Zombie Girl Shambling: Evil Girlfriend Media: An Interview with Bite

1. How did you get involved in publishing? I self-published a short story collection, "He Left Her at the Altar, She Left Him to the Zombies". The growing pains of that experience started me on a journey to help other writers who wanted to consider the path. A member of my writing group decided she wanted to self-publish and after talking to her about my experience we agreed to use my LLC- Evil Girlfriend Media to publish it. What started as a small endeavor to help her out has become a real publishing company. I realized that I only wanted to put out great work under the name and help writers, artist, and editors work for something they could believe in. I've been blessed to find talented editors for our anthologies, an amazingly guiding entertainment law firm to help us with contracts, and I have great friends who already work in the business giving advice that has helped keep me on track.

2. What was the inspiration for the name Evil Girlfriend? It's the nickname my husband gave me over seven years ago when I drew a very evil cartoon. I was being bullied in nursing school. (I should make this clear though, it was not a fellow nursing student or one of my professors. I'd hate to tarnish their name. They are good people.) I'm from the south, women are always taught to smile, be nice, and polite even when you want to physically hurt someone for torturing you. After that day, I started being sarcastic around him and letting him see a side of me that I've always hid from the world. The side that is a little dark. He's the person who encouraged me to start writing again and pushed me to be authentic even if it's not always pretty, sweet, and cute. So, Evil Girlfriend Media is not always pretty, sweet, nor cute. We are writers who have deep dark twisted places that need to come out and scare the crap out of other people. Of course, we want to entertain them as well.

3. Cheeseburger or sushi? Oh, definitely sushi with gluten free tamari. A big slab of tuna with wasabi all over it. YUMMY.

4. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? I'm a huge fan of coconut milk ice cream, vanilla bean flavored. I'm one of those people that food hates me.

5. What sorts of anthologies are you thinking about going forward? Oh my goodness, so many ideas... Well, if it isn't apparent, I love alliteration, assonance, consonance, and dissonance. The Three Little Words anthology series will continue and we plan to put out calls for certain themed manuscripts to give guidance on what we are looking for in a story.

6. Tell us about some things that really make you love a story... The minute that I open the book or start the story, I'm in it. The world is open to me. I'm sitting beside the character watching the events unfold or I am in their head looking out at their world.

7. What are some pet peeves that you wish you didn't see in a submission? I don't give a damn about the color of the wallpaper unless you are telling me that blood just splattered all over it when the zombie ripped the person's face off. I know some people love that stuff, but give me good compelling characters, a solidly structured world, pull me in and I'll create the rest. With that said, we will consider super detail oriented people because I'm weird and I know this. There are readers that love to know what each strand of hair looks likes on the top of the heroines head so as a publisher I need to recognize that other people need that.

8. What are some tips for writers to get them thinking in the right direction? Be yourself. Be honest to who you are as a person and writer. Your authentic voice is what will set you apart. The people who read, "He Left Her at the Altar, She Left Him to the Zombies" (people not related nor affiliated with me aka my friends), told me that they forgave every single grammatical error and formatting problem because the voice of the characters really blew them away. So, remember that. Of course, I've pulled the book and am fixing all the grammatical errors and formatting problems, but hearing that from complete strangers made me realize I had to continue to write in a way that was uniquely mine.

9. Chocolate or angel food cake? Chocolate but it has to be gluten-free other than that. I'm happy.

10. What are some of your favorite books? This question always gets me because there are so many! I'm going to give you a list that has influenced me and then your readers can see where I'm coming from. I'm an old school sci-fi reader and been loving post apocalyptic dystopian since a very tender age. Mom didn't know what censoring meant and it was a good thing! I will give you a couple childhood favorites then go from there: 2nd grade- Madeline L'Engle, "A Wrinkle in Time", 4th grade- Nevil Shute, "On the Beach", Aldous Huxley, "A Brave New World"....various Babysitter Club books to fill the time (uh yeah, Scholastic book flyer to blame). 5th grade, George Orwell, "1984", 7th grade, Ray Bradbury, "Fahrenheit 451", 9th grade, Stephen King's, "The Stand". 10th grade Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale". Got picked on for being a nerd, only read what was instructed by teacher for a couple of years. Started reading for fun again and found Max Brooks, Timothy Long, Octavia Butler (where was she all my life?), and now I read a book every two weeks for enjoyment plus all the submissions for Evil Girlfriend.