Mix several helpings of creativity with a vibrant past in theatre, music, and art, mix liberally with a frightening amount of expertise in Kenjutsu and Jujutsu, and sprinkle with a down-to-earth realism and what do you get? Jonathan Maberry, one monster of a horror writer.

As passionate as he is gifted, Jonathan has authored innumerable pieces of fiction and nonfiction alike, covering text book writing, script adaptation, plays, comic book writing, tens of hundreds of articles, and several novels. A quick peek at Jonathan’s current and up-coming project list reveals his packed agenda, but Jonathan still makes time to share his knowledge of the writing trade with others through lectures and classes. Topics include marketing for writers, how to pitch a book, how to break into publishing, the importance of networking, and many other relevant topics.

Jonathon is now best-known for his epic horror series, the Pine Deep Trilogy, and his Bram Stoker Award-winning look into the supernatural, co-authored with David F. Kramer, The Cryptopedia: A Dictionary of the Weird, Strange, and Downright Bizarre . His renown as the new master of modern zombie-horror will only solidify with the release of the Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Science series kicking off with Patient Zero.

Author, scholar, gentleman, and all-around badass, Mr. Maberry was kind enough to take time from his busy schedule to share with us his insight on writing action horror novels, practicing Japanese Jujutsu, and the importance of networking with other authors. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Jonathan Maberry to Chateau Grrr!

Jonathan, how would you describe your body of works to someone unfamiliar with your writing style?

Wow…that’s tough because there are so many different answers to that. My fiction is dark and complex, with ensemble casts, a lot of action and more humor than you generally see if the genre. My mainstream thrillers are leaner and very fast-paced that deal with social, political, ethical and personal conflicts.

How many books have you sold in your career?

I’ve sold eighteen nonfiction books and seven novels, and of those I still have to write one nonfiction and one-and-a-half novels.

Did you ever think you would write so many?

Not early in my career, no. I started off as a magazine writer and expected to do that as a side job for the rest of my life. I’ve sold over 1100 feature articles. But back in the early 1990s, while teaching at Temple University, I had the opportunity to write a couple of textbooks –for my courses and for other courses. I got a taste for the long format. These early textbooks were on Judo, Jujutsu, Self-Defense for Women, and other aspects of martial arts and self-defense.

When I decided to pitch books to the mainstream I followed that path and my first mass-market nonfiction books were all on martial arts.

Then in 2001, I decided to take a swing at something a bit different and I did a book on the folklore of the supernatural–something that’s always been of interest to me. However, my publisher at the time was afraid that my martial arts readers would think I’d gone off my rocker if I suddenly started writing about the things that go bump in the night, so he asked that I write that book under a pen name. I did, and it was the first and LAST book I’ll do under a pen name.

However, the research into the occult and supernatural gave me some ideas for fiction. I broke away from that publisher and found a terrific agent who sold several as-yet unwritten supernatural nonfiction books for me that would be published under my own name. While researching those I got an idea for a trilogy of supernatural thrillers. I’d never written long fiction before, but I fell in love with it at once and had a marvelous time writing what became The Pine Deep Trilogy (Ghost Road Blues, Dead Man’s Song, and Bad Moon Rising, all published by Pinnacle).

Now I’m immersed in the book world and my agent has since sold four more novels to two different publishers. The first of those was Patient Zero for St. Martins Press, which will be followed by The Dragon Factory and The King of Plagues. But between the first and second books of that series I was hired by Universal Pictures to adapt a movie script into novel form, and that book is done and delivered.

What was the first piece of fiction you put to paper and how did your career in published books evolve from that?

I’ve been writing since I could hold a crayon, and my earliest stories were published in school papers. My first professional sale was an article for Black Belt Magazine back in 1978, and it was so well received that the editor immediately asked me for more.

My first short fiction was a comedy horror story, Biff Van Helsing, Scourge of the Undead, which was published in Midnight Zoo, a long-since defunct ultra small press magazine. I got some very nice reader letters, but the story really wasn’t very good and I’m glad it dropped off the radar. I didn’t start short fiction again until 2007’s Pegleg and Paddy Save the World, which was very well received and very well reviewed after it’s publication in History is Dead, edited by Kim Paffenroth for Permuted Press.

My first novel, Ghost Road Blues (2006, Pinnacle Books), developed a very strong fan following and it was nominated for two Bram Stoker Awards –Best First Novel and Best Novel. It won for Best First Novel, and narrowly lost for Best Novel (to some guy named Stephen King!).

