Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Alison Kemper | Your Handy Guide to Zombies
Author Guest / October 8, 2014

October is here! It’s time for scary movies, spooky books, and creepy TV shows. And with the recent success of AMC’s The Walking Dead and SyFy’s new series, Z Nation, more and more people are giving a zombie entertainment a try. For the newcomer, the world of the undead can be confusing. Are they fast? Are they slow? Are they all after one thing: braaaaains? Here’s a quick guide to some of the more common zombie types you might encounter this October. Classic Zombies Classic zombies are brain dead, semi-lethargic cannibals. These corpse creatures populate George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, and today’s mega-popular series, The Walking Dead. Remember: classic zombies are especially dangerous in large hordes. Fast Zombies Over the last decade, zombies stopped shambling and started running. And to be honest, zombies are a heck of a lot scarier when they can haul tail. If you’re ready to check out some terrifyingly fast zombies, try 28 Days Later or World War Z (the movie, not the book—the zombies in Max Brooks’ awesome novel are of the classic variety). Romantic Zombies We knew it would happen. We had a rash of devastatingly sexy vampires (Hello, Edward…

Alison Kemper | So what if you’re an adult? It’s okay to read YA novels!
Author Guest / March 6, 2014

Several weeks back, my best friend sent me a picture of this fantastic bookstore sign: “It’s OK. You have our permission. These books are from our Young Adult Section. But it’s OK to read them even if you are no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, young. In fact, you’ll find they often have provocative themes and complex characters that are the equal of most of the books you’ll find on the ‘adult’ fiction shelves these days. So don’t sheepishly tell us it’s for your kids. We’ve read them, and you can too.” The sign-maker hit the nail on the head. In today’s fiction market, more and more adults are buying (and enjoying) Young Adult novels. According to Publishers Weekly, in 2013, “84% of YA books were purchased by consumers 18 or older” and a full 80% of these adults reported that they weren’t purchasing a gift, but “bought the book for themselves.” And yet there’s still that small percentage of readers asking, “Why in the heck would I ever want to read a book about teenagers?” Here are the answers I usually give: many popular movies are based on YA novels many bestsellers come from this genre YA…