The Story Behind This Book
How the Undead Saved Christmas
When I first thought about doing this anthology I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I knew that I wanted my first book to mean something, but at the time I didn’t know what. I remember I was sitting at my work desk when it hit me; I wanted to put together a charity anthology. Now the only problem was choosing a charity.
Have you ever asked someone the question, what would you do if you won the lottery? Well, my wife, Mandy, and I asked each other that one day. The first thing that came out of our mouths was to start a foundation to help children in need. There are many children in the United States who need love, care and attention. If we had millions of dollars that would be the first thing we’d do with the money.
For some reason, when I thought about compiling an anthology, our little lottery conservation flew into my head. Then the charity came to me, I wanted to help foster children. I’ve never been a foster child myself; but in school a lot of my friends lived in foster homes. Now the next dilemma came up, what foster agency will I help?
In December of 2009 I was, again, at my desk at work when an e-mail caught my attention. The letter was asking for toy donations for foster kids at Hugs Foster Family Agency. The e-mail came with an attachment that was a Christmas wish list. I looked over the document and there were over one-hundred children on that wish list. I knew I wanted to help those children that year. So I did, I donated.
I was already familiar with Hugs so it was only fitting that I choose them as the charity. Now I needed a theme, this was easy. Everyone who is familiar with my writing will know that I love zombies. I run a website that is dedicated to zombie books and the authors. So a zombie-themed anthology was right up my alley.
Everything else seemed to fall into place. I was thinking about the anthology and realized I’ve always wanted to do something that involved Christmas. Since I donated to Hugs at Christmas time and I was compiling an anthology to help the foster kids, I decided to put them together. The next step was to come up with a title. I knew the proceeds from the book were going toward purchasing Christmas presents for the foster children. Then it hit me, The Undead That Saved Christmas.
After I got a title and knew the theme it was time to start spreading the word about my anthology. I used the connections I have made from my website and started spreading the word. Within a week I had many people asking me how they could help. One of these wonderful people was David Naughton-Shires, he is the artist who did the book art cover. He came up with the art idea and basically had it done within a few days. He has been a really, really big help.
So, now I had a cover to show around. I created a Facebook fan page and very quickly word started spreading about my charity zombie Christmas-themed anthology. The number of fans quickly grew and as of right now there are 907 fans. It truly warms my heart that so many people support the anthology and most importantly support the cause.
Since this is the first book that will have my name on the cover I wanted it to be one of a kind. After David finished the cover I was bombarded by e-mails from artists who wanted to do the book cover. I turned them away because I only needed one book cover. Then I thought about it, something that has not been done in any other anthology that I’ve seen. An art cover for each individual short story. Once the idea was stuck in my head, I emailed the artists and ran the idea past them. Soon after Christmas art was flying everywhere. All of the art did find its way into the anthology.
With the deadline passing and the submissions stopping, the fun began. I had to make decisions. The stories, poems & carols and comics you find in this book are the result of my decisions. I read all of the submissions and these 16 stories were selected by me. They were the best of the best. You will also find 7 poems and 5 comics. All of which were selected by me as the best zombie Christmas-themed literature out there.
Before I start putting together the stories and formatting this anthology I want to thank everyone who has made it possible. I want to thank all of the artists who contributed art cover and the random clip art which will be splattered across the book. I will try to keep blank pages at a minimum. I want to thank all of the authors who contributed a story. Mark Polarek, the representative from Hugs who I have been in contact with has been extremely supportive. I want to thank my wife (Mandy) and my little daughter (Kallalaya). Both of them keep my spirits up. Most importantly I want to thank the readers for picking up a copy of this book to help support the Hugs Foster Family Agency. Together we can give these kids a very merry undead Christmas.
Your anthologist
Lyle Perez-Tinics
8/25/2010
