Friday May 25, 7pm
Jonathan Maberry author of
Assassin’s Code ($14.99 Griffin)

Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestseller and multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Patient Zero, the Pine Deep Trilogy, The Wolfman, Zombie CSU and They Bite. His work for Marvel Comics includes the Punisher, Wolverine, DoomWar, Marvel Zombie Return and Black Panther. His Joe Ledger series has been optioned for TV by Sony Pictures

In ASSASSIN’S CODE, the fourth book in New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger series, Joe Ledger and the DMS go on a relentless chase to stop an ancient order of killers from plunging the entire world into Holy War

When Joe Ledger and Echo Team rescue a group of American college kids held hostage in Iran, the Iranian government then asks them to help find six nuclear bombs planted in the Mideast oil fields. These stolen WMDs will lead Joe and Echo Team into hidden vaults of forbidden knowledge, mass-murder, betrayal, and a brotherhood of genetically-engineered killers with a thirst for blood. Accompanied by the beautiful assassin called Violin, Joe follows a series of clues to find the Book of Shadows, which contains a horrifying truth that threatens to shatter his entire worldview. They say the truth will set you free – not this time. The secrets of the Assassin’s Code will set the world ablaze.

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Welcome to the DEAD OF NIGHT Shambling Zombie Blog Tour! Over the next month in a half I will be dropping by some of my favorite sites to take part in interviews, contribute guest blog posts and just shoot the breeze. Below is the current official blog tour schedule, though several dates may be changed so keep updated by checking my website. Thanks to the good people/contributors who made this tour possible! Hold on to your braaains…this is going to get good!

February 1^st- Zombie-Popcorn- http://zombie-popcorn.com/

February 2^nd- Anything Horror- http://anythinghorror.com/

February 3^rd- Walking Dead TV Podcast- http://thewalkingdeadpodcast.com/

February 4^th- Dawn of the Lead- http://dawnofthelead.com/

February 5^th- Bite My Books- http://www.bitemybooks.com/

February 6^th- Open Book Society- http://openbooksociety.com/

February 7^th- Moon Books Entertainment- http://moonbooks.net/

February 8^th- Book Den- http://bookden.com/

February 10^th- Movies and Books- http://booksandmovies.colvilleblogger.com/

February 11^th- Buy Zombie- http://www.buyzombie.com/

February 12^th- One Metal- http://www.onemetal.com/category/books_and_comics/

February 13^th- Castle Macabre- http://castlemacabre.blogspot.com/

February 14^th- Ginger Nuts of Horror- http://thegingernutcase.blogspot.com/

February 15^th- Criminal Pages- http://criminalpages.blogspot.com/

February 16^th- Fantasy and Sci-Fi Lovin’ News and Reviews- http://sqt-fantasy-sci-fi-girl.blogspot.com/

February 17^th- On The Night Stand- http://booksonthenightstand.com/

February 18^th- The Zombie Feed- http://thezombiefeed.biz/

February 19^th- Horrorshow Radio- http://www.horrorshowradio.com/

February 20^th- Hell Notes- http://hellnotes.com/

February 21^st- Rex Robot Reviews- http://www.rexrobotreviews.com/

February 22^nd- Horror World- http://www.horrorworld.org/

Febraury 23^rd- We Zombie- http://wezombie.com/

February 24^th- Drunken Severed Head- http://drunkenseveredhead.blogspot.com/

The Black Glove- http://the-black-glove.blogspot.com/

February 25^th- FNORDincorporated- http://www.fnordinc.com/

February 26^th- C.V. Hunt’s Website- http://www.authorcvhunt.com/

February 27^th- My Bookish Ways- http://www.mybookishways.com/

February 28^th- The Diary of a Bookworm- http://www.thediaryofabookworm.com/

February 29^th- Killer Aphrodite- http://www.killeraphrodite.com/

March 1^st – The Book Smugglers- http://thebooksmugglers.com/

March 2^nd- The Word Zombie- http://thewordzombie.com/

March 3^rd- Zombie and Toys- http://zombiesandtoys.blogspot.com/

March 4^th- RA for All- http://raforall.blogspot.com/

March 5^th- Monster Librarian- http://www.monsterlibrarian.com/

March 6^th- Undead Backbrain- http://www.roberthood.net/blog/

March 7- Grasping for the Wind- http://www.graspingforthewind.com/

March 8^th- Totally Jinxed- http://jinx-totallyjinxed.blogspot.com/

A special thanks to all those who involved in the tour who have already posted:

Books and Other Creative Adventures- http://coreenamcburnie.blogspot.com/
J.C. Hutchins: Thriller Novelist- http://jchutchins.net/
Zed Word- http://www.zedwordblog.com/
Confessions of a Bookholic- http://www.totalbookaholic.com/

If your letter is picked, you’ll receive a signed copy of one my books.

To send a question, you can email me at jonathan_maberry@yahoo.com or use snail mail at P.O. Box 84, Southampton PA 18966.  PLEASE NOTE: if you send an email, put READER QUESTION in the subject line! (We don’t want the spam zombies to eat it)

Here’s the first batch of questions:

QUESTION: TAMARA F. from Atlanta: “When will we see a sequel to DEAD OF NIGHT?”

JONATHAN: DEAD OF NIGHT was written as a standalone, however there’s a chance I’ll pick up the story somewhere down the line.  In the meantime, there’s another story coming out that takes place at the same time but with different characters.  That story is “Jack and Jill” and it will be in the anthology, 21ST CENTURY DEAD, edited by Christopher Golden.  The anthology also includes new zombie stories by an A-list of writers including Orson Scott Card, China Mieville, Simon R. Green, Daniel H. Wilson, Elizabeth Hand, Dan Chaon, Duane Swierczynski, Caitlin Kittredge, Brian Keene, Amber Benson, S.G. Browne, Thomas E. Sniegoski, and—with his first published prose—Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter.  The anthology debuts in July.

If you’ve enjoyed DEAD OF NIGHT, I posted a link to seven free Bonus Scenes: http://jonathanmaberry.com/happy-holidays-from-jonathan

QUESTION: Sereta H. from Tucson: Are you going to write for THE WALKING DEAD show?

JONATHAN: I’m not currently part of that creative team. I am, however, a huge fan of the show and the comic, and the creator, Robert Kirkman, has been on this blog and in several of my nonfiction books several times.  Bob’s a great guy and I couldn’t be happier that the show is a success.  He deserves it –he’s done a lot to bring zombies to the cultural mainstream.

However I did write an essay on Rick Grimes, lead character of THE WALKING DEAD. That essay is in the recent nonfiction book: TRIUMPH OF THE WALKING DEAD, edited by James Lowder. The line-up of writers in that book is pretty amazing:

•    Jay Bonansinga (author; The Black Mariah, co-author with Robert Kirkman of upcoming Walking Dead novels)
•    Jonathan Maberry (New York Times bestselling author; Patient Zero, Zombie CSU, Marvel Zombies Return)
•    Kim Paffenroth (professor of Religious Studies and zombie scholar; Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth)
•    Lisa Morton (author and screenwriter; The Lucid Dreaming, A Hallowe’en Anthology: Literary and Historical Writings Over the Centuries)
•    Kyle William Bishop (English professor at Southern Utah University; American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead)
•    Craig Fischer (professor at Appalachian State, comic scholar; The Comics Journal, The International Journal of Comic Art)
•    Kenneth Hite (game designer and writer; Zombies 101, Trail of Cthulhu)
•    Kay Steiger (editor of Campus Progress and author; The Atlantic, Bitch Magazine, In These Times)
•    Ned Vizzini (young adult author; It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Be More Chill)
•    Scott Kenemore (author; The Zen of Zombie: Better Living Through the Undead, Z.E.O., The Art of Zombie Warfare)
•    Brendan Riley (professor at Columbia College Chicago, author; Journal of Popular Culture, The Amazing Transforming Superhero)
•    Arnold T. Blumberg (instructor at University of Baltimore, author; Zombiemania, The Big BIG LITTLE BOOK Book)
•    Vince Liaguno (author, anthologist, and editor; Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, The Literary Six, Butcher Knives & Body Counts)

QUESTION: GEORGE C. from Winnipeg: Which of your books is your favorite?

JONATHAN: That’s going to be a different answer every time I’m asked. I’m fickle. I love whichever book or story I’m currently writing. Right now I’m working on EXTINCTION MACHINE, the fifth Joe Ledger novel (due out from St. Martin’s Griffin in 2013) and I’m totally absorbed. It has UFOs and conspiracy theories…and even Men in Black.  However, I’m listening to DEAD OF NIGHT on audio, and William Dufris’ performance is making that story entirely new for me, so I’m digging that, too.  Yeah, this may be narcissistic, but I’m having fun.

To read my interview with Bill Dufris and listen to an audio sample: http://jonathanmaberry.com/dead-of-night-a-zombie-novel-a-conversation-with-audio-book-reader-william-dufris

QUESTION: HARRISON P. from Sioux City: Does what you write ever creep you out?

JONATHAN: All the time. Usually the real-world science scares the bejeezus out of me. I talked about why I write scary science stuff in an interview I did on J.C. Hutchin’s blog: http://jchutchins.net/site/2012/01/11/creator-spotlight-novelist-jonathan-maberry-dead-of-night/

QUESTION: Caitlyn G. from Austin: I notice that a lot of the same names come up in different stories, and some of the same characters, too.  Do all of your stories take place in the same world?

JONATHAN: More or less, yes. There are two types of guest stars I like using: real people and my own characters.  I started doing that with my first novels, the Pine Deep Trilogy (GHOST ROAD BLUES, DEAD MAN’S SON and BAD MOON RISING). Since that story dealt with a big Halloween festival, it seemed appropriate that celebrities from the horror world would be there as guests.  So I reached out to several folks I know in the horror industry and asked if I could write them into the book.  They all agreed, so in that series you can expect to encounter make-up effects wizard and director Tom Savini; James Gunn, the screenwriter for the Zack Snyder remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD; screenwriter Stephen Susco (THE GRUDGE), Ken Foree (star of the original DAWN OF THE DEAD), scream queens Brinke Stevens and Debbie Rochon; drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs; and a few others.  Even bluesman Mem Shannon does a walk-on.

However peppered through that book and others are friends of mine. Captain Keith Strunk from ROT & RUIN is a real guy –and a fellow member of the Liars Club. As is Don Lafferty, owner of Lafferty’s General Store in the same novel.

DEAD OF NIGHT is filled with real people, many of them winners of the “I Want to be a Zombie in DEAD OF NIGHT’ contest, including Shane Gericke, Sheldon Higdon, Nick Pulsipher, Wrenn Simms, Kealan Patrick Burke, Michael McGrath, Andy Diviny, Jillian Weiner, Byron Rempel, Elizabeth Donald, Peggy Sullivan and Paul Scott.

My webmaster, Jeff Strauss, has been killed more times than I can count in my novels.

As for cross-overs of my own characters…I’ve been slowly creating links between the books. Malcolm Crow and Mike Sweeney from the Pine Deep Trilogy are mentioned in the Rot & Ruin books, and they both make cameos in the Joe Ledger novelette, “Material Witness”.  Joe Ledger shows up in FLESH & BONE, the 3rd book in the Rot & Ruin series.  Pine Deep is mentioned in DEAD OF NIGHT.  And Sam Imura, the uncle of Tom Imura, joins Joe Ledger’s Echo Team in EXTINCTION MACHINE.  There are more crossovers, too.  You never know who will show up.

QUESTION: Penelope W. from Akron: I heard that you do Skype visits to classes.  How can I get one of those for my class?  I’m in ninth grade.

JONATHAN: I always have a lot of fun with Skype visits, and I do a bunch of them.  Have your teacher or librarian send me an email at jonathan_maberry@yahoo.com and we’ll see if we can set something up!

Okay…that’s it for now!  We have tons of terrific guest stars coming up soon!

Happy reading!
Jonathan Maberry

JONATHAN MABERRY: Zombies continue to grow in popularity despite predictions that the genre is (ahem) ‘dead’. Why?