Where do you find the ideas for your stories?

Ideas appear 24/7. I often say that I’ll never live long enough to write all of the ideas I have. I have notebooks and Word documents filled with them.

However, the actual moment of inspiration usually comes from simple observation. Writers are excellent observers –we have to be in order to build realistic stories. As we observe we play a constant game of ‘what if?’.

I also get a lot of my ideas from reading the news and from science magazines. I see a story on some aspect of science and start deliberately building a scenario around it. Some of these scenarios become whole stories, some become scenes or elements within stories, and some become articles, short stories or nonfiction books.

Like most writers I’m an information junkie.

Your ingenious work, Zombie CSU, the Forensics of the Living Dead is such a complete work, combining plausible science with real police procedures. Where did you get the inspiration and knowledge for this book?

I’ve always had a fascination with science and investigation. And I’ve done some extensive work for law enforcement as a consultant. I was the Expert Witness for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office for murder cases involving martial arts; and I co-founded COP-Safe, a company that provided arrest and control workshops for all levels of law enforcement (from street cops to SWAT). Plus I grew up reading all of those Ed McBain 87th Precinct police procedurals.

As a teenager I used to analyze monster movies and try to figure out how I would have handled things if I happened to be in the same circumstances; and it always made me a little nuts when movie (or book) characters did something really stupid. It also bothered me that police, medical science and the military crumble too easily in these flicks. They go down without a fight and I just don’t buy it.

So I cooked up the idea of applying logic to the problem of monsters. My favorite monsters are zombies. I began to speculate on how police, forensic experts, scientists, doctors and the military would react, research and respond to a crisis of the kind shown in George Romero’s zombie flicks. The book grew out of that.

Plus…when Night of the Living Dead was first released –on October 2, 1968– I was right there in the theater. An eight-year old kid alone in the balcony of a vast old art deco movie theater –the Midway, in Philadelphia– watching Romero introduce the armies of the living dead to the world. It was mind-blowing, and I’ve had a fascination with zombies ever since.

What would you describe as your perfect writing situation? Are you any more creative in one place than another?

I can write anywhere. Very little bothers me and even less distracts me from writing. My years in martial arts (44 and counting) have given me useful mental focus, and my passion for writing keeps me engaged.

Lately, I’ve taken to plugging in at Starbucks. I get a venti and a pumpkin scone, find a table near an outlet, fire up the laptop and crank out between two and four thousand words. If the place is noisy and crowded, that’s fine.

At home, sometimes I write in silence, sometimes I have the stereo on with guys like Tom Waits, Nice Cave, Leonard Cohen, Bob Seger, and the Pogues in heavy rotation.

But I’ve written in doctors offices, airport lounges, sidewalk cafes, in bed, and anywhere else I can either set up my laptop or use a pencil and notebook. Just as long as I can write…

Do you ever get burnt-out while writing a series? Can fans look forward to more tales from the Deep Pine series?

I don’t get burned out very easily, though luckily I have so many projects going at once that I can switch to something else if I feel the writing is getting stale.

The Pine Deep Trilogy is complete, though I may return to tell more stories of that town somewhere down the road.

The Joe Ledger novels (Patient Zero, etc.) is still new. St. Martins bought the first three books from me, and at this writing (in early December 2008) I’m only halfway through the second book. I’m very enthused about the series –which features a Baltimore cop recruited by a secret government agency to help stop terrorists with radical bioweapons technologies. The first book, Patient Zero (scheduled for March, 2009), deals with terrorists who have a weaponized plague that can turn people into murderous zombies. The second book, The Dragon Factory, deals with rogue scientists who are using cutting-edge genetics to restart the Nazi eugenics program. And the third book deals with a broker for bioweapons.

If the series is successful, I have several other books outlined and will be delighted to keep writing the series. It’s fun and it allows me to stretch creatively.

Who are a few of your personal heroes? What is it about them that you admire?

Despite the horrific and occasionally violent material I write, most of my personal heroes are healers and peacemakers. As a kid I had great admiration for doctors like Jonas Salk, the man who cured polio (and polio was something my generation dealt with). Men of peace like the Dalai Lama are heroes. And those rare politicians who manage to hold onto their personal integrity and idealism mean a lot to me. I have a lot of optimism about Barack Obama.

