Monroeville Mall, Heck Yes

Monroeville Mall, PA, the historic location of Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Not the 2004 remake with fast zombies, but the 1978 original in all its incredibly gory, non-CGI splatter.

I finally got there. I was in Monroeville last weekend for a wedding and there was no question: I had to visit the mall.

And you know what? It looks like every other mall. At first I was disappointed but then I realized that was precisely the film's brilliance. It should look like any mall! Because when the apocalypse happens, it's gonna be everywhere--in our back yards, schools, houses--and in our malls. There are already a lot of zombies at Hot Topic anyway--why not add a few flesh-eating ones?

I had heard there's a special store with zombie memorabilia at the Monroeville Mall. Unfortunately it wasn't clear from the directory where it was--there was no Zombie Nook listed--and we didn't have time to walk the whole mall in search of it. I believe I will regret that decision more than my decision not to have children.

I did find one zombie though, riding the escalator which, in my imagination, is the same exact escalator as in the film.


Oh wait, that's not a zombie. That's me!


PS If you want way more pics than these and actual comparisons with the film, check out this guy's blog post.

Arkansas Literary Fest? Yes!

This weekend is the Arkansas Literary Fest. When I saw this photo in the newspaper, I about milked my cow. And I don't even have a cow. Or drink milk. There's Kevin Brockmeier, David Sedaris, Charlaine Harris--and Mark and me! Meep!

If you're in the Little Rock area, come on out and say hi. I'll be reading Saturday night at the Publish or Perish event--it's at Big Whiskey's American Bar & Grill at 8. And then Sunday, I'm on a panel at 3 at the Ottenheimer Theatre, if I'm not too hungover. But wait, Mark's reading at the same time at the Historic Arkansas Museum! What to do! You could clone yourself. That's a start. Or split yourself in two.

Here's the full schedule of panels. If you can't make it to see Mark or me, support the literary arts in central Arkansas by going to one of the other events or panels. It's just plain old good family fun.

On Book Reviews and the Simpsons

As many of you know, my first novel came out last year. And that meant getting reviews, something I didn't think of when I was in the heights of ecstasy--before the book actually existed.

Mostly the reviews were fine. Some wonderful ones saying I was a genius! Some lukewarm ones, and some that were downright mean, almost personal attacks, which I found bizarre. Luckily I have a thick skin, thanks to my family, who could get vicious and loud. I recall my mother throwing a phone at my sister once--and this was way before cell phones. Bless our Jersey hearts.

Anyway, after the initial shock of the "bad" reviews wore off (and maybe a few whiskey cokes), I moved on. Mostly.

But there's one thing that has stuck in my craw these past few months, one point that some reviewers made that I feel compelled to clarify.

I love the Simpsons.

To explain: At one point in Brains, Jack, my main zombie, is discussing "rednecks." He says, "The only Homer they knew was Simpson. Their idea of an art film was The Shawshank Redemption and their wives collected Precious Moments figurines."

Many reviewers took this to mean that I, Robin Becker, was taking a swipe at the Simpsons.

I'm setting the record straight: Jack feels superior to that lovable yellow American family. In fact, Jack dislikes many things I hold near and dear. Jack even has opinions that I disagree with.

Why is this? Easy. I am not Jack.

Long live the Simpsons! Over twenty years and counting.

Why Writers Are Neurotic

I'm working on a novel and lately the writing's been going good. Not even good, great. I know where the book's headed and the characters feel real. Every day when I sit down to write, the words come pretty quickly and easily too.

And that worries me.

I'm typically a slow writer, and when I first started this book over the summer, it was torture. Words barely came, plot shifted, characters were unformed. I was sure I was the worst writer ever and the book sucked.

Now I'm paranoid that because I'm enjoying the book, because it's easy this week, then it can't be good! I'm not being critical enough and am just accepting what I'm doing without thought like a proud parent. I should be filled with self-doubt. I should be questioning and critiquing. I should be twisting my hair with my fingers in agony. This should be harder.

Or should it? Does anyone else feel this way when the writing's easy? Please tell me I'm not alone.

The Future of the American Family

I have seen the future and it's this adorable family.


Last night was Toad Suck's first annual zombie walk. It was a beautiful event. There was unity and peace. Everything I wrote about zombies in Brains is true. I thought I was making shit up, but I wasn't. The horde was calm, walking the streets in an orderly fashion. Admittedly we were slow and awkward, but the mood was gentle. I felt a kinship with my fellow zombies. I felt like I belonged.

Here is but one example of the tolerance of zombies:

Mark went as a Sleestak. At first I thought he would be ostracized, made fun of, cast out for being alive. Not so. The zombies loved him. In fact, so much that those with the ability took his photo. And that's the kind of tolerance America needs.

Zombies are dead. Long live zombies. I love my undead friends.