MAX BROOKS: The genre’s dead? Wow. Good to know. I think zombies are continuing in popularity for two reasons. The first is that they are a ‘safe’ way of exploring our apocalyptic anxieties. We’re living in VERY uncertain times right now. The problems we face now, we face as a nation, as a world. Global terrorism, global warming, global pandemics, global economic calamities. Those problems are too big, too real, and the prospect of following those problems to their ultimate end is just too scary to think about. There is an anxiety, certainly in this country, that the system is breaking down, and it’s an anxiety that we haven’t faced since the 1970s. That was the last time zombies were popular, and, coincidently? here they are again. A zombie story allows us to look at the end of the world, total collapse, with all its horrific consequences, and yet, still be able to sleep that night because we know that the catalyst of those consequences (zombies) aren’t real. The second reason for our fascination with zombies is that, unlike all the other problems we keep facing every day, they are at least stoppable! Every other meta crisis our planet is going through continue to re enforce our deepest feelings of inadequacy. As individuals, we are largely powerless against terrorists or melting polar ice, or the toxic evil of a credit default swap. We can all contribute in our little way, as we should, but they are just little parts of a much bigger picture. In a zombie plague, every man has a chance to be a hero. With the right tools and talent, every man (or woman) can survive a zombie plague. That simply isn’t true against a credit default swap. That’s why I think zombies are popular. But what do I know?

ROGER MA: I always find it amusing when people declare the zombie genre passé. As a fan who’s followed the genre for more than three decades, I know that there will always be a desire for the living dead. First, because the zombie is such a malleable creature; it can provide a subtext for an infinite number of subjects, which makes it very attractive for very different creative types and genres. Second, as long as there is a segment of the population that feels frustrated, disenfranchised, or just plain fed up, zombies will be popular. A zombie apocalypse is the ultimate reset button, and unlike other types of disasters, there’s a feeling that as long as you’re smart and prepared, you can not only survive, but thrive in an undead world. That’s another reason why I think zombies will always be popular; it’s a creature that enables people to easily imagine themselves in a heroic role.

DON ROFF: Every genre in the history of genres has climbed peaks and descended into valleys. Yet something keeps bringing each respective genre back, pulling them out of the lowlands and ascending them to the top again. Our current zeitgeist is infectious diseases, overpopulation, terrorism, the downward spiral of the economy, and overpopulation. It’s no surprise that the zombie genre has escalated in popularity. People are afraid. What better way to experience fear than to sit home at watch other people live out their fears with a zillion popular zombie video games, a zillion zombie movies, and hopefully, a zillion zombie books, too? In addition, there’s a certain survivalist mentality/disaster preparedness that seems synonymous with the zombies, more so than with any other horror sub genre. Since those aforementioned fears aren’t going away, I doubt zombies will return to the grave anytime soon.

ALAN GOLDSHER: Last year, I sat on a Comic Con panel with Seanan McGuire, who claimed that zombies will always be compelling because they tap into an area of our id that we’re otherwise afraid to tap into ourselves. (I’m paraphrasing, but that was her general conceit.) Makes good sense to me, but I also think since zombies are a blank slate, they’re a perfect vehicle to tell a horror story…or a comedy…or a romance…or any damn thing. Since there’s no set mythology, zombies are the Bill Clinton of paranormals: All things to all people.

ABI POST: I can only speak from my own experience, but I have often been asked, “Why Zombies?” It’s a good question, one I think has been asked recently over and over about the public’s interest in zombies. Like all good questions, it makes you think even if the answer isn’t neat.

A fascination with zombies happens on a very personal level. My own attraction which is mainly about survival. My zombie fantasies stem from an overwhelming urge to save myself from whatever perceived or real dangers arise from being alive right now.

ANDRE ABRAMOWITZ: We live in an age of tremendous uncertainty. Fears of economic collapse, political turmoil, natural disasters and terrorism have dominated headlines over the last 10+ years and the zombie is the perfect embodiment of these faceless, unseen threats. No longer are our enemies lining up on a battlefield, wearing a foreign uniform. Now the enemy can be your friends, neighbors or anyone – just like the modern zombie. Couple that with the sort of societal breakdown that we see in many zombie apocalypse stories and it’s not so hard to see why the popularity of the zombie genre continues to grow. It’s a safe and fun way to explore some very very bad scenarios that seem all too capable of happening.

CALVIN MILLER: I think it’s the type of fear they represent. Zombies don’t simply stab you, attack you with an axe, or suck your blood. They eat you. And they might be your parents. Or you. That feeling that everyone around you is turning into a monster is horrifying. When you say “Zombies” most people say “Brainzzzz!”. They are more familiar with the parodies like “Return of the Living Dead”. Many are just now getting into the true horror of the genre, and I think “The Walking Dead” TV show is creating a lot of Zombie fans. A Zombie Plague makes Freddy and Jason look like punks.

CRAIG DiLOUIE: For years, the horror shelves in my local bookstore were dominated by a choice of sexy or funny vampires, or Stephen King. Vampires have been popular in fiction for decades, and still are. Zombies have been popular for what, a few years at most? And I’m supposed to believe it’s over already? Hell, no!

I once read a review of a zombie book that started, “Do we really need another zombie book?” The first thing I thought was, “Do we really need another reviewer saying, ‘Do we really need another zombie book?’”

To all jaded reviewers who don’t like zombie books and therefore pronounce the genre dead for everyone else, here’s an idea: Let’s let the market decide what it wants. As long as people keep buying and reading zombie books, then the genre is very much alive. In fact, the big publishers have only recently started publishing zombie books in any real way. Some of them are duds thrown out there purely to exploit the zombie craze, but some are very good and selling well. The commercial success of your own work, Jonathan, is obviously a testament to mainstream demand for good zombie fiction. The number of zombie-themed books, films and so on will likely peak at some point, but zombies are here to stay. And that’s great news for the many readers who only recently have begun to enjoy a broad choice of quality zombie fiction.

DAVID DUNWOODY: People nowadays are too impatient, too quick to denounce something and “discover” its successor. Zombies simply will not go gentle into that good night. Their relevance hasn’t waned a bit and, frankly, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. They’re just too perfect as metaphors for countless aspects of the human condition. Beautiful in their simplicity, universal in their scariness and with boundless potential for further exploration, zombies have plenty of room to expand, evolve and infect before they become played out.

IAIN MCKINNON: Tough question, the short answer is I don’t know. I’m happy the wave hasn’t broken because I am primarily a zombie fan, that’s why I started writing zombie novels. I’d consumed everything zombie I could find and left with nothing to devour I started making my own.

The popularity of Zombies may have something to do with the reaction in horror against torture porn or shiny vampires. It may be because it holds a mirror up to our world the few battling the overwhelming many, the escapism of a world where there are no constraints, no mortgage or credit cards or managers or cops or all the other things that prevent us living the life we want to.

But I think it’s biggest appeal is what would you do? The heros aren’t superhuman or magical or anything like that. The heros in most zombie novels and films are just regular people thrown into the nightmare. You read them thinking “what would I do?”.

JASON KRISTOPHER: I believe that people are scared right now. We hear so many stories of how the global economy is failing, there’s all the change – for good, in my opinion – in the Middle East, new “unforeseen” diseases… the world is becoming a big scary place, and yet with the growth of what I refer to as “indie” media, the people are more informed and knowledgeable than ever before. This leads to we humans falling back on one of our most well-developed of traits: the need for escapism. I think zombie stories in particular are good for this, because it allows people to say “Well, as bad as stuff is right now in the real world, at least it’s not this bad.” Everyone needs a break from the real world from time to time, and I think zombies allow for that a bit easier than most other genres. On a lighter, less analytic note, they’re also more believable, in many ways. Plus, they’re cool!

JEFF WEIGEL: I think there’s appeal in the mindlessness of the threat zombies pose. What’s scarier than an unrelenting creature that can’t be reasoned with in any way. A zombie has one thing on it’s mind (what there is of it, anyway)—your brain. Plus, the zombie virus concept makes monsters out of the people you encounter in every day life. The zombies’ appeal is in the threat of the ordinary becoming your worst nightmare.

JOE McKINNEY: I think it has something to do with what I call the democratic nature of zombies. Almost from the very beginning, zombies (as first expressed in the vision of Richard Matheson and George Romero) came at us from a variety of sources. You’ve got movies, TV, novels, short stories, blogs, radio shows…but that’s not all. You’ve got zombie walks. You’ve got conventions dedicated to them. You’ve got non-fiction. Zombie fans are willing to take their drug of choice in just about any permutation. But that’s still not all, because now, you’ve even got a variety of other professions jumping on the concept of the zombie to express issues in their field. You’ve got economists, computer programmers, biologists, and dozens of others using the idea of the zombie to express rogue elements in their field. The zombie, more so than anything else before it, has proven to be a perfect hook upon which to hang an idea. So many have flocked to the idea of the zombie because it can support so many concepts.

JOHN MACLEOD: I thank Twilight. It poisoned the vampire well for a lot of fans, even with the popularity of shows like True Blood. So, what else could horror enthusiasts turn to? Zombies. All the undead, none of the glitter, and ten times the amount of disemboweling. Add the mass appeal of The Walking Dead on TV, and we may have entered a golden age for our hordes. (Yet, as much as I’m thankful to Twilight for driving people our way, I’d love to see Daryl from TWD dust Edward’s sparkly ass with his crossbow.)

JOHN RUSSO: As I’ve said many times before, zombies weren’t heavyweight fright material like vampires or werewolves, till we made them into flesheaters. That struck a raw cord with people. to make a zombie movie, you don’t need expensive makeups of SFX, so many, many filmmakers seize upon them to make their mark in the biz. And some of the stuff with a new slant or fresh ideas makes it big.

JOSHUA COOK: So many reasons, so little space. Of the number of things that are helping the genre grow, I think it is the sheer fanaticism of the zombie community that is playing the largest role. Over the years there has always been a hardcore fandom, but it has had to be contained underground. Once zombies rose out of the grave and began to infect the mainstream pop culture, we saw the explosion of things like zombie walks and zombie specific conventions. This will continue to work just like a zombie infection and spread through the pop culture psyche until it infects the entire world.

ROBERT ELROD: Zombie culture will be around for a long time to come. The reasons that I see for this are that people are always going to find reasons to be dissatisfied with the world. People dislike their jobs, their government, the weather, their neighbors … their lives. Zombie culture provides a safe venue for people to live through the fantasy of all of those they dislike being taken away and, in place of things, they’re given something that they can destroy without suffering the consequences of modern civilization.

RYAN BROWN: I think zombies continue to grow in popularity because, as literary device, there seems to be no end to how they can be utilized. Metaphorically, zombies can reflect so much about society during any time period throughout history. Sure, we’ve had an explosion of zombie material over the past few years, but with that has also come an explosion of creative uses for the genre. If writers continue to focus on pushing the possibilities the genre – and not on repeating what is already out there – I see no end to the wave of popularity.

SCOTT KENEMORE: I think what people percieve as a zombie “trend” is really just zombies finding their appropriate place in the culture. People have a way for forgetting that Dracula–the seminal work that solidified our idea of the modern vampire–was written in 1890. It’s had over 100 years to sink-in. The modern flesh-eating zombie of George Romero has only been around since 1968. So zombies have some catching up to do, and I think that’s what we’re seeing now.

ZAPH: Everyone likes a good horror story. Whether people watch movies, read novels or read the paper, there is an “at least it isn’t me” appeal to someone else’s mishaps and adventures. Zombie science fiction is a great fantasy realm where the “what if” can be explored with gore, guts, mayhem, societal break down and a whole lot of human nature story telling. The thought of unrestricted violence appeals to the long buried predator in us, and luckily you can kill zombies without remorse. It gives people who live comfortably, the chance to imagine a different life for them selves, prepare for some fictional crisis, to live outside of their normal lives for a while. All the while knowing they are safe and it wont really happen, at least not just yet. After all, HG Wells wrote about submarines and Arthur C. Clarke wrote about space travel…

EVILBOB: Zombies don’t sparkle.

****************************

BIOS

ROGER MA is the author of The Zombie Combat Manual: A Guide to Fighting the Living Dead, published by Berkley Books. He is also the founder of The Zombie Combat Club, an organization dedicated to distributing information on battling the living dead without a firearm. He is also a martial artist and a former Team Chief for one of New York City’s Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), a civilian volunteer group managed by the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) that assists first responders in the event of a city emergency (including zombie attack.) Find him on Twitter at @zombiecombat and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/zombiecombatmanual

DON ROFF grew up in Milton-Freewater, a small Oregon town, writing stories and making Super 8 and VHS movies with his friends. Later, he served with the 75th Ranger Regiment during Operation Just Cause in December 1989. Roff’s first book was Scary Stories (with creepy hand lock), published by Scholastic in October 2006. Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection, published by Chronicle Books/Simon & Schuster UK followed in 2009. The 144-page book is the found journal of Dr. Robert Twombly as he documents the 2012 zombie apocalypse with thought-provoking handwritten passages and captivating imagery (drawn by Chris Lane). Roff’s latest book, Zombie Tales, was published in October 2011 by Scholastic. He can be found at his website, on Facebook, on Twitter, and on his blog, The Key Dancer Chronicles. Fans of Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection can Like the page here.

