#fridayreads – 5 Questions with Jay Bonansinga, co-author of The Walking Dead novels

I’ve done several “5 Questions With…” features on my blog since its inception, but I’m hoping to make it a more regular occurrence.  Since Friday is also known for Friday Five, it just makes sense to move this feature to Friday as well, don’t you think?

I’m starting things off with a bang – with the New York Times bestseller and co-writer of The Walking Dead novels, Jay Bonansinga! Before he teamed up with Robert Kirkman for this project, Jay was responsible for 16 other novels including the Stoker-nominated The Black Mariah.

© 2011 jill brazel photography

I got my first taste of The Walking Dead book universe with the first in the series – Rise of the Governor.  This book already had a few things going for it:  it was part of TWD’s universe, it focused on The Governor, and it was well-written.  I had big plans for the book in terms of promotion at Borders.  I was presented it right before Borders went belly up, and I was immediately ready to make it the focus of my October 2011 promotional efforts.  Those plans never came to fruition unfortunately, so it’s especially cool that I was contacted about helping promote the second book in the series.  I jumped at the opportunity!

So, without further ado, here are my Five Questions with Jay Bonansinga.

What’s it like to be part of the Walking Dead universe and to be able to work with Robert Kirkman?

Best job of my career… really.  Twenty-five years in the horror field, sixteen books, 60 short stories, a gig with George Romero, and an absolute LOVE of zombies, and I feel like I have been in training for this work my whole career.  Love it, love it, LOVE IT!!

Now that the comic has transcended to just about every form of medium, do you find it challenging to make sure the novels stand out in the crowd?

Yeah, absolutely, it’s really scary and fascinating to see the novel form pitted against these sexier mediums… but that is what’s SO interesting about this whole experience, the books are self contained and yet perfectly conformed, like genetically modified organisms, to the comic and TV series.

The first novel focused on the origins of the Governor and the latest novel mainly focuses on Lilly.  Do you anticipate branching out into different parts of the world in future work, or are you going to stay close to Woodbury?

I want to do this until I die… so, yeah, I see it branching out… in fact, I want to do it beyond the point that I die, especially if I turn and come back as a zombie, in which case I will continue to write, although my penmanship will suffer.

What would you say to fans of the comic or fans of the show who haven’t given the novels a chance to entice them into checking them out?

I would say that the novels are like having sex with a lot more foreplay, and it’s really excellent foreplay, so come on… if you want to just get your rocks off, fine, but don’t you want more foreplay?  (Is this a family publication?)  Editor’s Note:  We’ll let it slide

Who’s more fanatic:  Trekkies, Star Wars fans, or Walking Dead fans?

I would say either Trekkies or Star Wars fans are more fanatic… Walking Dead fans are more like GRATEFUL Dead fans… and we all know Dead Heads are too stoned to be fanatic.

Also, if you want to give it a shot, Paste Magazine posted the first three chapters of The Walking Dead: Road to Woodbury HERE!

31 Days of Halloween Hijinks: Five scary reads to get you in the spirit

Day Seven:  Five scary reads to get you in the spirit

When it comes to October and the Halloween season, I go out of my way to scare myself.  It’s all part of the fun, right?  The one thing I won’t do though is Haunted Houses (more on that in a future post – nice tease, right?).  I get most of my scares through movies or reading, which coincidentally are my two biggest passions in life (minus family of course).

This Halloween season, I’m reading David Moody’s Autumn series to get my horror fix.  I’m on a zombie kick lately, and his books are excellent.  Aside from everything he’s ever written, I offer up these five choice horror selections for you to enjoy this season.

As a note, I did decide to only include books that were available as of today in my list.  There’s some absolutely amazing horror novels coming up towards the end of the month that I would also recommend, but I didn’t want you to get pissed that the books I recommended weren’t available.

In case you’re curious, the books that I recommend, but aren’t out yet are:

Zone One

The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor

Dead of Night

Double Dead

Click Read More to see my picks for this season!