A Good Week for Zombies

It's been a great week for zombies.

First, I watched Otto, Or Up With Dead People, the radical Bruce LaBruce post-modern arty gay zombie movie, which was a blast. It had a film within a film structure and the interior movie was a hilarious and pretentious film about the oppression of gay zombies--shot in black and white with lots of cliched art school touches. The larger movie was about Otto himself. The viewer never learns if Otto is really a zombie or just crazy and/or suffering from an existential dilemma. Dead inside and so acting dead on the outside. This movie is not for everyone--there are some graphic sex scenes complete with gore--but I liked it.

Then I read from Brains at the Faulkner County Library dressed as a zombie! And people came dressed as zombies, which was shocking, thrilling, and exciting. There was a zombie haiku contest. Winners received books and bloody severed fingers. There's a review of it here.

Finally, I was interviewed by PBS at the end of the summer--and the episode will air October 27 at 6:30 and October 31 at 10:30 p.m. Just in time for Halloween!

And oh yeah, Halloween is almost here! I'm thinking about going as a 1970s victim of Jason, inspired by Friday the 13th Part II which I watched a part of the other day and was delighted by. Happy Weekend!

Faulkner County Library with Zombies

Pic is of me right after the Zombie Apocalypse. Things were crazy and blurry during that time.

I was secretly hoping that my last post would result in some free swag from Fluevog. Sigh. No such luck. I still love them shoes, though.

Anyway--this Thursday, Oct 21, at 7:00 I'm be reading from Brains at the Faulkner County Library. More importantly, I'll be dressed as a zombie. Be there or be eaten by a horde of zombies. Or by me. There will be a book giveaway--and Halloween candy too!

If you come as a zombie, you get a free book. However, zombie attire is not required for entrance. Here's a link to a fun article about it. Nom. Nom. Nom.

Shoe Pron

A couple of posts back I asked for shoe recommendations. A few people responded--and they all recommended Fluevogs! Which happened to be the shoes I wanted.

I was ready, primed. fluffed and pumped for those shoes. On the Saturday of my panel, I took the subway to Soho and found the store. It was small and stuffed with adorable funky shoes. To be fair, I already knew I was going to buy a pair before I even walked in. It was an easy sell because I was determined to come back to Toad Suck, Arkansas with a pair of expensive New York shoes, by gum!

After I brought the shoes home, things got crazy. We had a glass of wine and somehow the laces came undone! Oh Fluevogs, I love you.

Another Totally Obvious Thing I Learned

I was in New York over the weekend for Comic Con. The stereotypes are true; there really were tons of geeks in fantastic outfits.

This is a picture of my panel's standing room only crowd.

It's clear people love their zombies.

But that's not what I learned. I already knew zombies are the future. No, I learned something so basic I once again feel like a fool.

This is it: Writing is a business.

This came home to me when I had lunch with Janet Reid and her fabulous client, Sean Ferrell, and my editor at Eos. The talk was about deals and contracts and what's selling, what genres are hot and if they might be cooling. And then the next night at the panel I met a bunch of other writers and some very nice people from Wiley and again the talk was business, but this time over dinner and I had a mojito too.

I suppose I always knew it, somewhere in my reptilian brain, but I didn't really know it. This weekend the fact hit me like that moment you realize you're going to die, really going to cease to exist, and it makes your stomach ache, because the realization is so visceral and pure and unavoidable. Sometimes it keeps you up at night. The fear of not-existing, I mean. The terror of your own impending non-consciousness.

Of course, the realization that writing is a business wasn't nearly as shocking as the existential knowledge of death. But it was important nonetheless. I live far away from the publishing industry in Toad Suck, Arkansas, where the pace is slower and the okra is plentiful. Heck, I even live in a dry county! And as for writing, I toil away upstairs in my nook, alone, thinking only about the next word, not the business side of things. I have friends who are writers, but we mostly talk about the process of writing, or go into long (and sometimes boring but never when I do it!) discussions of our works in progress. Not marketing. Not money. Not business.

But there are people thinking about the business end. Smart people. Charming people who love books and want the world to have more of them. Oddly enough, I found this inspirational. Comforting. Liberating even. Because if writing's a business, then they need products to sell. That's where writers come in, even ones who live in central Arkansas. Or the Upper Peninsula. Or Baltimore. Or wherever.

The fact that writing is a business is a good thing. Without the commerce side, writing would be ephemeral, fleeting, maybe even pointless. And that would make my stomach hurt.

Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?

Next weekend I'll be headed to NYC for New York Comic Con. I couldn't be more stoked. I grew up in Hackensack, which is just 10 miles off the George Washington Bridge, but my parents retired and moved away from the east coast in 1990. I haven't been back since. It's hard to believe it's been 20 years and I'm curious about all the changes. I hear the city's cleaner. And safer. And I know for sure Times Square is more wholesome than it used to be. Does Danceteria still exist? Probably not.