ALAN GOLDSHER is the author of 11 books, including the acclaimed Beatles/horror/comedy remix novel Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion. Give Death a Chance: The British Zombie Invasion 2 will be published as an ebook on March 27, 2012, and his Sound of Music/vampire remix novel My Favorite Fangs will be available on August 7, 2012. As a ghostwriter, Alan has worked with dozens of celebrities and public figures, and next November will see the publication of How I Slept My Way to the Middle, his collaboration with actor/comedian Kevin Pollak. Alan lives and writes in Chicago. Visit him at http://www.AlanGoldsher.com, @AlanGoldsher on Twitter, or http://www.Facebook.com/alan.goldsher.

ABI POST is the author and illustrator of Fairweather, a tale of interdimensional evil and survival transmitted via www.fairweatheronline.com. After five years in the fashion industry, Abi launched her zombielife by exhibiting paintings of the undead in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. She hales from the natural state, and holds a BFA from a university in the deep south. Facebook @fairweatherabi www.fairweatheronline.com
http://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/zombies-a-living-history/id257241074?i=472481080

ANDRE ABRAMOWITZ is a writer and executive producer on Zombies: A Living History, a TV show that premiered in October for History Channel. While this was my first foray into television writing, I’ve had various pieces published in other venues. When I’m not scouring the darkest corners of history in search of the roots of undead myths and folklore, I can often be found hunting the seas in search of big fish and Cthonian monstrosities. Hopefully I can make a show about that too one day. Other ideas that I’m currently exploring include a couple of undead-related screenplays and comic books, and an anthropological look at dance and coming of age rituals throughout world cultures.

Andre can be found on:
Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/andreabramowitz
Twitter: @zombiehistorian
The Facebook page for Zombies: A Living History – http://www.facebook.com/ZombiesALivingHistory
The DVD could ostensibly be found (at this time, for some reason unknown to me it’s not listed… typical History Channel incompetance) at http://www.shop.history.com

CALVIN A.L. MILLER II is a horror author/publisher/cartoonist who likes to write from different angles. His first book, “Het Madden, A Zombie Perspective”, is written entirely from the perspective of a man who dies, reanimates, and retains his intelligence in a post-apocalyptic society. His second effort, “The Zombie’s Survival Guide, Thrive In The Zombie Apocalypse AFTER Your Turn”, is written to guide the reader through the Zompocalypse AFTER he or she becomes a zombie. It contains illustrations by artist Alan Gandy and provides everything you’ll need to know to ensure you’ll be the best zombie you can be. Cal started Zilyon Publishing in November 2009 with his buddy Greg Bogle and today they’ve published 12 books, including novels, charity anthologies, graphic novels, and comics. He also does a web comic, “Ted Dead, Just Your Everyday Zombie”, at TedDead.com. Check him out at www.CalvinALMillerII.com, http://www.facebook.com/cal.miller2, Twitter/@cal_in_space, or email him at cal_in_space@yahoo.com.

CRAIG DiLOUIE is author of the popular zombie novels THE INFECTION (www.infectednation.com) and TOOTH AND NAIL (www.infectedwar.com). In early 2012, Permuted Press will publish THE KILLING FLOOR, his sequel to THE INFECTION. Learn more about Craig’s work–including reviews of all things apocalyptic horror, plus links to his Twitter and Facebook pages–at www.craigdilouie.com.

DAVID DUNWOODY is the author of the Empire series of zombie novels and short stories. Infected with the writing bug at an early age, he has been published in a number of anthologies and has two horror collections, Dark Entities and Unbound & Other Tales. Dave lives in Utah and can be visited on the web at daviddunwoody.com and empirenovel.com. Facebook: facebook.com/ddunwoody; Twitter: @daviddunwoody

IAIN MCKINNON was born in Scotland in the early seventies and lived a happy well balanced childhood, with the exception of being forced to wear flares and the 1978 World Cup. Aged 18 he saw George A Romero’s Day Of The Dead and from then on zombies crowned his list of irrational fears. In 2005 he wrote the screen play for the 10 minute zombie film The Dead Walk in an attempt to confront his fear. He has since written two zombie novels Domain of the Dead and Remains of the Dead both published by Permuted Press.

Iain currently lives and writes from his home just outside Edinburgh. At the moment he only has just one irrational fear but he does still keep a survival kit and crowbar close at hand just in case.

You can find Iain McKinnon at: www.remains-of-the-dead.com or www.facebook.com/iain.mckinnon, on Twitter @IainMcKinnon or somewhere in the crowd of a NIN concert.

JASON KRISTOPHER was born in Waco, TX, spent nearly two decades in northern Colorado soaking up the creative energy and beauty of that area, then moved to Houston for “real” work. Throughout this long journey, Jason continued to write all kinds of fiction, including fantasy, sci-fi, horror, children’s tales and even a poem or two. Jason currently lives in Houston and enjoys reading, writing, movies, music (live and not), the Houston Astros (winning and not), singing karaoke and the Texas hill country, especially the vineyards. You can find him on Twitter (@JasonKristopher), Facebook (Author.JasonKristopher) and his website (www.greygeckopress.com). His first book is a zombie apocalypse novel that has been called “…the best zombie book since World War Z.” The Dying of the Light: End is available in print for $15 and ebook format for $4 on Amazon, BN.com, iBooks, Kobo and GoodReads.

JEFF WEIGEL is an illustrator and author of comics and children’s books, along with being the artist for Michael P. Spradlin’s popular series of zombie songbooks. Jeff has done work for Image Comics retro anthology, Big Bang Comics. He’s written and illustrated the two Atomic Ace picture books for Albert Whitman and Company, and the graphic adventure novel, Thunder From The Sea: Adventure on Board The HMS Defender. His next collaboration with Michael Spradlin, The Monster Alphabet, is due out next year from Grosset & Dunlap. Learn more about Jeff’s work at www.jeffweigel.com.

JOE McKINNEY is the San Antonio-based author of several horror, crime and science fiction novels. His longer works include the four part Dead World series, made up of Dead City, Apocalypse of the Dead, Flesh Eaters and The Zombie King; the science fiction disaster tale, Quarantined, which was nominated for the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in a novel, 2009; and the crime novel, Dodging Bullets. His upcoming releases include the horror novels Lost Girl of the Lake, The Red Empire, The Charge and St. Rage. Joe has also worked as an editor, along with Michelle McCrary, on the zombie-themed anthology Dead Set, and with Mark Onspaugh on the abandoned building-themed anthology The Forsaken. His short stories and novellas have been published in more than thirty publications and anthologies. In his day job, Joe McKinney is a patrol commander for the San Antonio Police Department. Before promoting to sergeant, Joe worked as a homicide detective and as a disaster mitigation specialist. Many of his stories, regardless of genre, feature a strong police procedural element based on his fifteen years of law enforcement experience. A regular guest at regional writing conventions, Joe currently lives and works in a small town north of San Antonio with his wife and children. You can find out more about upcoming projects and appearances at http://joemckinney.wordpress.com, follow him on Twitter at @JoeMcKinney and friend him on Facebook.

JOHN MACLEOD (aka “Surfin’ Dead”) hails from western Massachusetts, and has an undying love of zombies, music and geek culture. He is a Staff Writer/Editor for the web site Zombie Zone News (http://www.zombiezonenews.com), and creator of the devilish dolts Doctor Curdle and Squee. Together with those freaks, John spotlights the finest new horror comics every week in his Zombie Pull Box column. You can find his new Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Surfin-Dead/310086379002613#!/pages/Surfin-Dead/310086379002613 or check out @Surfin_Dead on Twitter.

JOHN RUSSO: is an American screenwriter and film director most commonly associated with the 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead. As a screenwriter, his credits include Night of the Living Dead, The Majorettes, Midnight, and Santa Claws. The latter two, he also directed. He has performed small roles as an actor, most notably the first zombie who is stabbed in the head in Night of the Living Dead, as well as cameos in There’s Always Vanilla and House of Frankenstein 1997. John Russo is also the founder and one of the co-mentors along with Russell Streiner of the John Russo Movie Making Program at DuBois Business College in DuBois, Pennsylvania. John A. Russo has completed several interviews over the years discussing his film making career, with a recent interview with BioGamer Girl Magazine, in which he appeared on the magazine’s radio show Undead Noise.

JOSHUA COOK is a freelance writer currently residing in Seattle, Washington. Josh lives with his best friend, Sam Dogg, a lab and cocker spaniel mix. A self proclaimed pop culture whore, he drinks in anything that falls in the realm of pop. Over the years he has written for a number of clients and websites, but his most recent project is a short story series entitled ‘Zombie A.C.R.E.S.’. This work has led to a number of other new projects, including a comic in the spring with Ratatat Graphics, various books, and even some short film work. Through all this, Joshua continues to do freelance writing work and takes on new clients everyday. Feel free to contact him at joshuacookwrites@yahoo.com for more info. All the stories, art, contests, ebooks, and more from the Zombie A.C.R.E.S. universe can be found at http://zombieacres.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/zombieacres, and on Twitter @ZombieACRES. Joshua Cook can be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/joshuacookwrites and on Twitter @JoshCookWrites.

MAX BROOKS: Max Brooks is the author of the two bestsellers “The Zombie Survival Guide” and “World War Z”. He has also written for “Saturday Night Live”, for which he won an Emmy.

ROBERT ELROD is a self-taught artist / interactive designer who works with a variety of mediums including pencil, color pencil, ink, watercolor, acrylic and digital. Tickling A Dead Man: Stories About George is his self-published comic book in which he relentlessly tortures his misanthropic title character by forcing him to face his deepest fears and anxieties. His comics also appear within the pages of the “Best New Zombie Tales” series from Books of the Dead Press. He’s contributed pinup art to publications by Bluewater Comics, Creator’s Edge Press, Angry Dog Press and the British Fantasy Society. Robert’s artwork has appeared on the covers of several novels and anthologies from small-press horror publishers. You can see more of his work at www.robertelrodllc.com and connect with on Facebook at www.facebook.com/robertelrod and on Twitter at @robertelrod.

As an actor RYAN BROWN has held contract roles on The Young and the Restless and Guiding Light. He has also appeared on Law and Order: SVU, and starred in two feature films for Lifetime Television. He is the author of PLAY DEAD, a comic zombie thriller set in the world of Texas high school football, and THAWED OUT AND FED UP, a neo-western thriller in which a re-animated John Wayne thrusts the Old West into the twenty-first century. Raised in Texas, Ryan now lives with his wife and son in New York City. Find him at: ryanbrownauthor.com. Follow him on Twitter @RyanBrownAuthor and on FACEBOOK at Ryan Brown Author.

SCOTT KENEMORE is the author of the Zen of Zombie series of humor/horror books, and the novel Zombie, Ohio. He blogs about zombies at http://scottkenemore.wordpress.com/.

ZAPH (Elizabeth McCubbin) and EVILBOB (Adrienne Keith) are the creators behind Optimystical Studios embracing geek culture in jewelry with recycled pendants, steampunk and renaissance accessories. With the motto, “We are Wonder Woman!” they have built a business on the foundation of fun and cranking their art ‘up to 11!’. In February 2011 they launched ZombAlert, a pendant to let your loved ones know your final wishes in the event of a zombie bite. Each piece is hand cast and enameled, then stamped with your final wish on the reverse side. You can find Optimystical Studios online at OptimysticalStudios.com or go directly to more information on ZombAlert at ZombAlert.com. Optimystical Studios journeys to many science fiction, horror and gaming conventions throughout the year. You can catch them at a con and follow Zaph & EvilBob’s adventures on Twitter, Facebook, and Google. (Here are the links if you need them; @Optimysticals – http://facebook.com/OptimysticalStudios – https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/115663618942907846599/).

Young adult (YA) literature is hot.  Red hot. Smoking hot.  It’s where the real publishing industry buzz lives.  It’s a growing market despite a crumbling economy; and in a technological age it’s driven by actual word of mouth.  Well, to be fair, it’s word of ‘text’, but it’s close.

I asked librarians from across the U.S. to talk about the genre and why YA is the place to be for readers and writers.

