Zombie Book Club
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Zombie Book Club
"Dead Soil" with Special Guest Sylvester Barzey | Zombie Book Club Ep 78
In this episode of the Zombie Book Club, we are joined by acclaimed author Sylvester Barzey to discuss his latest novel, Dead Soil. Set against the backdrop of the transatlantic slave trade, Barzey's work masterfully intertwines pirate adventures with zombie horror, delving into themes of resilience, power dynamics, and historical injustices. The conversation explores the novel's unique portrayal of magical zombies, the significance of voodoo and the Haitian Revolution, and the complexities of its central characters, Dayo, Kofi, and Bonnie.
Barzey also shares insights into his creative process, the emotional challenges faced during writing, and the importance of self-publishing and community support in amplifying BIPOC voices within the horror genre. Listeners can anticipate an engaging discussion that not only delves into the depths of Dead Soil but also reflects on broader cultural narratives and the enduring impact of history on contemporary storytelling.
Guest Contact Information:
- Website: sylvesterbarzey.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sylvesterbarzey
- Lemon8: https://www.lemon8-app.com/@sylvesterbarzey
- Dead Soil: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJMSFLLS
Relevant Links:
- Exploring the Haitian Revolution: Examining the Haitian Revolution - Arts & Sciences Magazine
- Voodoo and Haitian Culture: Voodooists led the slave revolution in Haiti and are still paying the price
- Understanding Haitian Vodou: The Seven Best Books about Haitian Vodou
- The Transatlantic Slave Trade: https://slaveryandremembrance.org
- The 1619 Project: https://1619books.com/
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Welcome to Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a pirate ship and the pirate ship is full of zombies Pirate zombies, swashbuckling pirate zombies with buckles on their coats, for some reason that modern day zombies could never comprehend. I'm Dan, and when I'm not swashbuckling, I'm writing a book about zombies who absolutely have no swagger or nautical ability.
Speaker 2:And I'm Leah, and today we have the incredible privilege of talking with the 2024 zombie ween king, sylvester Barzee, about his latest book, dead Soil. If you haven't heard of Sylvester Barzee yet, where have you been? He is a prolific author, a Bronx native and military veteran, who is driven to spotlight BIPOC characters in horror. He creates stories that showcase the true diversity of strength and survival, particularly inspired by the resilience of black women, and this book, dead Soil, is definitely in that vein. Welcome back to the show, sylvester. This is your third time with us. We've been so looking forward to talking to you. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3:Doing great. I love hanging out with you guys. I definitely need you to do all my intros too, because that was really good.
Speaker 1:It's nice getting hyped when you meet up with people like you just need the hype person to show up.
Speaker 3:I know because when I do it myself, yeah, I'm just like I write horror.
Speaker 2:Thank you, my name is sylvester, that's pretty much it you should just read your own bio, because I basically just stole your bio, made it a little shorter that's what that's there for.
Speaker 3:I should read my own bio. That's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, when they used to have like fancy balls and like there'd be somebody at the front door that would just read a list of accolades that comes through the door. That's what we just did.
Speaker 2:Yeah For King Sylvester.
Speaker 1:For King Sylvester.
Speaker 2:It is truly an honor and a privilege, and it is truly an honor and a privilege and I will be happily your hype person any day of the week, sylvester, because I'm a huge fan. Yeah, I mean, it's a bit of a commute, but we can make it when I go in the meetings yeah, yeah, when they have like, finally have those little hologram things, I'll just be like hi uh, we've got some rapid fire questions. Rapid, okay, super fast and they're new, since you've done the old ones yeah, you couldn't.
Speaker 1:You couldn't come with your your old questions fully prepared study the last one the. The test has changed. I'm ready. Would you rather be the zombie, ween king or undead pirate killing slave traders?
Speaker 3:that's hard, because killing slave traders sounds pretty good. I do, I like that. I do like the zombie ween king, because I I'm gonna get a crown and everything and I could stay in my office. I don't really have to. I get c6.
Speaker 1:So that's probably you know, you know, if you're king, I guess you could still kill slave traders. Uh, what is your favorite zombie kill of all time? Uh, movies, books, anything you want, including your own. You can pick one of your scenes.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's true of all time, that's. That's really hard. Uh well, it's not a zombie kill, but I really dig the scene in um in zombie, when that woman, when they like, pull her head towards the shard of wood and like goes into her eye and stuff. I love that scene.
Speaker 1:I have not seen Zombie. It was made by I forget who it was made by. But I saw Zombie 3 and Zombie 4, but I did not see Zombie Of course we need to.