But more than memory lane, I'm stoked about my panel at NYCC. It's called Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep and it's amazing. Besides me there will be Mac Montandon who wrote The Proper Care and Feeding of Zombies, Mira Grant, who wrote Feed, Alan Goldsher who wrote Paul Is Undead, and Richard Kadrey, author of Kill the Dead. Sake's alive! I've read those books in preparation--loved them. I can't wait to talk about zombies and writing with all of them. What's more I'll finally get to meet my fabulous agent Janet Reid, not to mention a few of her minions.

Another thing I'm excited about: I've given myself permission to buy one pair of fabulous shoes! Store recommendations more than welcome.

If you're at NYCC, check out the panel and come over and say hi after. I'll be the one wearing brand new shoes.

Why I Still Love Romero

I finally got a chance to see George Romero's sixth zombie movie, Survival of the Dead. I was scared to see it, because of all the negative reviews it's gotten. Let's face it: Fans were disappointed and savage in their criticism. People hated this film.

I didn't. Romero is as cynical and pessimistic about humans as ever. And that's an attitude I can get behind. We are the enemies in this movie--we kill each other more than the zombies do and with more malice. The zombies are almost an afterthought, actually. There's some gruesome gore, but it's played for laughs. The characters--even though some of them get bitten and eaten--never seem threatened by or afraid of the living dead, who are slow and stupid and, if you're alert, easy to dispose of. I liked that part of the movie. I'm firmly in the slow-moving zombie camp.

The plot revolves around two stubborn old men who live on Plum Island, which is off the coast of Delaware. Their families have been battling each other for generations and they have different ideas about how to keep themselves safe during the zombie apocalypse. What struck me as odd about that is the patriarchs both have thick Irish brogues. I could have bought it if everyone on the island spoke that way--sort of a linguistic anomaly like New Orleans' Irish Channel--but everyone else talks like an American. This implies that the old guys are recent immigrants. But they're not. Huh. Wha? I was confused.

A group of bad ass military types lands on the island and shakes the order up, all the while fighting zombies and, more importantly, each other. That's the plot in a nutshell.

Like all of Romero's movies, Survival is more about the humans than the zombies. There's almost-hope at the end for survival (get it?), but one of the mean old Irish patriarchs shoots the messenger in the head before she can deliver the good news (which I won't reveal). The moral? Humans suck; zombies eat us; maybe we deserve it.

Overall, this wasn't Romero's strongest offering. But it wasn't kitty litter either. Since he is such a God in zombiedom, the bar is ridiculously high for his work. I just read on ZombiePhiles, for example, that they "pooed themselves" when they heard about the movie. With that kind of expectation, you're pretty much screwed. I'm gonna cut the guy some slack. Why? Because I love him.

Zombies are dead. Long live zombies. I hope Romero makes a seventh film. I will never trash the master.

Formerly Hot: Sexist or Not?

I just ran across the Formally Hot website and found out about the book it engendered as well. Actually, I read about it in this Politics Daily post and went to the site from there.

Formerly Hot is written by Stephanie Dolgoff. She's 43--and, in her words, "no longer who [she'd] always been-a pretty girl who navigated the world partially aided by the advantage of her looks." In other words, she's getting older and doesn't like it.

Dolgoff's been getting a lot of heat for being shallow and furthering stereotypes about what's important for women: youth, beauty, silky hair, smooth skin.

I understand the criticism, but have to come out in defense of Dolgoff. And not just because I'm also 43. Denying that a woman can trade on her looks in our culture is naive. And denying that looks are important for most everyone in our culture--women and men--is idealistic. We live in an image-driven society. Sad, but true. Also, sad but true is that a woman's value continues to be partially (not entirely) dependent on the way she looks. That makes it hard for many women--myself included--to let go of the advantages our society gives to the young and pretty. That's a hard truth and I think that's what upsets people. It's not right, it's not fair, it's reductive and superficial. We all know that. But we all also know that women are more than their appearance. We see it every day in the women in our lives--the smart, talented, and creative women who are our friends, sisters, mothers, daughters, and teachers.

Furthermore, Dolgoff's site is humorous. No one would call her a feminist--but she's not trying to be one. She's trying to make us laugh at ourselves. In my book, she succeeded, especially when she wrote that you're formally hot if you've ever "even once pulled the skin of your face back and slightly up to see what you’d look like with a facelift."

Busted. Guilty as charged.

On the other hand, maybe I'm wrong. In fact, I could be a tool of the patriarchy, willingly complicit in my own subjugation, blindly adhering to the impossible standards imposed by middle-aged balding men!

I'll contemplate "the man" later. For now, I'm gonna go slather my face with over-priced anti-aging moisturizer.

This Post Isn't About that Mosque

It's about Puget Sound--and zombies!