JONATHAN MABERRY: YA literature is getting more and more of the social media buzz.  Why?

SHANNA SWIGERT SMITH: Two words, it is AWESOME and AMAZING!  Plus, people are looking for something to entertain and provide enjoyment.  Rarely, do I have to wade or push through reading a teen book.  They immediately grab your attention and do not let go till the very end.  The marketing of this through social media is a no brainer.  Young adults are not going to the New York Times Book Reviews.  Instead, they are going to Google it and look for an online presence.  (Shanna Swigert Smith, Teen Librarian, Mesa County Libraries; Grand Junction, CO)

ROBIN BRENNER: YA literature is a booming market right now because it’s appealing to teenagers, of course, but it’s also appealing to a wide range of readers.  In terms of social media: many of YA lit’s creators and readers are in that sweet spot of tech users (teens up through 40 year olds) who are more likely than anyone else to be out there tweeting, blogging, and tumblr-ing about their latest read. (Robin Brenner, Reference & Teen Librarian, Brookline Public Library; Brookline, MA)

RACHEL KITZMANN: Because it’s awesome, and that answer is only a little facetious.  YA literature is attracting talent and bravado at incredible rates.  The idea of teens as a force with disposable income came right on the heels of authors taking an actual stab at writing interesting, compelling books with teen protagonists.  Instead of “Issue Books” or books that were written by committee, authors as a force started addressing multiple teen-age experiences.  Doing this allowed teens to see their lives mirrored for the first time: the experiences they were reading about were the experiences they’d had, or their friends had had.  As teens started reading more and more (despite the moaning and groaning of various news outlets about “teens not reading”) authors got bolder and bolder.

Teens like realistic fiction, but what if I add vampires?  Zombies?  Aliens?  What if instead of setting it in the contemporary world, the book is set in WWI, and there are genetically engineered animals?  What if the book is written in verse?  What if the book has two, three a dozen points of view?  YA authors took risks that adult authors were unwilling to take, because the market of teens respected and responded to that risk taking.  Then the adults started respecting and responding to books that were aimed at people 5, 10 even 20 years younger, because the literature was good.  It was interesting and it was different than anything else on the market.  At the end of the day, that’s why YA literature gets a lot of buzz:  Because it is as good (and in my opinion, better) than comparable books in the adult market, and a great story is a great story no matter the age of the protagonist. (Rachel Kitzmann, Young Adult Librarian, Los Angeles Public Library, CA)

LIZZ ZITRON: YA literature takes on challenging issues more than any other genre and yet it struggles to gain respect as an intelligent, thoughtful medium. I think of it as the soap opera of literature. Soaps have long tackled tough issues long before their television counterparts. Positive, homosexual characters in loving relationships come to mind. Soaps had them long before nighttime TV. I see far more positive portrayals of LGBT characters in YA lit then I do in adult novels. Authors like David Levithan, John Green, Alex Sanchez and Maureen Johnson are a few writers who come to mind who have created characters and situations that ring with authenticity. Johnson in particular has avoided what we call the Lesbian Trope in which lesbian characters go crazy, die or both.

Additionally, YA literature is increasingly better-written in my opinion. Somehow authors are able to perform feats of word artistry I don’t see in many adult novels. The Morris award nominees from 2011 come to mind as examples of vastly different genres and storylines that were all incredibly well-written. They tackled fairly specific universes, characters and situations yet each author managed to make his or her work accessible, real and engaging. These books continue to “stick with me” in ways adult books I’ve read this year have not.  When you think about the audiences YA authors have to reach, they must write really well to reach them successfully. They are dealing with a population at wildly differing levels of intellectual, emotional and self-identity development. So they must be deceptively simple yet write deeply. (Lizz Zitron, Outreach Services Librarian, Carthage College- Hedberg Library; Kenosha, WI)

KIM CHRISTOFFERSON: There is so much good YA fiction being written.  Forget the paranormal/vampire books.  Try The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey or Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry.  These books will give you the willies.  If you want romance, pick up a Sarah Dessen book or Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.  Dystopian stories like The Hunger Games trilogy or Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness are also good reads.

Hollywood picks up these stories and turns them into movies whether they be based on the book or a bit different but with the same story.  I don’t think publishers really recognized the enormity of the teen audience until the end of the 1990′s when Harry Potter became a hit.  Granted, the first couple of HP books are middle school books but so many kids in the 90′s were so excited to read it and wanted to read all of them.  By the time HP finished his 7th year, the kids who started reading him were grown but still faithful fans!  Then there are the Twilight series and The Hunger Games series.  Just a few examples of great YA fiction.  These books may not win a Printz award but they make the rounds at libraries across the world! (Kim Christofferson, Teen Librarian, Garden Grove Regional Library, CA)

JESSICA MILLER: I think this question has to be explained in several ways. First, YA lit itself is becoming much more popular.  With adults realizing, yes they can read these books, the audience has grown.  With many new YA books being made into movies, awareness of the books themselves has grown. With more and more people talking about the books, it has exploded onto the social media sites.  Now that is a self feeding cycle.  With buzz already building on the internet, more and more people are joining book related sites, creating book blogs, and in general adding to the buzz.  As more and more people emerge online with these interests, the publishers are glomming onto this fact and are thus creating more buzz online…and such the cycle goes.  Basically the books are awesome, people realize they are awesome and talk about them, the publishers see people talking and show them more things to talk about…online!  (Jessica Miller, Young Adult Librarian, New Britain Public Library; New Britain, CT)

TONYA OSWALT: The intriguing stories and the high quality of the writing in young adult fiction appeal to people of all ages.  It’s interesting to me that a lot of teenagers will skip over young adult fiction and go straight to adult fiction, while many adults will linger in the young adult section, devouring the books there for years.  There has also been an increase in the number of movies being made based on young adult books, perhaps thanks to the popularity of the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises.  Then there is the ongoing debate over the ‘darkness’ of young adult fiction that has recently resurfaced in the media just a few months ago.  Censorship has and always will be an issue in libraries and schools, regardless of the actual material that is being published, because it is impossible for everyone to be happy.    (Tonya Oswalt, Young Adult Services Assistant, Bossier Parish Libraries, Bossier City, LA)

JONATHAN MABERRY: What are your favorite YA genres/subgenres…and why?

SHANNA SWIGERT SMITH: Currently, I am in love with teen lit that re-imagines history with fantasy and/or the science fiction element.  I have always loved historical fiction, which, to be honest, is already an author’s own imagining of history.  I like the authors who have taken it a step farther, intertwining magic, machines and time travel.

ROBIN BRENNER: As I said above, I love the books that veer into all sorts of genre groupings.  I just want a good story and solid writing.  If I had to define what I want in a YA book: witty banter, strong dialog, well-balanced world-building (whatever that world may be), and spot on pacing.

RACHEL KITZMANN: I started out as a fantasy/sci-fi reader and that’s still what I fall back to.  If there are witches and fairies, chances are I’ve read the book, all the sequels, and have deep and thorough thoughts about the world and how it operates.  The physics of space and time is something that most people have at least a basic understanding of: time moves forwards, gravity is what holds the earth together and that is how it’s supposed to be, then BAM- Magic!  What are you going do when Newton’s laws of motion become mere suggestions?  A good fantasy/sci-fi author takes the time to consider the impact of that on the world as a whole and on the protagonist in particular.  It’s a fun way to really explore the human experience.

LIZZ ZITRON: I am new to the fantasy realm and I blame it all on Neil Gaiman and YA lit, but not necessarily in that order. High fantasy has always eluded me, perhaps because I’m a somewhat literal person and having to imagine new universes confuses me! But I was always fascinated by the whole culture which just looks like a whole heck of a lot of fun. I’m more of a geek groupie than actual geek. As fantasy has become more popular in YA lit and adapted to teen tastes and needs, it’s hooked a lot of adults in the process. And not just because of sexy vampires either. (I long for the day when we can talk about fantasy w/out mentioning vampires or zombies!)

I read Holly Black’s “Tithe” and was smitten. I love when authors play with established genre, subverting it to their will in order to add something fresh to the conversation. YA authors seems to be doing that well with fantasy. Cynthia Leitich Smith for example, is offering a funny, fresh look at vampires and werewolves with “Tantalize,” “Eternal” and “Blessed.” I’m reading “The Replacement” by Brenna Yovanoff right now and it’s a great example of twisting and turning fantasy elements to appeal to a wider audience while staying true to the genre.

What’s awesome is that YA fantasy lit has led me to comic books. I was a typical young girl who avoided comics and now wish someone had set me straight by putting one in my hands when I was a teen. I think I would be a much cooler person now if that had happened.

KIM CHRISTOFFERSON: I love dystopian books.  I started reading the dystopian genre with “The Giver” by Lois Lowry and it had me hooked.  There are lots of dystopian YA fiction and they circulate very well at our library.  I think the reason they are popular is teens want to be seen as the hero.  In most of these books, the teens are definitely the hero.  And not a superhero but a normal kid who does extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances.  From Katniss in The Hunger Games series to Todd in Chaos Walking series to Sam in the Gone series.  They keep the reader’s attention, they bring out a touch of survivalist in the teen, and they are oftentimes funny.

JESSICA MILLER: My favorite genres have always been fantasy and science fiction.  I have not always been the bravest person in real life, but when you read fantasy or science fiction, you get to experience whole new worlds, travel to exotic places, and have outstanding and magical adventures…without even leaving your reading chair!  Now, there are many more recognized sub-genres within fantasy and science fiction.  Some of my favorites are dystopia (I have a strange fascination with imagining how I would deal with a corrupt and dangerous world), zombie books (…also fascinated with figuring out how to survive the zombie apocalypse), and steampunk ( I LOVE the combination of Victorian sensibilities and awesome gadgetry!).

TONYA OSWALT: I am most often drawn to fantasy and supernatural or paranormal fiction, and these are probably my favorites.  I like both high fantasy and the sword and sorcery type.  I also enjoy supernatural or paranormal books that include magic, vampires, werewolves, witches, etc., but I haven’t read every young adult vampire series there is.  There are a lot of them out there, and after a while, they all started to seem the same to me.  In general though, those are my favorite genres.  I also really like the young adult dystopia and steampunk trends, and I enjoy horror and some historical fiction in YA fiction.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Recommend a few books that you feel are outstanding.

SHANNA SWIGERT SMITH: My recent favorites are Starcrossed by Elizabeth Bunce, Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, You Against Me by Jenny Downham, Blood Red Road by Moira Young, and Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

ROBIN BRENNER: My absolutely favorite books of the past few years are Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy: The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men.  I have rarely read a trilogy so carefully written and clearly planned that nonetheless leaves readers on tenterhooks throughout three books of rapidly unwinding plot.  A lot of attention has gone toward The Hunger Games trilogy for tackling tough questions, but Ness addresses many of the same themes — war, loyalty, occupation, politics, terrorism vs. freedom fighting — and reveals it to be messy, life-altering, and so much more full of shades of grey than Collins’s series touched on.  In my absolute favorite touch: most tales that include war end with a final wrenching confrontation.  Monsters of Men, the third book, gets through that conflict in the first third of the book.  The rest of the story?  It’s all about the incredibly difficult and intense process that follows every war: reconstruction and reconciliation.  So few trilogies really dig deep into the after effects of a conflict they’ve set in motion in any series, let alone a series of teen books.

RACHEL KITZMANN: The book I read in January and have spent the last few months throwing at people is Beauty Queens by Libba Bray.  It starts as an almost silly premise (what happens when a plane full of beauty queens crash lands on a deserted island?) and spins it into this amazing manifesto on being female in the 21st Century.  Just…such a good, interesting, funny and heartbreaking book.

I’d also recommend The Education of Robert Nifkin by Daniel Pinkwater, one of my absolute favorite books, hands down.  It centers on Robert Nifkin, and the absurdity that is his high school, his family and his life, but it’s funny and relatable, even if the situations are extreme.  Admittedly, I lived in Chicago for about six years, and enjoy reading about streets that I know, or places I used to hang out, so that was a bonus for me as well.  Hilariously, neither of these books are fantasy, which is the genre I read the most in.