There are also people I admire greatly who are not necessarily ‘heroes’, but whose lives, opinions and works have greatly influenced me. Three in particular stand out. I had the great good fortune to meet Richard Matheson when I was 14, back in the early 1970s. He gave me a signed copy of I Am Legend for my birthday and sat me down for a long conversation about storytelling, and about the connection between intellect and imagination. Later that same year Ray Bradbury gave me a copy Something Wicked This Way Comes for Christmas. I’ve read both books dozens of times since. Not only were the books important for my understanding of darker subject matter, but I was so incredibly fortunate to have had two giants of the literary field take time out to discuss the nature of storytelling with me.

The other literary inspiration is Oscar J. Friend, a pulp writer I never met but whose works I love. He wrote The Kid from Mars and dozens of other works in SF, fantasy, westerns and mysteries under his own name and several pen names (Owen Fox Jerome, Ford Smith, etc.). He was my wife’s grandfather and he’s become sort of an iconic figure for me –the ‘Writer’ as I’ve always imagined him: smart, insightful, funny, generous, family-oriented, and knowledgeable in many areas. That’s the ideal of a writer I’ve always had –a view instilled in my by meeting Matheson and Bradbury, and solidified by learning of the life of Oscar J. Friend.

With such a grasp of horror, what are your dreams like?

Vivid and detailed. While studying martial arts over the last forty-plus years I also had exposure to various kinds of meditative practices, one of which of lucid dreaming. From the time I was twelve I was practicing the techniques of manipulating my dreams. Now, many years later, I can usually make myself dream about a certain scenario. It’s seldom the only dream I have, but when I do that it’s very memorable –which is kind of the point. If I need a scene for a story, I program myself to dream it, and most often I wind up with a scene that really works.

Your diverse interests and abilities seem to have given you a life nothing short of fascinating. Working in the 80’s as a bodyguard, what was the most surreal moment you experienced?

Well, there’s good surreal and bad surreal. The best good surreal moment was talking about martial arts with Stevie Nicks. She studied Hapkido (a Korean variation on jujutsu, which I’ve also studied for a lot of years) and we knew several people in common. She threw a couple of pretty high, fast kicks at me, too. It was a great conversation.

The most surreal bad moment was the first time I ever dealt with a knife in a real life-or-death situation. A guy was making a move on the client we were protecting and as I was pushing the client into the back of a limo I got slashed across the forearm. In the martial arts, you train and train and train for moments like that, but there’s still a part of your mind that doesn’t quite believe it’s real. Largely because in the dojo, if you screw up a technique, you get to try it again. But there I was, already bleeding from the cut on my left arm, facing a guy who was totally committed to cutting me down to get to the client. That was surreal. It changed the world as I knew it forever. When you look into the eyes of someone who is absolutely committed to killing you, then the world never quite looks the same again.

It’s also the moment where your view on martial arts techniques changes. As a kid I used to hotdog it a lot. I was a tournament champion and that can be a real problem because if you win too much you tend to think that you’ll always win. But when someone is coming after you with a knife –all of the ego, the bullshit, the reliance on fancy techniques…it all goes out the window and you either rely on the hard core elements of your training, or you die.

From that moment on I’ve placed my trust in simple, ruthless, efficient moves that, while not pretty, actually work.

When you choreograph a fight scene for one of your stories, do you go through the motions yourself?

In my head, sure. I teach workshops on writing fight and action scenes and I’m highly critical of fight scenes when I see them in books, movies and TV. I have a lot of personal experience as a fighter –in the ring, on the mat, and on the street– and when I imagine a fight scene I build into it my understanding of what is (and is not) possible, given the combatants, the environment, the circumstances, etc. Every fight is different.

The first fight scene in Ghost Road Blues, where Crow and Ruger fight in the rain, I based much of that on a couple of real fights I was in. For the fights in Patient Zero and The Dragon Factory, I spent time choreographing the fights to be realistic as well as entertaining. There’s a favorite of mine –maybe the best fight scene I’ve written so far– that happens near the end of Patient Zero where Joe Ledger is in a room with six fairly quick zombies and all he has is a knife. What he does to get out of that room is possible for a highly skilled knife fighter.

Do you feel your mastery of Martial Arts has affected your writing in other ways as well?

Absolutely. Jujutsu is a very scientific art. It’s not very flashy but it is very effective. It was designed by the Samurai to use against other Samurai, and it draws from a well of knowledge that includes much older skills from China and India; and it’s constantly updated. Students are required to learn practical physics, physiology, anatomy, psychology, etc.

