Days with the Undead Blog Tour: Round Up #5

Have you been reading along with Julianne? Perhaps you’ve missed a stop on her fantastic Days with the Undead: Book One tour? No need to worry, we’ve done another round-up for you so that you can caught up and perhaps enter yourself in some giveaways to win a free copy of the book!

April 5 & 6 – The Sirens Song

The Science of the Undead (interview) –

SCP: Julianne, what draws you to Zombies in particular? Not why do you like Zombie stories, but what is it about the slow scuffle of Undead feet that makes you want to tell your story about them?

JS: I have always been drawn to Zombie literature. I’ve also been drawn to more psychologically thoughtful horror stories. If I hadn’t studied forensics, it would have been psychology. In the end, I found that the stories I had the opportunity to read the genre were lacking that psychological edge that I had come to crave. Admittedly, it’s a hard thing to work into the gruesome, gore filled story that a Zombie work needs to be, but it can be done. As I wrote Days with the Undead in my mind, it came from a deeper place within me. Sure, there are Zombies but it really is a story of human survival. It’s what I was trying to do in reality as I faced a life-threatening illness and a great deal of the psychological aspects derive from that experience. It wasn’t easy to impart some of my deepest inner struggles for survival into the book but I think that is part of what makes it different. When I read it, I feel my own struggle (minus the Zombies, of course) and when others read it, I hope they feel the psychological torment that can exist in a situation like that as well without having to experience it for themselves.

If you’d like to read the rest of The Science of the Undead, check out the links for Part 1 and Part 2.

April 7 – Joseph Pinto

An Interview –

It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Julianne Snow, author of the new book, ‘Days with the Undead: Book One.’

JP: Okay, Julianne, straight out of the gate: why zombies?

JS: Why not Zombies? They’re fun (in a weird sort of way). However, on a more serious note, I find Zombies to be remarkably more terrifying than any of the other supernatural creatures that are in literary and cinematic existence today. Zombies are the monsters that characterize the aspects of humanity to the greatest degree. By chance or design, the monster’s face that looks back at you is one that is so similar to your own. That sends chills down my spine.

Interested in reading the rest of Joseph’s interview with Julianne, find it here.

April 8 – Julianne Snow

Found: An Interview with Julie! (flash fiction) –

…Today I start my career as a serious journalist. I might not be the best yet, but I only plan on getting better. I have a feeling that something is going on up in Canada and while I can’t get there, I can take a look from here and see if I can’t help figure some of the confusing bits out for everyone. Not only have I scored an exclusive Skype interview with someone fleeing this riot, she actually has an idea about what is really going on! Without further ado, I give you my interview with Julie Odette, a resident of Toronto and witness to the situation that’s unfolding there.

GG: Welcome Julie! Thank you for agreeing to talk to me today.

JO: Gloria, thank you for giving me this unprecedented opportunity.

GG: Can you tell me what exactly is going on in Toronto?

JO: At the moment, I don’t know much about what is currently going on but I think it’s safe to assume the city is lost. However, I can tell you what happened eight days ago, if you like.

If you’d like to read the rest of Julianne’s flash fiction called Found: An Interview with Julie!, you can find it here.

April 9 – Carole Gill

Monster Face Off: Zombies vs. Werewolves vs. Vampires (guest post) –

In a war fought only by zombies, werewolves and vampires, who would win? Is there one supernatural creature that would reign supreme? In order to answer that question, we must first consider each of the creatures in turn.

The Zombie: The modern archetype of the Zombie is rooted deep in the genre. Zombies are undead; that’s fairly simple to ascertain. They are plagued with a voracious hunger, they never stop to rest, and they move whether it’s night or day. They have no preference in whom they will kill and they can add to their ranks with a single, infected bite. The Zombie exists with no subtlety, no brains, and absolutely no subterfuge. That makes them pretty formidable, but how will they stack up against the Vampire or the Werewolf?

Interested in finding out which supernatural creature Julianne thinks will win a Monster Face Off, read the rest of the post here.

April 10 – Keelan Foley

My Experiences of Crafting Tales (guest post) –

Hello, my name is Julianne Snow and I am a published author. I feel like I should be standing at the front of a room addressing all of my contemporaries when I say that. Writing is an addiction that I feed on a daily basis. It’s not something that I do once in a while or on a whim; it’s a part of my identity.

I started writing in the latter years of elementary school and continued throughout high school. I gained intense enjoyment out of creating worlds and putting those worlds onto paper. At that point in time, I had always imagined my life would contain writing on some level. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it full-time or if it was something that I wanted to do for myself. A wise person, a mentor of mine, made a suggestion at the crossroads of my life, trying to guide me in pursuing the best education possible. At that junction I made a choice that I don’t regret, but I do wish I had made a few addendums to. I should have carried on writing fiction; instead I traded it in for the long nights of academic papers and lab reports. It wasn’t until I was facing down an illness that I rediscovered the joy that writing had once held for me. Since then, there has been no looking back.