LIZZ ZITRON: Again all of the Morris Award nominees. There’s something for everyone in this list: Hush” by Eishes Chayil, published by Walker Publishing Company, a division of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc. “Guardian of the Dead” by Karen Healey, published by Little, Brown and Company/Hachette Book Group “Hold Me Closer, Necromancer” by Lish McBride, published by Henry Holt “Crossing the Tracks” by Barbara Stuber, published by Margaret McElderry Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division “The Freak Observer” by Blythe Woolston, published by Carolrhoda Lab, an imprint of Carolrhoda Books, a division of Lerner Publishing Group

KIM CHRISTOFFERSON: The whole Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness, An Abundance of Katherine’s by John Green, The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, The Wish List by Eoin Colfer, Tamar by Mal Peet, The Maze Runner trilogy by James Dashner

JESSICA MILLER: Three of the best books I have read recently are Divergent by Veronica Roth (girl defies expectations and exposes a coup d’état), Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt (boy overcomes abusive family situation to find the good in himself), and Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (beauty contestants on desert island figure out how to rescue themselves – HILARIOUS!).

TONYA OSWALT: I know there are still some people who haven’t read the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, so I have to start by recommending that.  It’s definitely getting more attention now since the movie is coming out in March, but the books are well worth a read before the movies hit the theater.  A fellow librarian recommended the series to me, and I have since continued to pass the recommendation along to all of my colleagues. In The Hunger Games, twenty-four teenagers are forced to fight for their lives in an arena each year while the rest of the country watches, as punishment for the last rebellion against the capital.  As Katniss, the main character, fights for her survival, she becomes a symbol of hope for the rest of the country.  Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson and If I Stay by Gayle Forman are two books that don’t fit my normal go-to genres that I have to recommend.  These books are powerful and haunting in a way that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading them.  In Wintergirls, Lia is fighting anorexia as she struggles to be thinner and thinner.  In If I Stay, a car accident leaves Mia in a coma, her brother injured, and her parents dead.  Mia is aware of this, despite the coma, and that she has a choice of whether to stay and live, or go and join her parents.  Even at the risk of sounding like I’m catering to the host, I also have to recommend Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry.  I’m not usually one to go looking for zombie books, but I was told that this was an excellent book and that it wasn’t really about the zombies.  I was pleased to find out that I agreed, and I usually recommend it to others as a book about relationships between family and friends that just happens to have zombies in it.

JONATHAN MABERRY: Discuss a favorite book that flew under the public radar.

SHANNA SWIGERT SMITH: I received an advanced copy of Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma earlier this year.  I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be reading a book that dealt with the taboo subject of incest, but I literally could not put it down.  Honestly, if it does hit the radar it may be the next banned book, but I would definitely recommend it as an amazing read.

RACHEL KITZMANN: I actually have a series that was discontinued:  The Alfred Kropp series by Rick Yancey.  Alfred Kropp is the last descendent of the Knight Lancelot.  He discovers this fact after his only living relative dies.  After that, Alfred is thrust into a world of high tech gadgets, magic and secret organizations.  It’s fast-paced, has tons of action and a really likable hero in Alfred.  The series is only three books, and though the end of the third book can be read as the finale in the series, Yancey asked enough new questions that I was really excited to see where he was going to take it, and then BOOM!  Cancelled.

KIM CHRISTOFFERSON: Tamar by Mal Peet was an excellent book that I think should have been on reading lists.  It has romance, mystery, suspense, war, everything a reader may want, plus it is a book that I didn’t want to put down until I finished.  Unfortunately, the only readers who knew about this incredible book were those in my book club and those who took the chance to pick it up from a display I created, and regardless of how much booktalking I did about it.  The book is a dense one and teens are reluctant to pick up something they can’t get through in a short time.

JESSICA MILLER: I have two books that I read and really enjoyed that I think most people do not know about.  The first, Dark Life by Kat Falls is a middle grade science fiction adventure.  Set in the future, humans now life under the ocean and children are starting to display special skills developed from inhabiting their new environment.  It’s like a western movie set under the ocean.  The characters are strong and the novelty of an underwater setting makes for all different types of interesting dangers! Secondly, I would strongly recommend your own book, Rot and Ruin. What I really love about the crop of new zombie books is the focus not solely on survival from zombie hordes, but dealing with the day to day life and emotional fallout that occurs after the initial crisis.  Rot and Ruin is a fantastic example of this type of book.  The characters learn a lot about humanity from seeing how the people around them deal with both the zombies and the other survivors. I can’t wait to finally read the next book in the series, Dust and Decay.

TONYA OSWALT: The first book that comes to mind that I absolutely love and that apparently hasn’t gotten as big of a reception as the publishers would have liked is The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey.  This book, the first in the Monstrumologist series, was one of the best horror books in young adult fiction in some time.  The writing style is captivating, as are the characters, and I was hooked from the start! Another book that I love that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention in my library is Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld.  Leviathan is the first in a series that creates a steampunk version of World War I, where the Central Powers, or the Clankers, are known for their machines, and the Allies, called the Darwinists, use fabricated creatures such as whale airships and message lizards.  The story alternates between Deryn, a girl pretending to be a boy so that she can serve as an airman for the Darwinists, and Alek, the son of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary.  One last book that I want to mention is Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta, a fantasy novel that I almost didn’t discover myself.  Though the book starts slow, once it picks up, the characters captivate you and sweep you into the moving story of the people of Lumatere as they try to find their way back home and locate their kingdom’s missing heir.

JONATHAN MABERRY: What’s next for YA lit?

SHANNA SWIGERT SMITH: I definitely know that teen lit is not getting less intense or dark in the near future!

ROBIN BRENNER: I have no idea, and that’s a lovely thing!  I would just say more of it…more of it all!

RACHEL KITZMANN: YA lit is going through some growing pains-it’s still somewhat looked down on as an audience even as every author in the history of ever is writing for it, trying to cash in.  A glut is coming, a YA saturation point, which needs to happen before the market can level.  The authors that care about YA, about the teens that they’re trying to reach with their stories will remain, and those looking turn a quick dollar will leave.  I think the future of YA will be less about trends (“Quick, we need unicorns!  I SAID UNICORNS, NOT PEGASI!”) and more about authors.  The media is having a hard time acknowledging the vastness of YA literature.  The focus tends to be on the “hotness” of vampires/zombies/fairies/mythology books.  That, I think, will change.  The focus will be on the book.  And that day will be oh so welcome.

LIZZ ZITRON: Probably Cthulhu romance. I think the LGBT market will continue to explode, evolve and develop until we no longer notice it as a subgenre, but as an established element of YA literature. At least, that is my hope and I see that happening in the books coming out. The graphic novel will grow in popularity, but I think the format will change in that we won’t see shiny paperback books, but rather books that look like most novels in terms of the packaging. Look for the revolutions in the Middle East to start seeping into YA Literature. I’m so excited about “Zahra’s Paradise” from First Second books to come out September 13. It’s a book version of a popular, anonymous web comic about the 2009 elections in Iran and what happened to those who dared to protest them. It represents what I love about YA lit: it provides a space in which we can view other lives and come to find they are not so different from our own.

KIM CHRISTOFFERSON: I think YA lit is getting bolder in terms of discussing “adult” topics.  Sex, obviously, is a topic in books teens will seek out.  But authors of YA lit will be under the gun in terms of fighting to express in their writing sexual situations.  Death, violence, terrorism, and love are hard to get through tastefully in books and I believe YA authors have done just that and are working more for that type of fiction.

Based on what I’ve heard more and more people asking for through social media and what books I’m seeing gain immense popularity, I think there are a couple of trends that might be coming up soon.  1. The reemergence of straight up science fiction – though this genre has always been strong in adult literature, it is only now starting to really pick up in YA.  Books like Beth Revis’ Across the Universe and Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan that are getting a strong media push will definitely help this trend gain momentum.  2.  The development of a college aged subgenre in realistic fiction.  Many, many YA readers bemoan the fact that YA lit seems to stop with characters graduating from high school. A few books here and there, sometimes shelved in YA, sometimes shelved in the adult area deal with college students.  As we’ve already determined that children and teens read up age-wise, why are we not including books with college age characters geared towards our high school readers? 3. Contemporary (but not issue driven) fiction – Think authors like Jennifer Echols and Stephanie Perkins.  With the overload of dystopian fiction in recent months, I think a lot of teen readers are pulling back and looking for a nice “normal” read. 4.  Lastly, not really a new genre, but a new type of book – Multimedia!

This trend really began in middle grade fiction with series like The 39 Clues. Now with the unveiling of Pottermore and The Capital PN (linked to The Hunger Games), I think more and more upcoming titles and series will be presented with print and online formats, as well as layers of usability.

TONYA OSWALT: The vampires have had their heyday, but they don’t seem to be going away anytime soon.  Zombies have been on the rise for a while, as have angels.  The new thing this year seems to be mermaids, but I’m not sure that mermaids are going to take hold quite the way some other character types have.  The dystopian fiction continues to keep coming, and I’m sure that it’s going to stick around for a little while.  I think in the future we may see more interactive YA fiction.  There are already books like The Amanda Project series that let readers go online to create their own characters and add to the story.  Now with e-readers, smart phones, and other devices used so frequently, and teens using media sites so heavily, I think that authors and publishers will find more ways to use these things to make books more interactive.

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JONATHAN MABERRY: What inspired the creation of Smashwords?

MARK COKER:  It started based on my own experience as a writer, and then grew into something much larger.

My wife and I co-wrote our novel Boob Tube a few years ago.  It’s a roman a clef about the daytime television soap opera industry (my wife is a former reporter for Soap Opera Weekly Magazine).  Despite representation by one of the most respected literary agencies in New York (Dystel & Goderich), every major publisher rejected our book.  The common thread of feedback was that previous soap opera-themed novels had not performed well, so publishers were reluctant to take a chance on it.

I realized there were hundreds of thousands of other talented writers around the world who could not get published simply because publishers questioned the commercial potential of their book.  I imagined the millions of people over the last couple hundred years who took their unpublished works to their grave.  It’s sad on so many levels.  Not only were their life-long dreams of publication never fulfilled, but readers were denied the opportunity to discover an untold number of classics.  How many potential masters on the level of Charles Dickens or Mark Twain have been lost for all eternity simply because a publisher didn’t publish them?

At the crux of the problem is that publishers publish for reasons different than writers write.  Publishers publish books to sell books, thus if they don’t perceive commercial potential, they’re reluctant to acquire a title.  Most writers write because their heads will explode if they don’t.  I think it’s dangerous to judge the value of books by commercial potential alone.  Left unchecked, publishers may one day publish only celebrity books because celebrities have platforms.

I ultimately came to the conclusion that traditional publishing was broken for authors, readers and publishers.  Publishers aren’t able to take a risk on every author, nor would most want to take such a risk if they could.

My idea for Smashwords was to create an online publishing platform that would allow me to take a risk on every author.  We set out to offer free ebook publishing services so any writer, anywhere in the world, could instantly publish an ebook at no cost.  We let readers decide what’s worth reading.

We launched in 2008.  By the end of that first year, we published 140 books.  That number grew to 6,000 by the end of 2009, 28,800 by 2010, and now surpasses 70,000 titles.  We’ll reach 100,000 in the next five months.

JONATHAN: Smashwords is very quickly becoming a go-to destination site like ‘Ebay’, ‘YouTube’ and ‘Amazon’.  What is it about Smashwords that’s catching the e-pub world’s attention?

MARK:  I think writers are drawn to us because we make it fast, free and easy to publish and distribute an ebook.  We’ve built a robust publishing platform that only gets better with time because we’re constantly working to evolve it with better technology, more useful features, and new retailers.  We spend 100 percent of our time asking ourselves, “how can we better serve our authors?”  Our authors are passionately vocal about what they like and what they don’t like, and we listen closely to their suggestions, complaints and kudos.  Our growth has been driven by word of mouth.  It’s all been about happy authors telling their author friends about us.

JONATHAN: What makes Smashwords fun for you?

MARK:  It’s knowing that we’re helping writers realize their dreams.  We’ve broken down the barriers to publication and distribution so every author can realize their dream of publication.  Some of the emails we receive from thankful authors would bring tears to your eyes.  We’ll often hear, “Thanks to Smashwords, I’m writing again.” Whenever I hear that, puts an instant knot in my throat because I know what it feels like to pour your heart and soul into something only to have someone slam the door in your face.  I also know what it feels like to be given a chance.  We give authors a chance.

JONATHAN: Can you share a couple of Smashwords success stories?

