Darlings of Decay: Kristen Middleton

I was recently invited to participate in an anthology of female authors who write zombie related material. A lot of great ladies are involved, thirty two in all, and the end product is just amazing. It is free from several places and only .99 cents on Amazon. Again, in case you missed it the first time, here is the skinny on it:


With over 325,000 words and featuring some of Amazon's Best Selling Female Authors of Horror, this is certainly not your typical anthology book!

Sit back as your favorite authors of zombie lit take you on a wild, horrifying ride that will leave you breathless. Come and meet the women who love to entertain you with their own unique versions of the zombie apocalypse.







 

I have been lucky enough to chat with a few of these lovely ladies, and now I bring you our next guest, the amazing Kristen Middleton. 
 

1) What got you interested in writing about zombies?
I had always wanted to write a book and started several times over the years, but never finished the first chapter of anything. Then, two years ago, the zombie craze hit my house. I was running a daycare and all of the kids I watched were running around the yard, playing zombie-tag, Instead of drawing pictures of rainbows and flowers, they were drawing zombies. Then, my husband and daughters got me addicted to the game Plants-vs-Zombies. Finally,  I watched the movie Zombieland, and really loved it.  Eventually, I decided to write a YA book about zombies and thought it would be fun to put my kids as the main characters (only older to make them teens). It was just going to be for fun and I wanted to surprise everyone in my family by giving them copies as gifts. Of course, I wrote the first chapter and kept revising it for four months because I was being so nit-picky. When I noticed that I wasn't getting anywhere but still really wanted a book finished by the following Christmas, I decided to try a different approach- write the book and then go back and fix it when I was all done. Two months later, I had the entire first book of Zombie Games. 

2) Do you think books by women tend to carry distinctly feminine covers, regardless of the subject matter, or do you think the industry treats woman the same as male authors?


Oddly enough, my first book cover for Zombie Games had a young woman clad in skimpy clothing carrying a big rifle. She looked like Angelina Jolie from Tomb Raider. It wasn't really feminine, but I wanted it to show a girl kicking ass and taking numbers. I did change it eventually to something more feminine after getting several comments from female readers that my cover looked too hokey and cheap. It worked, however, and I definitely increased my reader base.

As far as the industry treating women differently, I'm sure they do. I am still new to this industry, myself, but I've noticed that many of the top ten featured authors in Horror on Amazon are male zombie writers. You don't see very many women getting to the top of that list..

3) Tell us a bit about your story in darlings of decay.


It is a short story about one of my favorite characters named Henry. He's a crass, comical old cowboy who escaped the nursing home when the zombies first appeared. He's also in my second Zombie Games book, Running Wild.
  
4) If you HAD to choose, which would you rather do: eat the entire F section of an encyclopedia, or lick a bus station bathroom floor from corner to corner?


Eat the entire F section. No question.

5) What is your greatest fear?


My laptop getting a virus and going zombie on me.
*****





Kristen lives in Minnesota with her husband, Dave, and two daughters, Cassie and Allie. She spends her days chasing kids, drinking iced-coffee, and obsessing over completing her current book or starting the next one. Besides spending time with her family, she enjoys reading, movies, traveling, cooking, and watching 'The Walking Dead' and 'Shameless' on Sunday Nights. She also LOVES getting emails from her readers, so (unless you're craving brains or blood) don't be afraid to send her a message at: kristenmiddletonauthor@yahoo.com.