31 Day Blog Challenge Profile: Quirky Bookworm

As you all may have noticed, I just started a 31 Day Blog Challenge. This is my first time doing one of these linky party things. In fact, I was just planning on blogging for 31 days by myself, but my lovely wife let me know about this huge linky party being hosted by a few of the blogs she reads regularly. I really didn’t know what to expect, but as of this evening, it looks like there’s over 650 people participating in this challenge. That being said, there’s a lot of great blogs participating. While I know it’ll probably be hard for me to check out every single blog, I wanted to make sure to call out some that really catch my eye. If you want to check out all 650ish blogs (which I recommend because my guess is we don’t all have the same tastes, right?), here’s a direct link to get you there… Complete List of the 31 Dayers

While you’re here, I also wanted to call out the first blog that really caught my eye. As a huge fan of books and the printed word, I’m always looking for new places to get recommendations. The name of this blog (Quirky Bookworm) immediately caught my eye because my reading tastes aren’t necessarily main stream.

After checking out the Quirky Bookworm blog, I also found out the person hosting this blog also reviews for Shelf Awareness – an industry rag I tend to respect (they seemed to be the most respectful of Borders through the whole liquidation ordeal. I immediately was intrigued to read further.

For the month of October, Jessica (the person behind Quirky Bookworm) will be recommending 31 books to us. I don’t know about you, but I think this is an amazing idea and can’t wait to she what she has to recommend. Please feel free to check out her blog and tell her Dane sent you.  Also, check back here periodically to see what other blogs I want to profile.

Here’s a direct link to the start of her 31 Day Blogs:

Thoughts on unemployment

When Friday comes around, this will be my first full week as a former Book Buyer (I’ll never say former bookseller because as long as I can read, I’ll do whatever I can to make sure people have great reading recommendations).  One weird thing about unemployment that I didn’t really expect is that your day just zooms by.  This may be because I’m also acting as Mr. Mom while out of work.  We pulled our daughter out of daycare, which is a bummer because she was really blossoming.  This offers up a particular challenge for me because I don’t want her to stall her development.  Even though Nick Jr. states they’re like pre-school on TV, I can’t just sit her in front of the TV for eight hours a day.

To keep her stimulated yesterday, we made a huge mess.  For instance, we pulled all the pillows off our couch (which has been lovingly christened as Napzilla and Napzuki for each side of the couch) and used them to create an awesome fort.  We played in the fort for most of the morning, and I must say I had an absolute blast.

Going back to my love of books, I think my wife and I have already passed that down to our daughter, which means I really want physical books to never go away (shop at bookstores dammit!).  Her standard go-to books used to be Leslie Patricelli and Batman books.  If the folks in our family ever read My First Batman Book to Lily ever again, it may be too soon.  Me, on the other hand, eat that up.  Lately though, her love of Batman is being eclipsed by her love for Olivia (Ian Falconer).  I counted and I read it to her six times today.  I eat that kind of stuff up!  I even took Lily to the library to look for Olivia library books.  This was Lily’s first trip to the library, and thankfully, she was in awe by the selection.  I remember when I was a kid, I used to check out 5-10 books a week.  I hope Lily feels that way too when she gets older.

I think this is it for tonight.  I promised you all a post about my thoughts of the Borders liquidation.  You’ll get it, I promise.  Just not right yet.  The wound is still a little fresh. I am thinking of starting up two blog though – one to cater towards folks of my old stomping ground (Babel Clash) would love, and another about being a (temporary) stay-at-home dad.  Who knows, if income happens for these blogs, maybe I will be a stay-ay-home dad forever!

Also, since I am a bookseller, I want to tell you about Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines.  I’m halfway through it and I absolutely love it.  It’s a very clever take on zombie fiction that made me wonder why I never thought of that idea.  If you have any other zombie suggestions, feel free to leave a comments!

 

Off the rails

I’ve been off Facebook for over a month and I have nothing to show for it creatively.  Sure, I’ve written a few things lately, but none of them have anything to do with my fiction writing.  In fact, I’ve even started using one aspect of Facebook again this evening – not the status updates, etc. but a Facebook group.  The group is actually a book club, which is something I’ve never done before (but I’ve always wanted to do).  I’ve been reading a lot of books since the ban as well, so if it’s not helping me write, it sure is helping with my other passions.

Initially, I was hesitant to join the book club, mainly because it was going to be through Facebook.  I’m very serious about my Facebook ban, so I didn’t want to comprise that, but my wife talked me into joining with the hopes that it might kick my writing into high gear.  We’ll see if it gives me the inspiration that I crave.

If not, I think I may have to resort to giving myself a deadline.  I work best under pressure and simply staying off Facebook just isn’t enough I suppose.

Do I have writer’s block?  I don’t think so…I think I’m just sabotaging my progress and ultimate success.