Robin Becker: Zombies and Brains

Robin Becker is not your typical college professor. Don't believe us? Check out her band, the Conway Twitties . Or her website. Or her upcoming novel, Brains: A Zombie Memoir, due to be released May 25 by HarperCollins. Brains is about a former college professor turned zombie who has retained sentience and plans to bring peace between the living and the living dead. To find out a little more about Robin's book, band, and background, we met up with her for a Q and A.  

Q: Is Brains at all autobiographical?
A: Well, I am not a zombie. But Jack Barnes, my main character, as a human, was a college professor so he's kind of… pretentious. I thought the tension caused by a character being at once a brain-dead zombie and a pretentious intellectual would be a source of humor, and it does help to make this a comic novel. So it's autobiographical in the sense that I'm familiar with the culture of academia, but my main character is a man and he's a zombie and I am neither of those things. [laughs]  

Q: Have you started writing any new projects?
A: Yes, I've started a second novel. It's also supernatural. It's about a woman who has the power to kill people by just thinking about it. So she becomes an assassin. It turns out that there is a person that she can't kill telepathically, and so the character faces a moral dilemma about whether or not to kill the person physically.  

Q: Do you have any tips for aspiring novelists?
A: If you're wanting to write a novel, I think the main thing is to get your butt in front of your computer everyday. Even if you don't get any writing done, at least just sit, even if it's only for 30 minutes, and think about it.  

Q: What's your favorite music to listen to?
A: Right now, I'm really into Loretta Lynn because she just came here to UCA, and she is just the queen of country music. But I like a lot of old school punk rock too. I love the Misfits and their horror theme, especially.  

Q: What's your favorite music to play?
A: I like to play punk rock because I'm really a writer first and I play guitar as a hobby. Really, you don't have to be that good to play punk rock. I'm not trying to say anything bad about punk musicians, I'm just saying that there's room for sloppiness in the genre.  

Author Robin Becker

Q: What kinds of things do you like to do in your free time?
A: Besides writing and playing guitar, I like to fish with my husband, bake bread, hike, bird watch and spend time with my friends.  

Q: Where did you go to college and what did you study?
A: I went to UT at Austin undergraduate and got a degree in English. Then I got my MFA in Creative Writing at LSU in Baton Rouge.  

Q: Besides writing and teaching at UCA, what is the best job you've ever had?
A: When I lived in Austin, a fun job I had was as a donut girl at Ken's donut shop. I got to put the jelly into the jelly donuts. My shift was from 3 A.M. to 11 A.M. It really changed my perception of time.  

Q: Assuming the zombie apocalypse has not yet occurred, where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A: [laughs] Hopefully, still working at UCA and, hopefully, working on my third or fourth novel.  

You can friend Robin on Facebook here, follow her on Twitter here, and read her blog here. Brains is available for pre-order here.

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