“Becca at the End of the World” by Shira Lipkin will break your heart. When your only child is bitten by a zombie and already starting to show signs of turning, what is a mother supposed to do? Some of the descriptions in this fairly short story really hit me hard and choked me up. Having a little guy of my own definitely drove home for me the horror of this story. Whether you have children or not, it’s a masterful piece that will linger with you long after you’ve turned the page.
Prepare yourself for the coming apocalypse and save yourself a copy of Zombies: More Recent Dead before it’s released in September! You can pre-order a copy from Barnes & Noble, Powell’s Books, IndieBound, or Amazon.
1. The Writing Question: Do you tend to plan your stories before you write them, or do you write and just see what you discover in the process?
I’m a complete pantser. I tend to know a few things about the story, usually including roughly how it’ll end, but for the most part, I just sit down to write and see what happens!
2. The Zombie Question: What enticed you to write this zombie story?
I never thought I’d write a zombie story, simply because I couldn’t think of a new way to do it! There’s such a wide variety of excellent zombie fiction out there already. In the end, I had to write this story because it was so personal. It wasn’t “write a story about zombies for the hell of it”, it was “here’s something interesting and primal about the mother/daughter bond; also, zombies.”
3. The Random Question: What other projects do you have forthcoming that you’d like to share with us?
I started a poetry magazine! Liminality (http://www.liminalitypoetry.com/) is a quarterly speculative poetry magazine that I co-edit with fellow writer Mat Joiner. We’re really excited about our first issue (coming this fall!) and already can’t wait to read for the next one.
Shira Lipkin has managed to convince Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Stone Telling, Clockwork Phoenix 4, and other otherwise-sensible magazines and anthologies to publish her work; two of her stories have been recognized as Million Writers Award Notable Stories, and she has won the Rhysling Award for best short poem. She credits luck, glitter eyeliner, and tenacity. She co-edits Liminality (http://liminalitypoetry.com/), a magazine of speculative poetry, with Mat Joiner. She lives in Boston and, in her spare time, fights crime with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. Her cat is bigger than her dog.
Maggie Slater 