On Being a Zombie Writer

Got to love my life-impaired fellow citizens.

I write a lot of stuff, from movie adaptations (THE WOLFMAN) to comics (CAPTAIN AMERICA: HAIL HYDRA), but a big chunk of what I write seems to be about zombies.

Here’s my zombie street cred:

First, I met Richard Matheson when I was fourteen and he gave me a signed copy of I AM LEGEND for my birthday.  I was also at the Midway Theater in Philly (at age 10) for the premier of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.  Paid my dues?  Yeah, check’s in the mail.

Writing-wise, I added ‘deadheads’, a kind of zombie to my PINE DEEP TRILOGY (GHOST ROAD BLUES, DEAD MAN’S SONG and BAD MOON RISING), and also wrote some real-world horror industry folks into the book, with their willing permission, of course.  So in BAD MOON RISING expect to meet Ken Foree, Tom Savini, Debbie Rochon, James Gunn, Joe Bob Briggs, Brinke Stevens, Jim O’Rear, and Stephen Susco.  Those books were released by Pinnacle in 2006, ’07 and ’08 and are still in print.  BlackStone Audio will be releasing audio versions this year.

In 2008 I did ZOMBIE CSU: THE FORENSICS OF THE LIVING DEAD for Citadel Books.  It’s a nonfiction exploration of how the real world would react, research, investigate and respond to a zombie crisis.  I interviewed everyone from street cops to Homeland Security.

In 2009, St. Martin’s Griffin released PATIENT ZERO, the first an ongoing series of science-themed action thrillers featuring Joe Ledger, a former Baltimore cop hired by the Department of Military Sciences to lead Echo Team, a rapid response special ops team designed to stop terrorists with weird science weapons.  The first book deals with a genetically amplified prion disease.  That book, and it’s non-zombie sequels, THE DRAGON FACTORY (2011) and THE KING OF PLAGUES (March 29), were optioned by producer Michael DeLuca (Blade, Se7ven) on behalf of Sony Entertainment, and they’re shopping it to TV networks.

In 2010, Simon & Schuster released ROT & RUIN, the first of my series of teen novels set in a post zombie-apocalypse world.  That series is also being shopped to Hollywood.  It’s on the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards, it’s been nominated for the Pennsylvania State Library Association Award, and it won the Mock Printz and Cybils Awards.  The second in the series, DUST & DECAY, will be out in August.

I was also on the team for MARVEL ZOMBIE RETURN, with Fred Van Lente, David Wellington (MONSTER ISLAND) and Seth Grahame-Smith (PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES)

And (because, screw it, why ever sleep?) I wrote DEAD OF NIGHT, which will be released this Halloween (and debuted at ZombCon in Seattle).  It’s a standalone zombie thriller set it Pennsylvania.  John Russo, co-writer of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, said: “Jonathan Maberry has created an homage to death itself and an homage to the undead that is as poetic as it is terrifying.  It's a brand new and intriguingly fresh slant on the zombie genre that we all love!”

So…zombie?  Yeah, I dig zombies.