To make sure this won’t happen, May has been declared Zombie Awareness Month. Wear a gray ribbon.

And if you just can’t wait for the zombies to come to you, check out John Skipp’s Rose.

Snoop, though. You don’t see anyone making fun of his hair. And if they did — shit-talking is part of the genre — I don’t think it would seriously change the way he felt about himself.

Photo of Snoop Dogg via http://music-video-buzz.com/tag/snoop-dogg

I’ve done a bit of growing since the sixth grade. But I still have that same capacity to be awkward and uncomfortable, unwilling to relax into being different. I’ve always been introverted. I read a lot as a kid. Like, my mother would tell me that seven hours of reading in one day is enough, and it was time to go outside and play. The thing about reading is that it exposes you to more ways of being than you can glean from the hawkish way that you watch the popular kids. (One time in high school, two girls, I’ll call them K and L, ate a rotten orange from a trash can because they thought it might get them drunk.) There are all sorts of examples of how to live.

When I was 12, I didn’t have a good sense of who I was. What’s more, I had a rather nonexistent sense of it being OK to be whatever I was. That sense, call it self-confidence, doesn’t come from supportive parents, or understanding teachers, although I had both. Well, some of the teachers were understanding.

The thing about now is that I’m not 12 anymore. At 28, I still don’t have a good sense of who I am, but I’m starting to let go of that fear of being different. And if you’d told my 12-year-old self that I’d have bleached-blond dreadlocks, I’d have thought you were high. (Actually I probably wouldn’t have understood what “high” was, although I would have pretended I did.)

Snoop Dogg, for the record, is almost 40. Check out his video “Kush” for the hairstyle if nothing else.

“In Beamer’s first novel, the undead uprising finally comes to our own East Bay. When their house party in the Oakland Hills is interrupted by a couple of flesh-chomping zombies, Trader Joe’s co-workers Kate and Michael don’t really have the presence of mind to engage the threat effectively. “The Loving Dead” is funny, profane and more than a little bit squicky, a worthwhile and perceptive addition to a literary fad that won’t seem to lie down and stay dead.”

The reading starts about five minutes into the recording. SF in SF is a great venue, benefiting the Variety Children’s Charity of Northern California; next up, Claude Lalumière and Karen Joy Fowler, on October 16.

My guest post “Dead Sexy”, in which I answer the unholy question: Why do people want to fuck the dead?

A “name that zombie” photo caption contest for a goody bag filled with awesome. (My favorite so far: “This party is for Hugo nominees only!”)

A zombie art gallery including commentary about THE LOVING DEAD from cover artist Dave Palumbo: “The living girl in this painting spends most of the book fighting not only with zombies, but also with strong sexual feelings and questions. I wanted to show a moment which kind of walked halfway between: a struggle with a zombie where it could either lean towards a bite or a kiss.”

An excerpt from THE ZOMBIES OF LAKE WOEBEGOTTEN by Harrison Geillor.

Reception starts at 7:00 PM, talky-talking at 8:00 PM. Find us at The Variety Preview Room,  582 Market St. @ Montgomery, 1st floor of The Hobart Bldg.

I’ll also be at  Litcrawl on Saturday October 9, 7:15 PM, along with Gail Carriger and S.G. Browne, at Borderlands Books in San Francisco.

From the Litquake website:

Borderlands Books Presents Zombies and Zeppelins
Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia St.

S.G. Browne has zombies, Gail Carriger has zeppelins, and Amelia Beamer’s first novel has both. Join us!

Amelia Beamer’s first novel, The Loving Dead, with zombies and a zeppelin, has been praised by the likes of Christopher Moore and Peter Straub.

S.G. Browne is author of the dark zombie comedy Breathers and the upcoming supernatural dark comedy Fated. He lives in San Francisco.

Gail Carriger, New York Times bestselling author, writes steampunk paranormal comedies of manners. She traversed European cities subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag.

R to L: Gary K. Wolfe, Carol Penn-Romine, Andy Romine, Christopher East, Amelia Beamer, Steven Klotz, Erin Klotz (photo by Jenn Reese)

I hadn’t done an event at Dark Delicacies before, and I really like the format. Instead of just reading (I like reading, but I know how this story goes) or just speaking, a bunch of us pulled up chairs and chatted about random stuff — zombies, Clarion, Locus — and had a really nice time.

(This is one of those reviews where you know the reviewer got what you were trying to do.)

Beamer’s version of zombiehood is still about eating brains—and just about any other portion of the human anatomy—but she foregrounds what has, until now, mostly been the erotic subtext of the genre.  This disease seems to make people hornier—it’s one of the recognizable symptoms, as the book goes on—yet in truth, the expressive displays of sexuality and lustful hunger triggered by the disease are not too far beyond what is already common in Mike and Kate’s world of casual hookups and voyeuristic teasing, where irony is a shield against experience, not the hard-earned result of it.  Beamer’s zombies hunger for us—and we lust for them.  It’s the perfect symbiotic relationship…

Throughout, Beamer’s writing is sharp, funny, sexy, and appropriately gory.  A whole lot of somethings happen . . . and fast.  The main action takes place over the span of perhaps a full day.  But it’s in an epilogue set ten years later that Beamer brings a less frantic and more reflective tone to her novel, taking the outrageous deadpan comedy of the book into a more somber and human—or is that post-human?—place.

“THE LOVING DEAD is funny, profane and more than a little bit squicky, a worthwhile and perceptive addition to a pop culture fad that won’t seem to lie down and stay dead.” — Michael Berry, San Francisco Chronicle

“In postulating zombiedom as a sexually transmitted disease – with a slow burn of compulsive and irrational horniness that’s not easy to distinguish from the regular kind, until it’s too late – Beamer has deliciously tweaked the zombie mythos just when it needed it most: at the height of its ubiquitous popularity. In the process, she has sliced through the great and horrible corpse-banging taboo with penetrating wit and astonishing verve, taking us intimately inside this weirdly emotional experience as no author before her. Horror writers, take note…. And for those literati who sorely doubt that any good can come from dancing with the tropes of genre fiction, prepare to have your transcendence gland fondled by Amelia Beamer’s dangerously knowing hands.” John Skipp, Horror Drive-In

“In Beamer’s world, Eros and Thanatos are a lot more than just Facebook buddies. And that raises some difficult relationship issues.” Elizabeth Hand, The Washington Post

“This story is one of the best ‘Patient Zero’ – damn close to it – tales since NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Before you get your panties in a bunch, I’m not saying Ms. Beamer has unseated Romero…. I urge even the staunchest traditionalist (of which I tend to lean towards) to pick up this book.” — T.W. Brown, Buyzombie.com

“From start to finish, this novel is a true page-turner.” — Fangoria