Author Bryce Summers discusses his book, The Zombie Squad.

The Zombie Squad is an intriguing blend of adventure, horror, and humor. What was the balance for you when writing the story?

This may sound quite silly, but my mind kept returning to Scooby-Doo episodes where Shaggy and the gang were inside the Mystery van traveling to place and would uncover some sinister plot. I was not writing a children’s book though, and I wanted something that was teen oriented and put a toe over now and then into the adult world, barely. Any time people are stressed because the world is falling around them, this is going to cause an eruption of dynamics between characters, and here is the opportunity in the writing to get a chuckle.

Sam and his friends are well defined characters. Did you pull from any personal experiences to write these characters?

When I was in my 20s I worked with teenagers and pre-teens, but that was awhile ago, and I unfortunately had no teens to watch when writing this book. The teen characters did end up being a blend of the youths I remember working with, a recollection of my own teenage years, and Sam was partially modeled from characters on the TV show GLEE. I had no idea what slang teens used these day and during my research I found I was a bit clueless coming across words like tope, turn up, cray cray; but I did know about hashtag being used in dialogue for sarcasm, or throwing shade, which I love. Apparently, gangsta is still in, and that’s from my era. My one regret was not using “Bye Felicia” anywhere in the story.

The kids come into possession of a Zombi Astral; a portal key to unlocking a demon world. Where did you get this idea and how did it develop into a story?

Just a preface, I am not an expert on Haitian culture, or Vodou (not Voodoo which is rooted in America). But in my research the Zombi Astral comes from Haitian Vodou. There’s an individual in Haitian Vodou who is a sorcerer, or known as the Bokor, who revives a corpse so it’s animated and captures the soul of the dead person in jar called the Zombi Astral. I took liberties and decided to redefine the Zombi Astral and made it a talisman that acted as a key that opened a portal to a demon world (spoiler, sorry). Anyway, that sounded much more fun than keeping a lonely soul inside a jar.

What genre do you think best fits The Zombie Squad and what draws you to this genre?

I am told that YA is not a genre but refers to age group, so I won’t say that. I will say it’s a Post-Apocalyptic Supernatural Thriller for teens.

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