If you’re interested in reading the rest of Julianne’s guest post, you can find it here.

April 11 – Heather Powers

Days with the Undead: The Author’s Perspective (guest post) –

When I first set out to craft an engaging story, my mind didn’t automatically jump to the Zombie genre. At the moment, it’s a bandwagon full of offerings with fans joining the ranks in exponential numbers. Zombies are popular at the moment; there is no doubt about it. The difference with Days with the Undead is that in the beginning I started out to write a story about survival. The perfect backdrop for that story just happened to be a Zombie Apocalypse and I’m not going to lie, the genre is one of my favourites.

In order to catch the attention of potential readers, you must have a story that captures them from the very beginning. Most stories tend to start on the first day; it’s almost an oxymoronical statement to suggest otherwise. With Days with the Undead, I place you right into the action. There is no gentle build to the crux of the story; instead you are thrown head first into the flight of the main characters as they evade the Undead…

To read the rest of Julianne’s guest post titled Days with the Undead: The Author’s Perspective, find it here.

April 12 – Kalla Monahan

Vision: The Fusion of Sight and Inspiration (guest post) –

While I was growing up, I always imagined my life would include writing in some capacity. Whether it was for pleasure or as a side project to a fulfilling career, I continually visualized that creating characters and worlds would run in tandem to the life I was going to live. Somewhere along the line, that all got pushed to the wayside.

In my young adult years, I spent so much of my time nose deep in books – academic tomes and periodic journals – while studying at University, it left little time to write fiction. But I still managed to read and added quite frequently to my collection of hardcovers and paperbacks in those four years. With all of the other pressures pushing down on me, reading was enough to satisfy the monster-sized imagination that had grown inside my mind…

If you’d like to read more of Vision: The Fusion of Sight and Inspiration, you can find it here.

April 13 – Erebus Horror

An Interview –

Well we’re lucky enough to have conducted an interview with this great writer and you’re lucky enough to read it!

Here we go…

EH: What made you decide to become a writer?

JS: I’m not sure if it was really a decision I consciously made. I had always written short stories and prose-like poems growing up, but before going away to post-secondary education it got put on the back burner. I didn’t end up coming back to it until later when a situation that arose that caused me to lose a great deal of my sight for a period of time. As a result, I spent a lot of that time in my head, rediscovering my love for creating plotlines and fleshing out characters. After that moment occurred, there really was no looking back.

EH: You’re a published author now. How hard was it to get where you are?

JS: The hardest part was actually writing the book. That’s a lot of words to weave together in some form of coherency! As the ideas and plotlines swarm around the sieve that controls what flows out of your fingers, it can get difficult to filter which ideas are viable for any given story. The fact of the matter is that I enjoy writing; I enjoy the sense of satisfaction I receive when I finish a chapter or a story. Once the story is completely finished, and the editing starts, there’s almost a relaxation that occurs. You have the story that you wanted to write out of your head and your soul, now it’s just polishing it to the point that it’s the best that it can be. Teaming with my publisher, Sirens Call Publications, helped me to traverse the world of publishing as well. Was it a struggle at times? Absolutely, but in the end it was a labor of love and one that I will happily do over and over again…

To read the rest of the Julianne’s interview with Erebus Horror, find it here.

April 16 – Stant Litore

An Interview for The Zombie Bookshelf –

The premise of Julianne Snow’s new Days with the Undead appealed to me at once because it is told as a survivor’s diary, reviving the oldest and original form of plague narrative. I remember reading Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year in college, and many of the passages in it — the people being bound to their beds so they would not run naked and feverish into the streets screaming; the heaps of bodies; the fire — remain with me to this day. So it is with considerable delight that I see Julianne Snow reviving this form in her debut novel. Worth checking out!

Stant Litore. What most frightens and fascinates you about the hungry dead?

Julianne Snow. One aspect of the hungry dead that terrifies me the most is their similarity to us; it’s like looking in the mirror at your own potential (perhaps inevitable) demise. When you face down hordes of the Undead, you will confront a multitude of the walking corpses in differing stages of decomposition. You’re even going to encounter different degrees of wounds and carnage. The social commentary that can be drawn from those simple inferences is dangerous when you really start to think about it…

To read the rest of Stant’s Interview with Julianne, you can find it here.

And so that ends Julianne’s Days with the Undead Blog Tour – I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!