MARK:  Oh boy, where to start.  The biggest successes to me are the folks who realize their dream of publication, regardless of commercial success.  It should be stated that very few ebook authors achieve commercial success.  This holds true for traditionally published authors as well, most of whom maintain day jobs to support their writing.  We make it easy to publish and distribute, but we don’t make it easy to sell books.  It’s the responsibility of the writer to write books worth reading.  That said, we do have many authors who have achieved commercial success with our platform.  All the credit goes to the author, so it’s not due to any magic on our end other than us making it fast and free to get the book published and widely distributed.  Most of the biggest names in indie publishing are using us for some or all of their distribution.

A couple names:  I love the story of Brian S. Pratt, a writer of epic fantasy novels.  I interviewed him for the Smashwords blog last year (click here for the interview).  His first quarter at Smashwords two years ago, he earned $7.82.  Many authors with less conviction might have hung up the keyboard at that time and given up.  Brian persevered.  He figured as long as people were buying, he’d keep writing.  In the fourth quarter of 2010 he earned over $20,000.  This year his numbers are much higher and he’ll easily break $100,000 in earnings.  This, from an author who couldn’t get an agent or publisher, and by his own account was living below the poverty level as a single father of three.  Brian’s also a really smart self-publisher.  All his books are full-length, he writes series, and he gives the first book in the series away for free.  He honors the reader with great stories.

Another success story is Shayne Parkinson, a writer of historical fiction in New Zealand.  I met with her and her husband Roger (who also publishes at Smashwords) last October in Auckland.  She told me how New Zealand publishers wouldn’t publisher her books because they told her no one outside of New Zealand would care to read historical fiction set in New Zealand.  Rubbish!  A good story is universal, and Shayne proves this.  Shayne’s a great writer, and although she’s not a household name yet, I think we’ll continue to see her break out in a big way.  It’s great to watch her sales tick up each quarter as more and more readers discover her.

JONATHAN: Everyone has an opinion about the future of e-publishing.  What’s yours?

MARK:  Ebooks are the future of publishing.

Many big publishers are starting to report that ebooks account for 20 percent or more of their annual sales, up from under one percent just a few years ago.  Smaller independent publishers are earning more from ebooks.  Among most indies (self-published authors), ebook sales already trump print.  Most self-published authors find that they’re selling hundreds of ebooks for every print book they sell.  Brian S. Pratt, mentioned above, and Amanda Hocking, another Smashwords author, have both publicly stated they sell over 1,000 ebooks for every print book.

For the next several years, ebooks will likely continue to be the fastest growing format in publishing.  Within two years, the unit volume of ebooks purchased will exceed 50 percent of all sales, and within three years I think dollar sales will exceed print, industry-wide.  Most indie authors who are doing ebooks and print books have already experienced the crossover.

The power of publishing is shifting from publishers to authors.  For the last couple centuries, publishers controlled the printing press and the access to retail distribution.  They determined which writers became published authors, and which authors received distribution.  Now, thanks to ebooks and democratized distribution, any author anywhere can get their book quickly published and distributed.  Rather than earning the traditional 5-12% of list price as their royalty, indie authors earn up to 5-10 times that.

Thanks to the ease and accessibility of indie ebook publishing, we will see more books self-published.  Five years from now, I predict most NY Times ebook best-sellers will be indie authors.  If I do my job properly, many of them will be utilizing Smashwords for some or all of their distribution (at least that’s my goal!).  In the meantime, we’re already seeing Smashwords authors scaling the retailer-specific best-seller charts in their genres, and a small number have already broken out into the NYT and USA Today best-seller lists.

The high-profile successes of indie ebook authors such as Amanda Hocking, Nyree Belleville (writes as Bella Andre and Lucy Kevin), John Locke, Julie Ortolon, Joe Konrath and others inspire other authors to consider the advantages of self-publishing.  I think over the next few years the inspiration provided by these early trailblazers will lead many big-name authors to leave their traditional publishers, or change their relationship with the publisher.  Authors are beginning to ask, “what can my publisher do for me that I can’t already do for myself?”  If brick and mortar bookstores continue to fade, and if the ebook format surpasses print, then the pressures on authors to leave their big publishers will increase.

I think the big New York publishers will have a tough time over the next five years.  The world still needs publishers, though, because not all authors want to assume the responsibility of being their own publisher.  It’s tough work to be a great publisher!  The opportunity for publishers is to do for authors what authors cannot or will not do for themselves.  For a publisher, that means editing (helping the author turn their good book into a super-great book), print distribution and marketing.

More big name traditional authors will start demanding to retain their digital rights.  Here, it helps to have a great literary agent, because publishers are reluctant to acquire a book without digital rights.  I think literary agents have an important role to play in the ebook revolution.  The best agents help their clients maximize their commercial success, whether that success is found by self-publishing a title as an ebook or working with publisher, or straddling both worlds.  I blogged about what this trend means for agents and authors here:  http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/08/literary-agents-indie-ebook-roadmap.html

For writers, I think there’s never been a more exciting time to write and release books.  The market opportunity is wide open.  Ebooks need never go out of print, so indie ebooks have more time to reach readers.  Great books will find readers.  Indie authors have the opportunity to outpublish the big publishers with faster time-to-market, lower prices, broader distribution and closer relationships with readers.  If readers of this blog are interested to learn the best-practices of the most commercially successful indie authors, I captured their secrets here:  http://blog.smashwords.com/2010/10/seven-secrets-to-ebook-publishing.html

Thanks for inviting me to share my thoughts!

Suggested ebook publishing resources:

Smashwords Style Guide (how to format and publish an ebook) – Required reading for all Smashwords authors, and provides a good overview for all authors on how ebook formatting is different from print formatting.

Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book) – This free guide is useful to all authors, even those who don’t yet do ebooks.

Smashwords FAQ – Includes a helpful glossary of eBook publishing terms

How to Publish at Smashwords – Good collection of links to the above and other on-site resources

Welcome to the second in our series of virtual panel discussions here on the BIG SCARY BLOG to celebrate the nominees for The Sixth Annual Scribe Awards.

The SCRIBE AWARDS are presented by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers (IAMTW). The Sixth Annual Scribe Awards will be given at a ceremony and panel discussion held during Comic Con International in San Diego in July 2012.

For the full list of nominees: http://www.iamtw.org/awards-2011.html

Below are the nominees in the category of BEST YOUNG ADULT novel.

BIG SCARY BLOG: Tell us about your nominated work.

AARON ROSENBERG:  Absolutely! Alpha and Omega: The Junior Novel is about a wolf pack in the Canada’s Jasper Park. The pack is divided into two groups, the Alphas and the Omegas–the Alphas are the hunters and leaders, while the Omegas are the moderators and healers and laborers. Kate is a true Alpha, the pack leader’s daughter, fierce and strong. Humphrey is a classic Omega, carefree and playful and charming. They’ve known each other since they were young cubs, and have always liked each other, but Alphas and Omegas don’t mix. But when the two of them are captured and shipped to Twin Falls, Idaho, they have to work together to make their way back home. Along the way they begin to realize that maybe they aren’t so different after all.

NATHAN MEYER: My book, ALDWYNS ACADEMY is a YA fantasy setting in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. For the story I really wanted to co-opt a suspense-thriller format into a traditional high fantasy. The story revolves around the first day at a Wizarding Academy for a trouble young boy named Dorian. The central theme guiding the pace of the novel is a simple one ‘magic is dangerous’ and Dorian finds this out the hard way.

JOAN MARIE VERBA: THUNDERBIRDS: SITUATION CRITICAL! is a novel set in the Thunderbirds universe of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. This is the fourth book in the series; the focus character is John Tracy, an astronomer. As the book begins, he discovers a single gas giant/brown dwarf which passed by the solar system in recent years. The gravitation dislodged meteors and comets, sending them toward Earth. In the bulk of the novel, John and the International Rescue team deal with threat these objects pose to the Earth and Moon.

BIG SCARY BLOG: What drew you to writing media tie-in books?

AARON ROSENBERG: Well, I started with Star Trek, where it was a matter of “I love this setting, and now I get to tell stories about some of the characters I’ve seen on TV and in movies, and even create some characters of my own to travel alongside them? Cool!” That’s the fun of media tie-in work, that you get to play in worlds and with characters you already know and love. With novelizations it’s also that you get to show a bit more behind the scenes. You can reveal what the characters were thinking and feeling, and show scenes that tie everything together but weren’t in the original due to time or budget or some other issue.

NATHAN MEYER: I had written several published short stories when I learned about an opportunity to do ghost writing for an action/adventure series. I jumped at the chance as it seemed a much less “iffy” proposition for a new author than the sometime convoluted traditional publishing route. Once I had a few such novels under my belt I was simply in that “mode” and found I liked the challenge of going into preconceived worlds with established fan bases and then seeing if I could be innovative and live up to reader expectations. To be honest, the up-front advances didn’t exactly discourage me either.

JOAN MARIE VERBA: Whenever I enjoy watching a franchise, I always believe there are more stories to tell.

BIG SCARY BLOG: Talk about your process for creating a media tie-in book.

AARON ROSENBERG: The first thing I do, of course, is go back to the source. I rewatch the TV shows or the movies, reread the existing books, etc. to make sure I remember everything and know the world and characters I’m using. With novelizations that means going back over the script carefully until I know the dialogue by heart. Then I start mapping things out. With novelizations it’s all about filling in the gaps, making the existing scenes flow into each other to create as seamless story. With original tie-in stories–new stories using existing characters and settings–I just think about who these people are and where they are and what they’re doing and come up with ideas for stories that make sense for them. Either way I outline strenuously–I like to have a very clear map of where I’m going when I sit down and start writing.

NATHAN MEYER: The first part of the process is to become as intimately familiar with the tie-in world and characters as possible. I read or watch everything I can get my hands on and really work to immerse myself in the world. Once I feel like I know the property forwards and backwards I then move to creating a story using pretty much the same process any other kind of author would.

JOAN MARIE VERBA: First, I study the property: the existing stories, the characters, the settings. Then I consider the consequences of actions already established, or consider what the characters might do given a certain challenge.

BIG SCARY BLOG: How much creative freedom does this genre allow for authors?

AARON ROSENBERG: Tie-ins, you mean? A fair bit, actually. It varies from license to license, of course, but a lot of licensors know they have to sit back a bit and trust the writers to come up with something good. They get to check it all, of course, and offer comments and point out flaws or deviations, but the process works best if the licensor makes a few suggestions up front and then lets the writer play so that it isn’t too forced. If they’ve chosen well they have a writer who knows and loves the source material and understands how it works and how it sounds, which means whatever that writer comes up with should still be perfectly in line with that material.

NATHAN MEYER: This can vary greatly. On some projects the goal posts are very narrow. With novelizations of movies for example you’re pretty locked into narrating what happened in the film. You always have to be authentic to reader expectations when working with an established property of course or you fail–even if the book you wrote is a great story, if it doesn’t ‘feel’ like the world or the characters the fan base is looking for then it doesn’t work.

Having said all that, however, there is quite frequently plenty of room for a writer to flex his imagination. Tie-in novels about video or role-playing games or novels using established characters in non-canonical stories can leave the writer a very big palate to create from. With Aldwyns Academy I used the Wizarding School from Wizards of the Coast’s A Practical Guide to Magic, to include the faculty–but the main protagonists are my own creations and my story was created whole cloth simply using a known setting for a background. It is not uncommon at all to have this kind of writing freedom in a media tie-in book, which makes it fun.

JOAN MARIE VERBA: There’s a great deal of latitude allowed, as long as I respect the characters and the humanitarian principles behind the established universe, which I entirely agree with. Nonetheless, the only major changes I make deal with adding 21st century features to International Rescue: they have devices with Internet connections, for instance.

BIG SCARY BLOG: Why makes a really good media tie-in book?

AARON ROSENBERG: The first thing is being true to the source material. That’s crucial. You can tell the best story in the world, but if you’re writing a Eureka novel and the story is really a Star Trek story–both properties I’ve written for–it’s not going to work, and the Eureka fans who read the book aren’t going to be happy about it. You have to understand what makes that world and its characters tick, what makes them fun and distinct, and use that to its fullest. Second is telling a great story–you can know the characters backward and forward but if the story isn’t any good it won’t matter.

NATHAN MEYER: First it has to be authentic to the property. If you’re writing a novel about Batman, for instance, you can’t decide you think the Dark Knight would be more interesting if he cracked jokes like the Joker or wanted to use a gun. You always have to be respectful of fan expectations. After that what makes for a really good media tie-in book is the same that makes for a really good book, especially one that happens to share the same genre as the tie-in you are reading, that is; a compelling story told with a strong pace and a clear voice as seen through the experiences of well drawn characters.