When I write, I like everything grounded in reality –even if I’m writing about zombies, werewolves or genetically altered apes. Because things are grounded in reality the stories themselves become more believable and readers can more easily suspend their disbelief.

Martial arts has also given me focus, which allows me to write complex and overlapping storylines without letting them get tangled. And martial arts has given me the discipline to complete what I started out to do.

Also, martial arts encourages a person to be adaptive and innovative. Bad martial artists learn how to do ‘moves’; good martial arts learn what makes those moves work, and as a result they can do those moves plus many, many variations. As a writer I’ve made sure that I’ve learned the building blocks of the storytelling art. This includes expanding my personal skill set –sometimes beyond my comfort zone. I made sure I learned the craft (figurative and descriptive language, storytelling structure, themes and subtext, etc.) as well as the business side of things. And I’ve kept my mind open so that I didn’t settle into to being just one kind of writer. If I had, I would probably still be working a day job and be selling magazine articles part time. Instead I’ve taken risks and have sold all kinds of writing: plays, lyrics, greeting cards, technical writing, video scripts, essays, short fiction, novels, web-based shows, comic books…

As a founding member of The Liars Club, what can you tell us about this group?

The Liars Club came about after a lunch with my good friend Gregory Frost, who is one of the best living fantasy writers. We got together to discuss the different ways in which we work to publicize our work –something that publishes expect writers to do the bulk of. We realized that collectively we had a pretty good body of knowledge and a huge number of contacts.

That led us to the idea of forming a group of professional writers who would pool their knowledge, contacts, and resources so that we’d all have a better shot at building our fan-base and careers. And since we ‘make stuff up for a living’, the name ‘The Liars Club’ was a natural.

There are currently thirteen of us in The Liars Club. Gregory Frost (currently writing fantasy for Random House); Jon McGoran (who publishes forensics mysteries for Penguin as D H Dublin); L. A. Banks (New York Times best-selling author of the Vampire Huntress series); Kelly Simmons (her debut novel from Atria nailed a starred review from PW); Duane Swierczynski (author of gritty crime novels for St. Martin's Minotaur and comics for Marvel); Laura Schrock (Emmy Award-winning TV producer and scriptwriter); William Lashner (NY Times bestselling author of legal thrillers); Merry Jones (mystery author); Keith Strunk (actor, director and historian); Don Lafferty (publicist, magazine writer and social media consultant); and Ed Pettit (book reviewer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and renowned expert on Edgar Allen Poe).

We do workshops, group signings (usually 2-5 at a time), panels, and other events…and we’re having a blast.

What a terrific group!! Aside from The Liars Club, are you involved in any other writers’ organizations?

I belong to a bunch of them, and my involvement varies. For the International Thriller Writers (ITW) I’m a contributing editor for the Big Thrill newsletter and I’ll be editing a serial graphic novel for them which will feature chapters written by top thriller and mystery authors; for theMysteryWriters of America (MWA) I’ve been a writing mentor; for the Horror Writers Association (HWA) I’m the President of the combined Pennsylvania & New Jersey chapters, and I chair the Additions Jury for the Stoker Awards; for the National Writers Union (NWU) I do speaking engagements on the writing business; and so on.

What benefits do you feel you receive from these groups?

Networking is the fuel that drives the writing biz, and writers’ organizations pump that fuel. The benefits you get are often based on how seriously you become involved, and I advocate that all writers become involved.

Networking is that critical to a burgeoning author?

Absolutely key. I teach classes on networking for writers, and I’ve been a strong advocate for writers conferences, online writers groups, social networking for writers, etc. Writers need to be around other writers, and we should all share our knowledge and experience. This is a damn tough business and the economy sucks. Without networking a lot of good writing is NEVER going to make it to the public, and that’s a crying shame.

When working with an editor, how much does he or she do for a writer?

That depends on the editor. My editor at St. Martins, Michael Homler, is very hands on. He actually edits –which a lot of editors don’t. This means that he crawls inside the story and looks for weak spots, structural insufficiencies, character flaws, etc. He doesn’t tell his authors what to write to fix them, but he gives them the kind of insight and guidance that helps a writer make good choices. This kind of editor is rare and finding one is like striking gold.

Axel Alonso, my editor at Marvel Comics, is cut from the same cloth. He understand story and pace, he understands characters, and he works with the writer to make sure that the final product is something they’re both happy with and proud of. My first book for him, PUNISHER: NAKED KILL, will be out in April and I hope to work with Axel for a long time.