Speaker 2:And I'm curious do you smile while you're watching gore? Are you like, yeah, well it.
Speaker 3:while you're watching gore, are you like, yeah, oh well, it depends what kind of gore it is like. There's things that I can't handle, like the eye thing, I'm just like uh. Or if they rip, like your fingernails out, oh yeah. But if they, like I don't know, explode or try and rip out your intestines, I'm pretty okay with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that that, uh, leads right up into the next rapid fire question. When you write your incredibly gory scenes, are you laughing or crying?
Speaker 3:um, neither, I guess I, I don't know. I guess, uh, when I'm writing since I've already pretty much thought of everything it's all kind of boring to me. Like I'll be sitting there, I'm like nobody's right, yeah, they're gonna see this coming, and stuff like that. Um, sometimes I'll picture it as a movie and then that'll be entertaining. And then sometimes I'll try and incorporate things I've seen in movies and be like let me see if I could pull this off in a book well, you do disturb me every single time I read one of your books.
Speaker 2:Um, did you just say, sorry, I gotta, I gotta, segue for one second? Did you just say that you have the whole book in your mind before you start writing it down?
Speaker 3:mostly like um, first I'll start off at like a concept, like oh, it'd be really cool if there was like a zombie outbreak at a prom or something, and then I'll think of like how it would end and who the main character is, and then just kind of flush it out. All the key points are normally in my head and I'm just trying to get to it, but now I outline. So it's kind of better, because then I could like really flush it out versus I just need to get to this decapitation, that's how it is.
Speaker 1:It's always the decapitation scene that you're just trying to get to, and then you get to that and you're like, yeah, what happens after I?
Speaker 3:wrote all down now I don't know what this is about, uh.
Speaker 1:Last question, most important question maybe, I don't know, I haven't read it yet I wrote it um of all the characters that you've created, who would you pick to be your fictional sidekick in the zombie apocalypse?
Speaker 3:I would probably be katherine's sidekick, but I don't think I can make her my sidekick. But you know she needs me to carry her whiskey around in her backpack. Don't keep me alive.
Speaker 2:Q everyone. If you haven't listened to episode 35 on Planet Dead and then to read the book Planet Dead, then you'll get to know who Catherine is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I'd read the book.
Speaker 2:Yes. So, sylvester the Dead Soil Sorry Dead Soil, not the Dead Soil, right Dead Soil. Yeah, master the dead soil sorry, dead soil, not the dead soil, right dead soil yeah, um, dead soil is, I think, my favorite book that I've read in a very long time. It is, yeah, it and I don't say that lightly. I usually try not to say things like that on a podcast, but I'm gonna say it because it is both fantastical in the sense that the things that are happening did not historically happen, but then everything else did historically happen, and you have this incredible ability to describe the story in ways that are beautiful and make me really feel grateful to be on the planet, and then also incredibly gory, that make me want to sort of vomit. And then you have love stories in it, and then you have an incredible critique of power and racism and sexism and the origins of some of those things with the transatlantic slave trade, and I'm just blown away by it and I was like I don't think I can do justice to describing what the story's about.
Speaker 3:So I was wondering if you could give like a brief summary for anyone who hasn't read it yet what they should expect when they read dead soil all right, yeah, so dead soil is a pirate horror during the golden age of piracy and basically the main concept is mother nature, or the earth, is reacting to the evil of the transatlantic slave trade and um, so there comes a point when anyone dies, they just come back and you know, it's like your, your typical zombies, except it's it's more like um return of the living dead zombies, because they can communicate and you can like shoot them in the head and stuff, and they're still keep on going, because this is a punishment and, in theory, it shouldn't end until everyone learns their lesson.
Speaker 3:So it, yeah, it's just this unstoppable force and it follows um dio and kofi and bonnie, who all get wrapped up in this slave trade, um, two of them by force and one of them bonnie's. Bonnie's interesting bonnie's just she has goals and I feel like sometimes she understands the evil that's going on, and then I also feel like she's complacent in it and she's just kind of like this is the world, so it is what it is and I need to get where I need to be.
Speaker 2:That sounds familiar yeah, I have a lot of questions for you about each of the characters, because they're they're all very distinct. Um, before we dive into that, I'm curious if you could share what was the moment of like inspiration where you're like, you know what I'm gonna write about the real life apocalypse of the transatlantic slave trade with a pirate zombie apocalypse layered over top uh, I want to say it was like pandemic ish time or something.