JOAN MARIE VERBA: Consistency with the established universe. That’s what the fans of the series look for. Even though fan opinions and interpretations vary, and it’s impossible to please everyone, generally if an author makes the characters and situations feel authentic, the readers will find the story satisfying. Moreover, if the author can provide sufficient detail, readers not familiar with the universe will enjoy the novel as well, expanding the audience.

BIOS

AARON ROSENBERG doesn’t limit himself to one media or genre. He’s written original fiction (including the space-opera The Birth of the Dread Remora and its companion novella “Crossing Paths,” the upcoming occult thriller novel Indefinite Renewal and the upcoming science fiction comedy novel No Small Bills, and the new O.C.L.T. novella “Brought to Light”), tie-in novels (including the PsiPhi winner Collective Hindsight for Star Trek: SCE, the Daemon Gates trilogy for Warhammer, Tides of Darkness and the Scribe-nominated Beyond the Dark Portal for WarCraft, Hunt and Run for Stargate: Atlantis, and Substitution Method and Road Less Traveled for Eureka), young adult novels (including the Scribe-winning Bandslam: The Novel and books for iCarly and Ben10), children’s books (including an original series, Pete and Penny’s Pizza Puzzles, and work for PowerPuff Girls and Transformers Animated), roleplaying games (including original games like Asylum and Spookshow, the Origins Award-winning Gamemastering Secrets, and sections of The Supernatural Roleplaying Game, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and The Deryni Roleplaying Game), short stories, webcomics, essays, and educational books. He has ranged from mystery to speculative fiction to drama to comedy, always with the same intent—to tell a good story. You can visit him online at gryphonrose.com or follow him on Twitter @gryphonrose.

NATHAN MEYER is the author of over twenty novels and lives in Oregon with his wife and four children. He has been working as tie-in author for over a decade most frequently under pseudonyms and Aldwyns Academy is his first novel published under his own name. A member of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers for several years, Aldwyns Academy is a finalist in this year’s Scribe Awards for Best YA Novel.

JOAN MARIE VERBA: earned a bachelor of physics degree from the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology and attended the graduate school of astronomy at Indiana University, where she was an associate instructor of astronomy for one year. She has worked as a computer programmer, editor, publisher, health/weight loss coach, and social media manager. An experienced writer, she is the author of the nonfiction books Voyager: Exploring the Outer Planets, Boldly Writing, and Weight Loss Success, as well as the novels Countdown to Action, Action Alert, Deadly Danger, and Situation: Critical, plus numerous short stories and articles. She is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. Find out more here: http://www.sff.net/people/joan.marie.verba/

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We’re launching the first in a series of virtual panel discussions here on the BIG SCARY BLOG to celebrate the nominees for The Sixth Annual Scribe Awards.

The SCRIBE AWARDS are presented by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers (IAMTW). The Sixth Annual Scribe Awards will be given at a ceremony and panel discussion held during Comic Con International in San Diego in July 2012.

For the full list of nominees: http://www.iamtw.org/awards-2011.html

First up we have the nominees in the category of GENERAL ORIGINAL novel.

CSI: SHOCK TREATMENT by Greg Cox
BURN NOTICE: The Giveaway by Tod Goldberg
MIKE HAMMER: THE BIG BANG by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane
MURDER SHE WROTE: The Queen’s Jewels by Donald Bain
PSYCH: The Call of the Mild by William Rabkin
SAVING GRACE: TOUGH LOVE by Nancy Holder

*** William Rabkin was not able to join us for this panel.

BIG SCARY BLOG: Tell us about your nominated work.

GREG COX: CSI: SHOCK TREATMENT is my second CSI novel, and the first to feature Ray Langston instead of Gil Grissom. The main plot concerns an “accidental” shooting on the set of a reality show, which, of course, proves to be anything but. I think this book is a bit more blackly comic than my previous CSI novel, Head Hunter, which won a Scribe a couple years ago.

TOD GOLDBERG: THE GIVEAWAY was my 3^rd Burn Notice book, which either means I finally figured out what I was doing, or the fine judges determined that I wasn’t going to get any better and that they should recognize me for just getting slightly more readable. In terms of plot, it goes something like this: someone comes to Michael Westen with a problem and then, 300 pages later, he solves it. Some stuff blows up. Some jokes are told. Some drinks are had. In the end, I think America feels better about itself.

MAX ALLAN COLLINS: THE BIG BANG is the second Mike Hammer novel I’ve written based upon unpublished material from Mickey Spillane’s files. Shortly before his death, Mickey asked me to complete his then-in-progress Hammer novel, THE GOLIATH BONE, and just a few days before he passed, he told his wife Jane to give me all of his unfinished, unpublished stuff, saying, “Give everything to Max. He’ll know what to do with it.” No greater honor could be paid me. In addition to THE GOLIATH BONE, there were/are five other unfinished Hammer novels, usually consisting of 100 double-spaced pages and plot/character notes. THE BIG BANG was a story Mickey particularly liked, and he’d told me about it in detail, including the fairly outrageous ending.

DONALD BAIN: The Queen’s Jewels is set on a trans-Atlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2. Back in 1997 I wrote Murder on the QE2, which proved to be a fan favorite. It was the biggest selling novel in the “Murder, She Wrote” series for many years, and I decided to put Jessica back on the high seas in 2010. Aside from affording my wife, Renée and me an extremely pleasant week of research on that magnificent ship (she now collaborates with me on the series), setting one of Jessica’s adventures aboard a luxury ocean liner creates a perfect milieu for murder and character interaction.

I used the shipboard setting to reintroduce two favorite characters from the TV series, Dennis Stanton, a reformed jewel thief who is now a private investigator, and Michael Haggerty, a not-quite retired British intelligence agent. They’re on the ship for different purposes but their presence complicates what is already a complex murder mystery involving the theft of a priceless gem. I also introduced a character, a retired tanker captain, Harry Flynn, a handsome gentleman in his early 80s, who charms Jessica with his tales of having sailed the world. He generated an outpouring of e-mails from readers who fell in love with him. The book’s ending is quite different from previous novels in the series, which also prompted readers to weigh in. Fortunately, they responded favorably to it.

NANCY HOLDER: SAVING GRACE: TOUGH LOVE takes place in the “universe” of the TV show, SAVING GRACE, created by Nancy Miller and starring Holly Hunter. Grace in an Oklahoma City police detective bound for hell until an intervention by Earl, a tobacco-chawing angel. In TOUGH LOVE, Grace is trying to do some saving of her own–a young kid “adopted” by the detectives has returned to gang life, and is targeted for death by a white supremacist organization–and so is Grace’s best friend, Rhetta Rodriguez, whom they kidnap.

BIG SCARY BLOG: What drew you to writing media tie-in books?

GREG COX: My not-so-guilty secret is that I would be watching these shows and movies, and reading the comics, even if it wasn’t my job. I grew up on sci-fi movies and comic books and such, and I still get a thrill out actually getting to write some of my favorite characters and series.

TOD GOLDBERG: Burn Notice. I love the show and the show’s creator, Matt Nix, is a great guy that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for a long time, too. I’d been approached in the past about doing tie-ins and always demurred, but when the opportunity arose for the Burn Notice series, it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I’ve enjoyed writing the books – I’ve written five of them, the last of which comes out in July – and though I’m not going to continue doing the books, I have a feeling that I’ll always have a deep affinity for Michael Westen.

MAX ALLAN COLLINS: I’m both a film buff and a filmmaker, so it’s a good fit. As a pop culture junkie, it’s been a pleasure writing about such characters as Bret Maverick, Mulder and Scully and of course Mike Hammer. I was not in particular a fan of CSI, but those were fun books to do and very successful. I’ve been privileged to develop novels for some excellent films, notably SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, AIR FORCE ONE, IN THE LINE OF FIRE and AMERICAN GANGSTER.

DONALD BAIN: When I wrote Gin & Daggers 22 years ago, the first of the 37 books in the series (a new 3-book contract will bring the total up to 40 “Murder, She Wrote” novels) I never thought of it as being a tie-in book. I know now, of course, that the novels fall into that publishing category, but I simply considered it an opportunity to write a good murder mystery featuring a beloved character, Jessica Fletcher. I admit to a certain annoyance at books being categorized; a novel is either good or it isn’t. Duke Ellington felt the same way about the tendency to categorize music. Because tie-in books usually feature characters not invented by the authors, there’s a precious tendency among certain readers, as well as some in the publishing industry, to consider them less “legitimate,” less worthy. That of course is nonsense, but true nonetheless. To me the “Murder, She Wrote” novels are as mainstream as any murder mystery series, and I’ve sensed a welcome shift on the part of readers to accept the validity of this.

To more directly answer your question, I was drawn to write the series because my agent, Ted Chichak, then VP of the Scott Meredith Agency, had been approached by Universal to come up with a writer for books tied in to the TV series. I’d been ghosting mystery/thriller novels for a well-known person and was asked to take on the MSW series. I never imagined that I’d be still writing it 22 years later. Sometimes you get lucky.

NANCY HOLDER: My first tie-in was for HIGHLANDER. I found the Highlander books while I was working part-time at Mysterious Galaxy bookstore. I loved the idea of writing in the Highlander universe, and said as much at work. My boss (and friend) Maryelizabeth Hart, emailed the editor of the line and told her I was interested. The editor called me at work and I watched three seasons of HIGHLANDER in one week. I loved it. I sent the editor thirteen pitches, and I got the gig. With that credit, plus my romance and horror credentials, I got my first BUFFY gig. I wrote BUFFY, ANGEL, SMALLVILLE, SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH, HELLBOY, and WISHBONE tie-ins. I wrote for BUFFY for over a decade, and I loved every moment. It was a dream come true. After that, I wrote nonfiction about “my” shows, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be writing tie-in fiction again. Then SAVING GRACE came on the air, and I was offered a two-book deal. I fell completely in love with the show, just as deeply as I was (and still am) in love with BUFFY.

BIG SCARY BLOG: Talk about your process for creating a media tie-in book.

GREG COX: I tend to go the full immersion route. When I’m writing a Star Trek book, for instance, I’ll start watching the old episodes again, put the soundtrack albums on the CD player when I’m writing, read up on the show on-line, and generally eat, breathe, and sleep Trek until the book is done. Ditto for CSI, DC Comics, Buffy, Warehouse 13, or whatever.

TOD GOLDBERG: It’s hard to talk about process – I mean, I sit down, I type, and then, seventy-five thousand words later, I have a book – but in the case of a show like Burn Notice it’s important for me to really be cognizant of what the fans want. I’ve said this before, but it’s apt: what I try to do with the books is essentially akin to a singer performing a cover song. I want to make it recognizable to the folks who like the original while also providing a new twist here and there.

MAX ALLAN COLLINS: That varies depending on the property. For original novels, it’s a matter of immersing yourself in the show, watching episodes and taking notes and researching the appropriate background material — on CSI and CRIMINAL MINDS, the latter is a big part of it. My researcher and co-plotter Matt Clemens handles almost all of the forensics material on that kind of project. Matt and I took the CSI/CRIMINAL MINDS approach into two thrillers for Kensington, YOU CAN’T STOP ME and the recent NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU. YOU CAN’T STOP ME has been nominated for best paperback by the Thriller writers.

DONALD BAIN: The process really isn’t different from creating any novel, with a few exceptions. Universal (now Comcast-Universal) has a considerable investment in the “Murder, She Wrote” and Jessica Fletcher brands, and I have an obligation to honor that. Naturally, I’ve immersed myself in the Jessica Fletcher character and other characters from the TV show, and am careful to not do anything that might tarnish those characters in the minds of the show’s devoted fans. That obligation aside, Universal and the publisher, Obsdidian, have always been extremely supportive of the way that I’ve approached the books and the stories I’ve elected to tell as long as I don’t stray too far from the nature of the characters, and the tone of the show itself.

NANCY HOLDER: If I can get the scripts, I read and reread them until I get the structure and cadence of the show. I watch all the episodes as many times as possible, both with and without sound. You can find a lot of nuance by concentrating on the visuals (which is also a counterpoint to reading the scripts.) I read all the interviews and articles about the show that I can find. I buy the soundtracks and listen to them while I try to think of an adventure to take the characters on. I send my ideas to my idea, who sends them on to the network or production company. If I get comments or notes, I incorporate those in another draft of the outline if I’m asked to. Sometimes I just get the go-ahead to start working. The star of the show is my main point of view character. I try to use at least a couple of the other characters’ points of view in subplot(s.) In the case of TOUGH LOVE, I used a lot of Grace’s best friend, Rhetta.

