if it’s handled right. Herschell Gordon Lewis, not scary. Bret Easton Ellis, chill you to the bone. I think either the ‘Is That My Eyeball On The Ground? School’ or the ‘What’s In The Box? School’ works equally well, it’s just all in how you handle it.
3. The Oddball Question: Barring family photo albums, religious books, cookbooks, etc.: If you could save only one book from your house because a blob monster was about to absorb it into its massive jelly-like girth, what book would you grab?
Since the blob-monster is eating my religious books, I will sadly watch as the The Stand gets sucked into its body and use my fire extinguisher to save Harry Crews’ A Feast of Snakes—a mean, vicious bastard of a book that really gets to it. I’ve been itching to read it again, and this will be the corner stone of my new library. Or maybe I’ll just go virtual this time. What’s the point of possessions with this son-of-a-bitching blob running around?
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B.J. Burrow co-wrote the screenplay to the SyFy movie The Monster Hunter (starring David Carradine). The Changed, a zombie novel from Apex Publications, was released in 2010. He lives in Austin, TX, with his wife Melissa and two daughters. Visit him on the web at www.bjburrow.net.
Maggie Slater 