Speaker 3:But netflix had like this um documentary series and they started doing like these documentary series where they were just kind of like mostly reenactments and they're telling stories. And this one was about um pirates. So they talked about like black caesar and um blackbeard and bonnie and all those other pirates, and I was just sitting there and I was, I loved it, I was, I was just wrapped up in it. I was like this would be really cool if there were zombies. And I just had this like stuck in my head that it'd be cool if there was like just pirates fighting against the government and fighting against zombies just going about their day through the sea and all that stuff. And then, um, the publisher that I I signed with he it was a darklit press at the time but they they cease to exist now. They're dead and they're not coming back. They're not zombies. So, um, he, he came to me and he was just like, oh, I'm planning on doing a pirate horror, which was just like random. I was like, oh, I actually have an idea for this. This is crazy.
Speaker 3:And um, that, that pretty much started it. I think he came to me at like the beginning of 2023. So I was just like well, now I actually have an excuse to sit down and write this. And I wrote it in wait, no, not 2023, beginning of 2022. And I wrote it and it came out in 20. Wait, no, uh, my years mixed up. Okay, it came out in 2024. New year's happy new year, yes, 2025 now, as we're recording this.
Speaker 2:It just shows how long the actual process is Sylvester, because you conceived of this in the pandemic and then you wrote it in 2022 and then it's out by fall of 2024.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wrote it in 2023. That's where I got mixed up, but yes, and then it came out in the fall. But yeah, it was a pandemic baby idea when everybody was watching tiger king and different things.
Speaker 2:that's where that idea came from I forgot about tiger king and I think I'm gonna forget about tiger king again right now.
Speaker 1:It's a really weird moment in time, let's forget about tiger king until he runs for president. Oh no, don't even say that out loud.
Speaker 2:Oh no, back to zombies, which are much more fun. There's also a connection to voodoo and the Haitian Revolution in your story. So your zombies. It's interesting. You said that they were from sorry. Which movie was it? Again?
Speaker 3:They were inspired by the zombies are more like Return of the Living Dead zombies.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, because there was a couple of times where it felt almost like the evil dead zombies too Deadites.
Speaker 3:Oh, deadites. Yeah, Deadites are cool. I'm writing something kind of like deadites in a short story, but yeah, deadites are cool.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to read that. But the zombies, like you said, they're intelligent, more intelligent than most zombies. They really love meat, human meat. Intelligent, more intelligent than most zombies. They really love meat, human meat, and they don't discriminate based on race. No, uh everybody can get eaten yeah, uh, and there's a through line with voodoo and the haitian revolution, and I'm not sure how much we can talk about it without spoiling the book I briefly studied the haitian revolution.
Speaker 3:I'm not haitian or anything, but I once again I think this was during the pandemic but um, uh, have you guys ever seen like um through blood? Yeah, you guys remember. Yeah, you remember Tara's boyfriend eggs it's been a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tara's boyfriend.
Speaker 3:Well, the actor, the actor that plays him, uh, who's also in Mortal Kombat, plays Jax, but he made this Instagram reel. I believe he made his Instagram reel and he was just explaining basically the Haitian history and how the Haitian Revolution was like the only successful revolution that actually freed a whole um community and basically they got a young impact, but they they were pretty much charged by all these governments for the loss of the money from the slave trade. So they've been paying all these banks back for like years and that always stuck with me. The, the fact that they were paying back the banks was terrible, and that stuck with me. And then the fact that they actually succeeded.
Speaker 3:Because I come from uh, well, I don't come from, I was born in America, but my family comes from a small island called Montserrat in the Caribbean and they celebrate like St Patrick's Day because it's um, well, they used to call them like the, the little isle of the caribbean or something, because there's a lot of people there.
Speaker 3:But there was a slave revolt during saint patrick's day, I believe, and it wasn't successful, but it's a big part of our history and so I I just connected with that and I thought, well, if I'm. If I'm even gonna venture into haiti or venture into history, I might as well just latch on to the biggest moment. So in my head they're there when it all starts and everything starts to kick off. And I really wanted to incorporate voodoo zombies because in the overall like zombie community, everybody's always like talking about zombies and george ramirez zombies and they kind of glass over the fact that voodoo zombies were first and everything. They just they just they morphed from george, had them as ghouls and then they adopted the zombie word and now nobody ever really wants I can tell a lot of nobody really wants to compare them. So I just I thought it would be a really cool aspect to have real zombies and then incorporate looter zombies.