BIG SCARY BLOG: How much creative freedom does this genre allow for authors?

GREG COX: Depends on the franchise to some degree. And, obviously, you have more freedom with an original novel based on a show than a strict novelization, where you’re just adapting somebody else’s script into prose. The trick is to find room to have fun while not coloring outside the lines of whatever franchise you’re working in.

TOD GOLDBERG: I think, generally, very little. But in my case, Matt said from the get go to do what I wanted to do, which was a tremendous gift to me and showed me that he trusted my vision, which is all a writer ever wants to hear. I think whenever a writer is given firm margins, they begin to feel artistically confined, and that shows up in the work. No writer wants to work from a point of constriction, particularly not this one.

MAX ALLAN COLLINS: That varies widely. The best case scenario on a movie tie-in is to be allowed the freedom to add “missing scenes” and backstory, and really explore the interior life of the characters. TV show novels require hewing to the format of the show. Early on, CSI was a breeze. The more popular it got, the more hands-on the CSI folks were on the novels. And that’s never really fun, but understandable.

DONALD BAIN: I suppose my answer to the previous question answers this to some extent. I’ve always felt that any good author can be creative within an external structure imposed by another interested party, in this case Comcast-Universal. Obviously being handed a wonderful character like Jessica Fletcher, shaped and nurtured by the superb Angela Lansbury and the show’s writers and directors, is somewhat restricting. On the other hand I’m not sure that I’d ever have been able to create that character out of my imagination, and I’m thankful that the folks at Comcast-Universal have enough faith to entrust its valuable character to me. While there are certain restrictions to what I can have Jessica Fletcher do, I never feel restricted or hindered in the approach I take with the stories and the way they’re shaped.

NANCY HOLDER: Writing tie-ins gives authors tons of freedom. Just as with TV series episodes, you can write different kinds of stories starring well-drawn characters in their distinctive worlds–a caper, a mystery, a sweeping epic, a comedy. Fans of the show love the variety.

BIG SCARY BLOG: Why makes a really good media tie-in book?

GREG COX: I think it helps if you’re enthusiastic about the show or comics themselves. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve seldom had to write for a series that didn’t engage me personally. And you need to do your homework and really get to know the characters and their voices. My impression, from talking to fans and readers, is that nothing knocks them out of a tie-in faster than thinking “Grissom wouldn’t say that!”

TOD GOLDBERG: I think it has to provide a bit more depth than you might find in a script. I don’t mean to say that scripts lack depth, but rather that fiction allows so much more in the form of interior narrative – what people would normally call, you know, thinking – that allows for people who are fans of a particular show to get insight into how the characters they know so well process information. It’s one of those things that I believe makes these books such perennial reads: people are interested in the interior lives of the people in that strange glowing box in their homes and the books allow one more level of access.

MAX ALLAN COLLINS: Two answers. With a movie tie-in, it needs to seem like it’s the book the movie was based on. A genuine, solid, rewarding read. With a TV tie-in, where the story is original, it should feel like an exceptional, big-budget episode, with the added enhancement of receiving the story from the inside of the characters — again, exploring the interior life of characters who, on TV, are strictly presented in an exterior way.

DONALD BAIN: The answer to that applies to any novel. It’s either good or it’s not. Sure, it’s incumbent upon me to stay true to the media source upon which the novels are based. Fans of the TV show expect a certain consistency and I always try to honor that. I write with the philosophy that whatever I’m writing at the moment is the most important thing I’ll ever write, and maybe the last, whether my name is on the book or not, or whether the book is based upon someone else’s creative inspiration as is the case with tie-in books. And, of course, the primary indication whether a tie-in book is good or not is how readers and fans respond to it. If they don’t like a tie-in series it will be short-lived in the marketplace.

As a proud member of IAMTW I’d filled with admiration for the men and women who write media tie-in books and do it so well. It isn’t a field in which anyone can wait for a burst of inspiration to strike. Tie-in writers work under the gun, have to face tough deadlines, and must deal with a variety of individuals and business entities with a vested interest in the finished product. But media tie-in books are an important part of the publishing industry (if it can be called an industry), and my hat’s off to those writers who make it work.

NANCY HOLDER: Adhering to the show. I try to write “more of” rather than “more than.” I’m a scribe for the show, not the show creator. It’s my job to serve the vision of the show creator(s) as best I can, not to take it over. I don’t re-envision; I try to recapture. I only write for shows I love, and I try to impart that love in my work.

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BIOS

GREG COX is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous books and short stories. He has written the official movie novelizations of Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Death Defying Acts, and the first three Underworld movies. He has also written books and stories based on such popular series as Alias, Batman, Buffy, CSI, Farscape, Fantastic Four, The 4400, The Green Hornet, Iron Man, The Phantom, Roswell, Spider-Man, Star Trek, Xena, X-Men, and Zorro. He has received two previous Scribe Awards. His official website is: gregcox-author.com.

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TOD GOLDBERG is the author of nine books of fiction, including the novels Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Fake Liar Cheat and the popular Burn Notice series, and two collections of short stories, Simplify and Other Resort Cities. He lives in La Quinta, CA where he directs the Low Residency MFA program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside. Find out more here: http://todgoldberg.typepad.com/the_books/about-tod-goldberg.html

MAX ALLAN COLLINS wrote the New York Times-bestselling graphic novel, ROAD TO PERDITION, basis of the Academy Award-winning Tom Hanks/Sam Mendes film. His Nathan Heller historical detective series (most recently BYE BYE, BABY) has been honored by the Private Eye Writers of America with two Shamus best novel awards, thirteen more nominations and their lifetime achievement award, the Eye. He is a leading writer of movie and TV tie-ins, with SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and AMERICAN GANGSTER reaching the New York Times bestseller list, and a number of his CSI novels making the USA Today bestseller list. Collins is a screenwriter and independent filmmaker, with his indie film MOMMY becoming a Lifetime Movie of the Week, his screenplay THE EXPERT an HBO World Premiere, and his recent screenplay, THE LAST LULLABY, became a film festival favorite. He is developing novels and short stories from unfinished material in the files of legendary mystery writer, Mickey Spillane, including an original audio novel, THE NEW ADVENTURES OF MIKE HAMMER: THE LITTLE DEATH, which recently won the Audie for Best Original Work. He lives in Iowa with his wife Barbara, with whom he writes the award-winning comic cozy “Trash ‘n’ Treasures” series, mostly recently ANTIQUES KNOCK-OFF. Find out more here: http://www.maxallancollins.com/blog/

DONALD BAIN is the author/ghostwriter of over 100 books, including the best-selling “Murder, She Wrote” series of 37 murder mysteries, and “Coffee, Tea or Me?” which sold more 5-million copies worldwide. His autobiography, Murder HE Wrote: A Successful Writer’s Life, was published in 2006 (Purdue University Press). A Purdue graduate, he was named one of the university’s Distinguished Alumni in 2003. A member of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, and recipient of its 2007 Grand Master Award, he’s also a member of Mystery Writers of America, the National Academy of Television Arts & Science, and the Authors Guild. Find out more here: http://www.donaldbain.com/

NANCY HOLDER is a New York Times bestselling-, multiple Bram Stoker Award-wining author of over eighty books and two hundred short stories, essays, and articles. She received a special sales award from amazon.com for THE ANGEL CHRONICLES, volume 2. Her most recent novel, CRUSADE, is a young adult dark fantasy novel written with her longtime coauthor, Debbie Viguié. She continues to work in the Whedonverses, with an essay in WHEDONISTAS: A CELEBRATION OF THE WORLDS OF JOSS WHEDON BY THE WOMEN WHO LOVE THEM. She will be talking about the Matter of Whedon at Dragon Con in September. She lives in San Diego with her daughter, Belle, their three cats, their two corgis, and a partridge in a pear tree. Find out more here: http://nancyholder.com/

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THE KING OF PLAGUES: A Joe Ledger Thriller by Jonathan Maberry

(St. Martin’s Griffin; Trade Paperback original; $14.99)

Click here to buy: http://us.macmillan.com/thekingofplagues

Saturday 09:11 Hours: A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured… 10:09 Hours: Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate.  The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen.  Compelled by grief and rage, Joe rejoins the DMS and within hours is attacked by a hit-team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak. Soon Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences begins tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos. Millions will die unless Joe Ledger meets this powerful new enemy of their own terms as he fights terror with terror. 

"A fast-paced, brilliantly written novel. The hottest thriller of the New Year! In The King of Plagues, Jonathan Maberry reigns supreme." — Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Athena Project

"Headlong action, up-to-the-minute science, and intriguingly conflicted characters — do not miss The King of Plagues." -F. Paul Wilson, NY Times bestselling author of the Repairman Jack series

“Joe Ledger and the DMS are back in their most brutal tale yet as they face off against a diabolical organization who is always one step ahead. As the sinister plot is exposed and the body count rises, THE KING OF PLAGUES is impossible to put down. Be prepared to lose some sleep.” – Jeremy Robinson, author of THRESHOLD and INSTINCT

“Breakneck pacing, nonstop action, and a subtle sense of humor, this is an utterly readable blend of adventure fiction, suspense thriller, and horror.” –Publishers Weekly

“Following The Dragon Factory (2010), Maberry cranks up the intensity level once again with his new Joe Ledger thriller. A London hospital explodes, killing thousands. This act of terrorism is only the beginning as the group behind the explosion turns to bioweapons in an effort to unleash a modern version of the biblical Ten Plagues of Egypt. Ledger, beaten and distraught over a heartbreaking loss, has quit the antiterrorism business but reluctantly must jump back into the game, charged with nothing less than saving the world. As events unfold, allies prove to be traitors, and traitors become allies. To throw off the authorities, the terrorist group begins utilizing civilians to handle the dirty work. The publisher bills the novel as horror, but the story, horrifying as it is, definitely belongs in the thriller camp. It’s also Maberry’s best book to date. The ending guarantees a sequel that will be anxiously awaited by series fans. –KIRKUS Review

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This year’s Grandmaster is Peter David, who has worked in television, film, books (fiction, non-fiction and audio), short stories, and comic books. He’s the acclaimed author of over fifty novels, many of them New York Times bestsellers. His extraordinarily prolific output of consistently excellent books includes two dozen original Star Trek novels, three Babylon 5 novels and novelizations of such major motion pictures as Spiderman, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, and The Hulk.

David is also one of the most successful and acclaimed comic book scripters in the business with popular runs on such titles as Supergirl, Star Trek, Wolverine and, in particular, his work on The Incredible Hulk franchise (in comics as well as books). His many awards include the prestigious Will Eisner Comic Industry Award. He lives in New York with his wife Kathleen and their three children.

Our 2011 Scribe Nominees are:

GENERAL ORIGINAL

CSI: SHOCK TREATMENT by Greg Cox
BURN NOTICE: The Giveaway by Tod Goldberg
MIKE HAMMER: THE BIG BANG by Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane
MURDER SHE WROTE: The Queen’s Jewels by Donald Bain
PSYCH: The Call of the Mild by William Rabkin
SAVING GRACE: TOUGH LOVE by Nancy Holder

SPECULATIVE ORIGINAL

GUILD WARS: GHOSTS OF ASCALON by Matt Forbeck and Jeff Grubb
STAR TREK: MIRROR UNIVERSE: THE SORROWS OF THE EMPIRE by David Mack
STAR WARS: FORCE UNLEASHED II by Sean Williams
SUPERNATURAL: HEART OF THE DRAGON by Keith R. A. DeCandido
WARHAMMER: BLOODBORN: ULRIKA THE VAMPIRE by Nathan Long

BEST ADAPTATION

FINAL CRISIS by Greg Cox
GOD OF WAR by Matthew Stover & Robert E. Vardeman
THE WOLFMAN by Jonathan Maberry

BEST YOUNG ADULT

ALPHA & OMEGA: THE JUNIOR NOVEL by Aaron Rosenberg
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: ALDWYNS ACADEMY by Nathan Meyer
THUNDERBIRDS: SITUATION CRITICAL by Joan Marie Yerba

The Fifth Annual Scribe Awards will be given at a ceremony and panel discussion held during Comic Con International in San Diego in July 2011. Details will be announced soon.

For more information contact:

Max Allan Collins (macphilms@hotmail.com)
Lee Goldberg (lee@leegoldberg.com)