Interview with Tony Monchinski

I have had the pleasure to conduct an interview with Tony Monchinski.
The author of such books as: The Eden series, I Kill Monsters series
(Fury), The politics of education, and Critical pedagogy and the
everyday classroom.

Red: What books/movies inspired you to make your own literary
contribution to the zombie genre?

Tony Monchinski: There weren’t as many zombie-themed books as there
were zombie-themed movies that encouraged me to sit down and write
Eden. The Romero films really had an impact on me, especially Dawn of
the Dead which I saw when I was a little kid. I don’t think I’ve since
ever had such a visceral experience with a film as that initial
exploding-watermelon-headshot in Dawn. I must have been eight or maybe
ten and somehow I saw Dawn of the Dead and I saw that and I was just
speechless and generally troubled.

When I decided to write Eden, I was actually unaware of many of the
zombie-themed books available so I decided maybe I could write a
zombie-themed novel and try to market it. I knew it was time to write
a book and get it published and I thought something in the horror
genre might stand a chance. Too bad I didn’t write The Passage! (I’m
alluding to Cronin’s financial success, not the merits of the book
itself).

Red: What are your favorite zombie novels?

Tony Monchinski: I believe I was reading World War Z (one of my
favorites in the genre) at the same time I wrote Eden, so WWZ wasn’t
an inspiration although I really admire what Brooks did because I am a
big fan of Studs Terkel and his oral histories and that is the model
Brooks borrowed. I read Brian Keene’s The Rising and said, I think I
can write a book like this! So perhaps the direct inspiration for Eden
was Keene’s book and my swollen head thinking I could write something
better than that (no disrespect to Keene intended).

The books that really effected how I wrote Eden are not zombie or
horror books. The action-adventure books that I read throughout
middle- and high-school were what I was really trying to go for with
Eden. These were series of books like Jack Hilds’ S.O.B.s (Soldiers of
Barrabas), Jerry Ahern’s The Survivalist and Track series, Gregory St.
Germaine’s Resistance, and Don Pendleton’s The Executioner: Mack Bolan
and several other series that came out under the Golden Eagle
imprimatur. I spent a year or two reading everything Cormac McCarthy
had written up to that time before I wrote Eden and his The Road
definitely had an effect on me and how I wrote Eden. And let’s not
forget that Eden is dedicated to Kilgore Trout, Kurt Vonnegut’s
fictional sci-fi writer; Vonnegut was and is one of my favorites!

Red: As a special ed and Social studies teacher as well as a horror
writer, how does the atmosphere in the classroom change with students
being aware that you are a horror writer?

Tony Monchinski: The kids who know what I do (writing) think its cool.
A lot of the kids I work with day to day aren’t “readers” and don’t
read any books, much less my own. That said, there are students in the
school who know what I do and think its cool. I also thought it was
pretty cool when a group of four students–kids I knew from an
afterschool club I advised and not my classroom–came to my PhD
dissertation defense. They sat there and listened to me defend my
dissertation in Political Science and asked intelligent questions of
myself and my dissertation committee during the defense (dissertation
defenses are open to the public).

Red: I have heard a lot of good comments about the characters in the
Eden series, what was the inspiration for some of the main characters
of the story? (People like Markowski, Buddy, Harris, Bear etc…)

Tony Monchinski: Buddy drew his name and his name only from my dad’s
friend, William ‘Buddy” Henry, a firefighter who died at the World
Trade Center on 9-11. Harris drew his name (and his name only) from
Sam Harris, the ‘militant atheist’ writer. I wanted Harris to be a
sort of everyman, a decent guy, and I didn’t see how sticking him with
an outlandish name would convey that. Harris seemed pretty pedestrian
without being as sanitized as, say, Smith, or Jones. A character like
Mickey is kind of a composite of me and several of my
movie-comics-geek friends. Bear was partially inspired–his brute
strength, size, and Christian fundamentalism (in Eden)–by a
powerlifter named John Bernor who is a great guy and does a lot of
great stuff for kids when he is not lifting half a ton and testifying
for his god. Markowski is, again, a composite of obnoxious, racist
people I have had the displeasure of knowing.

It is important to me that people like my characters. I like my
characters! I want them to be believable (within reason; we’re talking
horror here after all) and I will sacrifice a character when I need to
for the greater good of the story, much like the Stringer Bell
character was killed in season three of The Wire (which is one of my
favorite shows; Crusade, incidentally, is dedicated to a character
from that show, Omar).