How should a young author choose a publisher or editor?

Authors seldom get to choose. Writers should spend their time selecting and pursuing the best agent. That’s a much more important step. Then the writer can work with the agent to build a good list of potential markets

What is the one piece of advice you would have liked to have had yourself as a young author starting out?

Learn the business. Learn that publishing IS a business. Learn everything about that business.

You’ve won two prestigious Bram Stoker awards for your writing. What were those moments like for you?

Surreal. The first one came unexpectedly. I was nominated for Ghost Road Blues, which was my first attempt at a novel. I’d been doing nonfiction for so long that I had no idea if my fiction would be good or if it would be enjoyed. When the book was nominated for two awards –Best First Novel and Best Novel, I was blown away.

When my wife, Sara, and I went to Toronto to the World Horror Convention and the Stoker Awards Banquet I was not really sure if I had a shot at winning. There were a lot of good books on the ballot for each award –books I’d read and loved– and I knew those authors had strong followings.

When they called my name for Best First Novel my head went blank. All of the carefully prepared words I had written for a possible acceptance speech just melted away and I don’t even remember getting to the podium. Luckily the acceptance is on YouTube, because I don’t remember it.

Afterward, at the post-event party I remember grinning. A lot. I don’t think that smile could have been surgically removed from my face.

The second Stoker was terrific, but I was home alone during the win. My wife was with her sick father in New York, and I’d just driven home because I had to teach some classes the next day. I listened to the webcast and freaked when I heard them call my name. Glad no one was there to see it –it would have done nothing to reinforce my ‘dignity’.

That was also special because I got to share it with one of my best friends, David F. Kramer. It was David’s first book and we’d had so much fun researching and writing it. Dave was soooo happy to have won, and I’m so very proud of him.

There’s word on the wind about a new ABC Disney webseries called On The Slab. It’s being described as “a Horror/Sci-fi entertainment news show”. Can you tell our Chateau Grrr guests more about this new project?

On The Slab was something I cooked up with fellow Liars Club member, Laura Schrock who is an Emmy Award-winning TV producer. She and I share a love of all things horror, and we had the idea for a show that would present news about upcoming books, movies, etc., as well as features on pop culture, horror in the real world (ghost hunting, cryptozoology, urban legends, etc.) and some informed commentary.

ABC Disney bought the show from us and is currently working on the marketing aspects of it. I don’t yet know when it’ll launch.

Once it does, though, it’ll have a hostess who will introduce clips and discuss the weird world with celebrities and experts. Should be fun.

Do you have plans for any of your books to become films?

We’ve been approached about rights –especially recently following an excellent early review of Patient Zero in Publishers Weekly. My agent is following up on that.

Excellent! That’s something to watch out for. What else can Chateau Grrr guests look forward to seeing from the mind of Jonathan Maberry in the future?

Lots of stuff. I’ve got two more nonfiction books scheduled from Citadel Press, both co-authored by David F. Kramer. THEY BITE! will be released in 2009, and it discusses supernatural predators in myth, movies and fiction. It includes interviews with folks like John Carpenter, Holly Black, Jack Ketchum, Peter Straub and dozens of others. Then in 2010 we’ll release VAMPIRE HUNTERS AND OTHER ENEMIES OF EVIL –a book we’re currently writing– which discusses supernatural evil from the perspective of people and beings who oppose it. We already have interviews set up with Charlaine Harris (the novelist on whose books HBO’s True Blood is based), Doug Jones (actor from Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth), scream queens Brinke Stevens, Debbie Rochon, Tiffany Shepis and Jewel Shepherd, and a few dozen others.

I’m also in discussions with Marvel Comics to do more books from them, but it’s too early to discuss details.

And Laura Schrock and I are shopping around a few other web-based series, including one that Fox is taking a look at.

Early 2009 will be a blast. Patient Zero comes out March 3 in the USA and April 1 in the UK; the Punisher comic comes out mid-April; and the movie adaptation I did for Universal comes out in early April.

And after that?

I have tons of projects in development here and there. I keep my agents pretty busy, and they keep me chained to my desk. It’s a great arrangement.

It sounds… busy! We’ll let you get back to your writing, Jonathan. Thank you so very much for your time. Guests, you can keep up with Jonathan’s projects by visiting him at his website, www.jonathanmaberry.com