Carla Girtman brings a twist to zombie domestic bliss with "Brain Food."
Carla lives in Central Florida with her family and two cats. When she isn't working undercover at an international airport or teaching online, she manages to write speculative flash fiction and poetry. She has successfully participated in National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) for three years. Her work has been published in Clockwise Cat, Flashshots, Demonic Tome, Flashes in the Dark and a poem will appear in the soon to be released anthology Poems of the Dead. Carla is currently working on "Wordscapes" a collection of her published and unpublished work. (Her cats claim they write better than she does and want their work included.) She hopes to have her website up and running by the end of the year.
Why did you write this story?
This story started off as a prompt from the Speculative Flash Fiction writing group. Then my friend Linda (also published in this anthology!) sent me the call for submissions for Zombie fiction and well, the Zombie muse said "Hey, you got one. Submit that one!" Of course there's nothing like waiting until the night submissions close. I am frantically editing using the critiques I got from the group and trying to meet deadline that is just seconds away. The Zombie muse breathing down my neck, "It's fine! Just submit the d*** story!!!" Less than fifteen minutes later, my story was accepted!
What was your favorite part of writing the story?
Crafting words into a well written story is always my favorite part of any story. When I do write zombie fiction, I try to put a different spin on the zombie world besides the "must eat brains" mentality.
Do you like zombie tales? Why or why not?
I don't go out of my way to read zombie fiction, but I will give it a fair shot once in a while. Piers Anthony wrote an interesting novel involving the Zombie King trying to find a wife that was pretty good. A lot of the zombie fiction I've read seems to dwell too much on the violent aspect of the Zombie world. I'm more into Greg Bear, Joan Vinge, or Robert Jordan's fiction. My all time favorite book is Kiln People by David Brin.
What else do you write?
I am the editor for my church's bi-monthly newsletter as well as being an online instructor for contemporary communication. Grading papers has taken away more of my writing time than I had ever expected. But when I find time to write, I focus on short speculative fiction every chance I get with the great prompts from our writing group's moderator, Michael Kechula. He and the group have spearheaded my confidence as a speculative fiction writer. As a direct result of their help and feedback, my list of publications continues to grow!
1 comment:
Another fun interview. I also got started with flash thanks to Mike. It's such a fun form to write in and challenging for one who favors novel-length writing.
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