Red: I have heard a lot from other readers about the structure of the
Eden Series, why did you chose to structure the chapters of the story
this way?

Tony Monchinski: There are a few reasons I chose the chapter or scene
structure I did in Eden. For one, I am a HUGE Quentin Tarantino fan
and he introduced a very successful time jump in Pulp Fiction. But
when I was writing Eden it just seemed the right way to tell the
story. It allowed me to present Harris’ last present moments
interspersed with how he got there. I also wanted to convey how
chaotic it would be to one’s world if a zombie outbreak happened.
Readers will note that there are significantly fewer time jumps in the
sequel, Crusade. That’s in part, because it seemed the right way to
tell the story, but also because you have a situation which, in ways,
isn’t as chaotic, as humans impose order on their world and time. The
third book, Resurrection, which is supposed to come out at the end of
June, contains no time jumps and is a straightforward linear story.

Red: What are your future writing projects?

Tony Monchinski: As far as future writing projects…I just had
another nonfiction, educational-themed book come out. It’s called
“Engaged Pedagogy, Enraged Pedagogy: Reconciling Politics, Emotion,
Religion and Science for Critical Pedagogy” (Sense Publishers). Eden 3
will be out June 30th. I have three novels I want to write in 2011. I
am writing Dervish now. Its about a group of disgraced soldiers sent
on a crazy mission. They think they’re redeeming themselves but
they’re actually test subjects in an advanced weapons system that
features multiple universes, time travel, and armies of the past,
present and future. I don’t have a publisher for Dervish yet but I
will look for one. After Dervish, I will turn to the second book in my
I Kill Monsters series, The Revenants, which I expect to self-publish
unless I am working with an agent who can help me place it; and after
that I will turn to Eden 4. See, when I was writing Eden 3 it came in
way over the word limit and I wasn’t satisfied where it ended. So,
instead of cutting it short, I ended Eden 3 in a spot that could be an
ending and spoke to Permuted about a fourth book, which they are
interested in and supportive of.

Red: The classifications for what makes a zombie what it is has
changed over the years, and has been disputed for quite some time.
What is your opinion on the matter? what would you classify as a zombie?

Tony Monchinski: For me and what I write, zombies-adhere to the rules
basically laid down by Romero. He called them ghouls in the original
Night of the Living Dead and some of them moved pretty fast (check out
the two little kids who bum rush Ken Foree at the helicopter pad in
Dawn of the Dead). So, stumble around or even run around, driven by an
insatiable craving for flesh that has nothing to do with appetite, and
only severe damage to the brain can bring them down. I know the idea
of the zombie goes back to the Caribbean and the mindless servant
which had nothing to do with eating flesh. Its funny, as we’re doing
this interview I’m catching up on my Kolchak: The Night Stalker, a
show I loved as a kid. The second episode is titled “The Zombie” and
features a Haitian zombie.

Something I didn’t like about Keene’s The Rising were the zombies
channeling two-thousand year old spirits, the zombies wielding
weapons, and the zombie animals. I mean, the zombie deer turning the
tables on hunters–come on! That said, I very much like the idea of
Nazi zombies (props to Dead Snow and Shock Waves!) and will include
them down the road in an installment of I Kill Monsters. One thing
that drives me a little crazy about the genre, whether film or
literature, is how no one seems to know what zombies are when they
start to appear and eat you. In my books the characters are familiar
with zombies and just can’t believe this crap is happening; the way
we’re all familiar with the idea of a meteor or something impacting
the earth and then we see it coming and we’re like ho-lee-cow!

Red: What advice do you have for aspiring horror authors?

Tony Monchinski: As far as advice for aspiring horror authors…Read a
lot and read widely, inside and outside of the genre. My favorite
writers, who have taught me how to write, include Vonnegut, George
Pelecanos, Elmore Leonard, Andrew Vachss, Russell Banks, Sherman
Alexie, and Larry Brown–notice: not one horror writer. Don’t get
discouraged if you finish a project and cannot place it. The writing
game is not a meritocracy. I originally self-published Eden and I am
self-publishing the I Kill Monsters series. I’d say don’t expect to
make a million bucks; I’m still working my day job, which I am
fortunate enough to love and which is fortunate enough to grant me
time to write. I’d say further, don’t expect to make a living as a
writer. I’m sorry to say this but I feel I have to. I publish every
month–books, in magazines, etc.–and I would not be able to make a
living at it if my family depended on the income from my writing. As
with any art form, we do it primarily because we love it!