Speaker 1:Due to the confusion that happens when I'm arguing with people, I'm like that's a good point, though, um, I mean it's it's hard to find any anything like movies or tv shows that even even mention haitian voodoo zombies, unless it's specifically about haiti, which is very rare, it's uh ever since george, like like it was. It was great to have a type of monster that you can just apply whatever lens you want to to it, which is the wonderful thing about zombies. But also it just kind of washed away the voodoo.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it created a new genre and really just erased another one, because there were a lot of like voodoo-ish movies before George yeah. And then it's just like, and they were like oh well, we can do this without the history and the magic and whatnot. Sometimes they left out the black people you know George had, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:This is something that we want to get more into this year in general, because this coming year, one of my goals for the podcast really is to learn more about Haitian zombies, because I think that I certainly know very, very little, and I think that's a disservice to the origins of this genre that we love so much, and I think it's really easy to just whitewash things literally, and one of the things that I found out that you probably already know, sylvester, but I thought was really wild is that, like you said, george Romero called them ghouls.
Speaker 2:He wasn't even calling them zombies. And it was the French the French who colonized Haiti and who I believe Haiti is still paying money to today who, when they saw Night of the Living Dead, they started calling the ghouls zombies. So it's just that like full circle moment of cultural appropriation connected to their colonial history. That was like really powerful for me to learn about. Um, so that's something that I want to spend a little more time on this podcast and I think this is just a good, a good entry point with your book.
Speaker 1:so thank you for that yeah, and that sounds really cool the thing that you mentioned earlier would probably be a pretty good starting starting point.
Speaker 2:There are three. There's really four main characters. We'll get to the fourth one in a minute. There's three main human characters, like you mentioned Dio, kofi and Bonnie and I'm curious which of them came to you first when you first started fleshing out this story and then how did that shift over time? The three stories that you wanted to really tell?
Speaker 3:And then how did that shift over time, the three stories that you wanted to really tell? Okay, so it flip-flops. At first I wanted Dayo and then I kind of settled on Kofi, and Kofi was going to be like the main character and as I was writing then it just kind of flipped and I was just kind of like I'm going to focus on Dayo and Dayo is our main character, like. So I feel like they split the book pretty evenly. Yeah, so it's mostly Kofi and Dio. What was the question?
Speaker 2:you answered it actually, which one came first um and I do think it was an interesting writing choice to have Kofi be sort of the lead voice and perspective in the first half-ish and then to flip to Dayo. And at what point did you realize? Like I absolutely have to talk, I have to tell this story from Dayo's voice.
Speaker 3:I felt like, well, I really liked Dayo when I was building her character and then I got to a point where I knew what was going to happen to kofi and I felt like I can tell. I just felt like he wasn't, he wasn't gonna be a main character. I felt like I could tell a better story from dial's point of view just because I don't know.
Speaker 2:I felt like kofi would be too powerful and just be not as entertaining yeah I guess it would be yeah yeah, I mean, you could write, maybe I'll just like yeah, I'll rewrite it like the twilight lady, you know. Yeah um, some background for the listeners if you have not had the chance to read the book yet. So kofi and dayo are um living somewhere in western africa. I don't know if you, in your mind, do you know what country it would be today when we first meet them?
Speaker 3:no, I just knew it was western africa.
Speaker 2:I didn't really actually well, now that I think about it, it wouldn't have been any of those countries, right, they would have had a different name for their.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they all would have had before they were colonized.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so it starts there and um. Kofi is the grandson of a healer, a magic man. There's probably a better term than magic man.
Speaker 3:I'll go with healer. A healer, yeah.
Speaker 2:Healer's good and Dayo is meant to be his wife.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Dayo is betrothed to him and she's like the. She's the daughter of a warrior and that was pretty much like her basis until we actually meet her. She's just supposed to marry kofi and her dad was a warrior and she knows how to handle herself yes, she does.
Speaker 2:She's got some good scenes. I think it's a really good example of how your writing flips things on its head, because this book very easily could have been just from kofi's perspective, um, and if that had happened, there would have been good example of how your writing flips things on its head, because this book very easily could have been just from kofi's perspective, um, and if that had happened, there would have been some risk of dio being like a, a paper thin character, but instead she becomes the main character and her point of view is really important and her decisions. I really want to spoil every single part of this book because I have so many reactions to it.
