Lisa's Blog

Show of hands: who's over vampires? Put down your hands. Okay, now, who's over zombies?

I still hear people asking, "What's going to be the next big trend?" After vampires, they mean. And I wonder where they've been. How have they possibly missed the outbreak of zombie titles published in just the last two years, including the following:

• Brains for Lunch: A Zombie Novel in Haiku?!, by K. A. Holt
• The Enemy, by Charles Higson
• The Forest of Hands and Teeth (and sequels), by Carrie Ryan
• Generation Dead (and sequels), by Daniel
• I Kissed a Zombie, and I Liked It, by Adam Selzer
• The Midnight Curse, by L. M. Falcone
• Nathan Abercrombie series, by David Lubar
• Never Slow Dance with a Zombie, by Ehrich Van Lowe
• Tales from the Crypt, No. 8: Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid
• Xombies series, by Walter Greatshell
• You Are So Undead to Me (and sequels), by Stacey Jay
• The Zombie Chasers, by John Kloepfer
• Zombie Queen of Newbury High, by Amanda Ashby
• Zombiekins, by Kevin Bolger

And that's just some of the children's and YA books. Go older and there's more, and not just horror stories, either. Mysteries, romances, parodies, thrillers, science fiction... seriously, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies popping up on the New York Times Bestseller List didn't clue you in?

I'll admit it: zombie books gross me out. Dead things gross me out in general, and zombies are, well, dead. Disgustingly so. Rotting. Stinky. And, somehow, slobbery. So while I can appreciate that zombies make good fodder for a horror story, I have trouble fathoming the books in which zombies are the good guys. Even worse when they're the romantic interests. Um, ewwwww?

Anyway, this is me raising my hand to say that, yes, I am over zombie lit. That's why I was so tickled when my friend L. just shared this hilarious article, "Seven Scientific Reasons a Zombie Outbreak Would Fail (Quickly)." Whether it's due to putrefaction, inefficient spread of disease, or America's crap-load of guns, suddenly the zombies are seeming a lot less menacing. Now if we could just stem the flood in publishing.

What's after zombies, you ask? Well, paranormal lit will continue to be a dominating force for a while, I imagine. There are still plenty of ghost stories coming out, plenty of urban fantasies with mean, nasty fairies. And there are dystopian novels coming out of our ears. I have the same problem with literary fads as I do with a large order of mozzarella cheese sticks: one minute you've got a delicious, savory treat, the next you've got indigestion.

Hmm, I wonder: do zombies ever get indigestion?

Joe pointed me to this fun article in the Morning News. The writers interviewed their kids about their summer reading—what books they're reading, what they learned, how much the author gets paid—whence comes the article's title, "The Seven-Cent Advance." The results are amusing. Also, I'm so happy that the going rate for trade fiction seems to be much higher nowadays.

Thanks to Joe at ShooFlyDesign, my website has migrated to lisajennbigelow.com. My new blog address is lisajennbigelow.com/blog. Please update your bookmarks and RSS readers!

A young patron just alerted us to what may be the most awesome horror series ever: Michigan Chillers, by Jonathan Rand. And I base this judgment on titles alone.

Poltergeists of Petoskey! Aliens Attack Alpena! Gargoyles of Gaylord! And let us not forget Kreepy Klowns of Kalamazoo!

Of course, it probably helps to have grown up in Michigan. The thought of extraterrestrials bothering with li'l ole Alpena (population 11,000), home of a tomato patch I ran over with a four-wheeler when I was thirteen years old, makes me giggle. But what do I know? Maybe the aliens want to ago deer hunting.

I also love the tag line for AuSable Alligators: "Terror on a famous Michigan trout stream!" The most threatening thing you're apt to see on the Au Sable is cranky canoeists.

All right, so I'm having a bit of a laugh—but hats off to Mr. Rand. I'm sure he writes these books with a sense of humor. And he has at least one very dedicated fan here in Wilmette.

My one complaint? I wish that book about the Christmas snow monster were set in Frankenmuth.

For those who haven't heard this by some other means, here's the latest news in my personal (and heretofore uneventful) publishing career: my first novel—working title Starting From Here—has been picked up by Marshall Cavendish! It's a contemporary, realistic young adult novel about girls, dogs, trucks, and moving on. I'm very excited. Mark your calendars for Spring 2012!