Last week I left the triple digits of Arkansas for the coolness of the Pacific Northwest. It's an alien landscape up there, gray and foggy and teeming with supernatural sea life. Every day at low tide, we walked the beach and discovered an entirely new species (for us). Here are just two:


At first I thought this was a giant pile of stinking horse manure--but it's sea anemones and they were all over the beach. If you put your finger in the center of one, the creature grasps you gently, thinking you're food.


Gigantic oyster bed! Everyone ate oysters but me. I think they're gross. They taste like the bottom of the ocean, but I gather that's the appeal.


Another thing I did was read Mira Grant's Feed--almost! I'm not quite done yet. I learned a lot from that book. It's a novel set in the post-zombie apocalypse. Humans and zombies share the world. The book focuses on a group of bloggers (who drive the news) and their coverage of a presidential election as well as their continuing struggle against the Rising.

It's a very different book from Brains. And I like that. It came out around the same time, so I can't help but compare the two. Grant reaches a different audience than I do, however. Her book is entirely plot-driven--and it's a good exciting plot. Reading it has been liberating. I'm currently writing a book that is also plot-driven and that is aimed at a broad audience. I began my writing career as a poet and a poetic sensibility still influences my daily writing, but Feed has taught me to not worry so much about words words words and have fun! Not that Grant is a slouch of a writer--not at all. She's got it going on. But I see her devotion to story--and I see that it is good.

Brain and Janes Contest

Zombies, vampires, and vampire slayers. That's what I call a Saturday night! Head on over to Janet Reid's rocking blog and enter to win three, count 'em, three books.

In other news, I love everyone today. If you want to hit me up for something, now's the time.

Parenting: Why Breeders Rule

Some psychologists have revised Maslow's Pyramid of Needs--and it has stuck in my craw. Here's why.

The original pyramid had self-actualization at the top. You take care of your basic needs--shelter, food--then you get love and respect and self-actualize by doing what gives you joy: running, teaching, macrame, writing, baking bread, yoga.





But the revised pyramid puts parenting at the top! In fact, the top three are mate acquisition, mate retention, and then parenting.


I don't doubt that many people find self-actualization in parenting. The soul-crushing love, the willingness to put your life before another's. But not me. In fact, I made a choice to remain childless. My husband and I have been married eight years and we didn't reproduce. Not that I don't love children and my many friends with adorable sprouts--I do! I'm no child-eating witch.

But the new pyramid implies that one can't be truly happy without reproducing. And, for that matter, finding a mate. That seems reductive, breeder-centric, biologically based. And insulting.

I'm 43, so it's way too late for me to be truly happy, according to the new pyramid. Nevertheless I'm happy with the decision I made. I don't miss the children I didn't have.

Here's a suggestion: Let's revise the Pyramid again--and put banana cream pie at the top!

The little blurb that could

Just got this blurb--apparently it came in too late to make it onto the back cover of Brains. But I like this blurb; it needs to get its day. It can't languish somewhere in the ether. Every blurb should be aired! Here it is:

"Smart, original, funny and fascinating, BRAINS: A Zombie Memoir by Robin Becker sends the zombie genre shambling in a fresh, new direction. Go on, take a bite."
-Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of PATIENT ZERO and ROT & RUIN

Looks like the fabulous Janet Reid had the same idea! GMTA.

Deadgirl is sick!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Galley Grows Up

Some of you might remember my excitement when Galley arrived. We had a lot of fun together, Galley and me. Check it out here.

Yesterday, Galley grew up. Galley became Book. And while I was sad to see Galley leave the nest, I was also glad. Galley has wings; Galley will make Galley's own decisions. Galley will succeed on Galley's terms.

Farewell, my child. Godspeed.

Garfish, zombies and me

Those of you who know me or who've read this blog before know that my husband, Mark Spitzer, is a gar expert. Mark has fished on television with Jeremy Wade and his book, Season of the Gar, just came out.

I'm a good wife. Supportive, even enthusiastic about Mark's obsessions. That's how I find myself going to this next week: International Network for Lepisosteid Fish Research and Management

That's right. A gar conference deep in Louisiana. Mark is the keynote speaker. And I just can't decide if I'm going to attend the 6-hour gar aging workshop or the panel on Feed Rates for Juvenile Alligator Gar! I mean, what would you do? It's a tough call.

Brains comes out on Tuesday. It's my first book. And I'll be surrounded by scientists who love and write about gar fish. But they're zombies of a sort, aren't they? Maybe I can sell a few books. At the very least, I'll get some marriage points.

Win BRAINS!

The fabulous Reading with Tequila asked me to visit her blog this week--and so I did! Read about how to distinguish mindless from mindful zombies. It could save your life.

Comment with your favorite zombie movie or book and win a free, yes, that's right, free copy of Brains.

Toodles.