I’d also advise aspiring writers to keep a notebook with them so they
can jot things down. Writing “comes to you” at strange times and
places, and if you’re anything like me you won’t remember it later and
you’ll kick yourself in the ass if you don’t get it down on paper as
soon as you can. I’m not talking about writing a whole book when it
strikes you; I’m talking about a snippet of conversation, a name, an
idea for a scene or plot element, that kind of thing. I keep a
microcasette recorder in my car so I can dictate while I am driving
because I often have thoughts on my way to and from work and I can’t
write them down.

Red: What weapon would you use to survive the zombie apocalypse, if it
were ever to happen?

Tony Monchinski: If the zombie apocalypse came, what weapon would I
choose? I live in New York (45 minutes outside of the city) where it
is very difficult to get and own a legal handgun. However, I used to
live in North Carolina where I was able to own, carry, and shoot
watermelons and 2-liter soda bottles. If we’re talking handguns, I
prefer revolvers. No jams, great stopping power–though in the case of
zombies, I guess we’re talking headshots and nothing else. I’d go with
a Colt Python .357 but I’d keep lots of .38s around to fill the
cylinder because that’s all you’d need.

Red: Who are 5 people, besides friends and family, that you would want
to be stuck with during the zombie apocalypse?

Tony Monchinski: Who would I like to be stuck with during the zombie
apocalypse…hmmm…several people come to mind.

My buddy Brent Rader knows a lot about guns and cars and falcons and
other s*** that would prove useful. He’s a man’s man. Ditto an
individual named Chris Hill, me and Brent’s buddy and my (fictional)
“Non-Fiction” tag-team partner (we once had dreams of WWF
intercontinental glory!). Chris is an off the chain motherf—cer;
we’d have to keep him from biting the zombies!

The MIT-linguist Noam Chomsky is a long-time hero of mine. He’s an old
man now and we’d probably have to protect him, but the dude is so
on-point I’d want him around just for his general wisdom, insight and
intelligence. The rapper Lil’ Wayne is a survivor and a bad-ass little
mother who knows a thing or two about handgun laws in New York City,
so I’d want him around; plus he could drop some rhymes when we were
sitting around bored.

If we can cross the line between fact and fiction I’d want Sgt.
Abraham Ford from Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead along with me.
Ford’s got true grit (I would have said Kirkman’s Tyreese, but anyone
who read the Made to Suffer storyline [trade paperback vol. 8] knows
why I can’t). And if, goodness forbid, I find myself in the apocalypse
without my dear wife at my side, I suppose the actress Moon Bloodgood
would do in a pinch insofar as our repopulating the earth goes.
Sometimes a man has to put the needs of the species ahead of himself…

Red: What character from the Eden series would you want by your side
during the zombie Apocalypse? (alive, dead or undead)

Tony Monchinski: I’d want Bear next to me. He is a zombie-killing
machine. There were a few people who asked why I made the opening
battle in Crusade as long as I did and part of the reason I did it is
I wanted to show (1) what humans are up against and (2) how insane
Bear is that he will face those odds and never give up.

Red: What is your favorite zombie movie, either than the ‘Of the dead’
movies? and what’s your favorite zombie killing scene ever?

Tony Monchinski: Aside from the Romero films, maybe my favorite zombie
film is the Dawn of the Dead remake by Zach Snyder. He paid homage to
the Romero film while making it his own in a re-envisioning. There are
so many though that picking one is tough! Maybe my favorite zombie
killing scene is Tyreese with a hatchet in the prison gym in The
Walking Dead (sounds like we’re playing Clue).

Red: Thank you Tony for taking the time to do this interview, and for
providing insight to fellow zombie aficionados, it has been a pleasure
and I look forward to reading/reviewing more of your novels in the
future.

Tony Monchinski: Thanks Red. My pleasure!

Interviewing Tony Monchinski was a fun experience and very insightful.
Avid fans of the zombie genre should read his excellent Eden series.
(And to eagerly await the next installments). If you’re a fan of old
school vampire horror than read his ‘I kill Monsters: Fury’. He is a
horror writer with a lot of talent and is a vivid storyteller.

You can find Tony’s work on Amazon.