Speaker 2:So maybe I'll get lucky, I can talk to you another time about it, but I'll just say some of the decisions that she chooses to make I think are really difficult decisions to make in that moment, and understanding who she is makes it make sense versus if it had been from Kofi's perspective the whole time. So I think that that's really cool. And then Bonnie Bonnie, can you tell us a little bit about Bonnie and who she is in the beginning?
Speaker 3:Bonnie is definitely, definitely modeled at the Anne Bonnie she's.
Speaker 3:I think she has different goals than Anne Bonnie, cause Anne Bonnie was just kind of like she was one of two female pirates that we know through history and you know, um, on her pirate ship she was pretending to be a man to get through um the voyage and stuff, and then you know she gets found out and I think she went to prison and it was like a pregnancy thing.
Speaker 3:So I don't know, but that's where um bonnie comes from. Bonnie is pretty much pulled from that kind of history and I wanted bonnie to basically um walk the line. She was pretending to be a boy and then you find out in this process of pretending to be a boy, she has like these goals and these dreams that aren't built for women during that time period and, uh, it's kind of like she's fooling herself into believing this could happen, which is pretty much why her sister laughs at her. But yeah, bonnie's main thing is she wants to be a captain, she wants to have her own ship, she wants to to be a captain, she wants to have her own ship, she wants to, and everything she kind of does is for survival and to get to that goal one way or another.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I uh I was kind of wondering if there was a a connection there, because I've I'm familiar with anne bonnie as well, and also there's a few times that some, uh some pirates show up and they have some very interesting characteristics that are a lot like other historical pirates. I forget which one. Is it Black Bart that has the cannon wicks in his beard?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought it was Black Beard, black Beard yeah.
Speaker 3:I definitely got it from from him, like he was, uh, that's who he's supposed to be, because he was with black caesar, and if you uh, yeah, if you notice that's when you meet him and that's when you meet caesar on that boat, um, was it the queen mary's revenge? Is that sounds familiar? I don't know. Yeah, so that's the boat that, um, you meet them on. So, yeah, I definitely I pulled things from um pirate history and real characters like black caesar is just supposed to be black caesar from, uh, from the history, and then they got like we got nassau and things like that, and I watched a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Speaker 1:You know, when we first started this I was like, oh, pirates, zombies, this will just be a fun Pirates of the Caribbean romp. You know we're going to get our Jack.
Speaker 2:Sparrow.
Speaker 1:There's going to be some skeleton crews that are sword fighting and swashbuckling, and then you hit us with some powerful stuff.
Speaker 2:How dare you make us feel things and think about the history of this place and how it was built? Yeah, um, this is a more serious book than planet dead, or at least my experience. If it was, uh, planet dead, I feel like I laughed every page. At least once this book I it was more like feeling like my heart was being stabbed by a swashbuckling pirate at least once every page in a good way, in an important way. But there was a moment where you really made me laugh, when papa was hungry. That's all I'm gonna say. You gotta read the book, people.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, that was a great papa's character was um, I I loved just turning everybody into zombies. I I had a lot of fun with these zombies, more than I had with a lot of other zombies, and I think it's because I felt like, you know, with them talking and them actually having personalities, I I just focused on them more, versus like when I was writing Planet Dead. It was more just about the people and the zombies were just a back like. I feel like the the most I I really get to know zombies and Planet Dead is probably the Planet that one when they're facing off against that blind zombie and then anytime they face off against like the blood thirsties, they're more detailed because they're just genetically enhanced.
Speaker 2:So I I had a lot of fun with these zombies I bet I the moment when I realize I'm like, oh, this person just got sliced in the head and they're fine. Okay, there is no killing these ones. You can decapitate them, but they're still alive they're just.
Speaker 1:I think that's what makes magical zombies really scary is because, yeah, it doesn't matter what you do to them. They can have a weakness, and sometimes they do, but typically they are supernatural and it doesn't. It doesn't matter what you do to them yeah, it, definitely it.
Speaker 3:I feel like it's more terrifying because, like where regular zombies there's, like either an outbreak or something from space and with like magical zombies, like I guess you could say somebody did this, but you don't really know and you don't really know how to stop them, like if they can't. If they died once, they came back due to magic, I just figured they're not going to die again.
Speaker 2:I just keep picturing them wandering around the bottom of the ocean without their heads. That's the I don't know if the sharks eat them, or like what happens there, if there's like the rules, um, like, if it's like laurie calcaterra's rules, uh, in path of the pale rider, where, even if they're being eaten by sharks, like, like, are they still alive in there, still wiggling yeah?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, as long as they're like bits, I feel like most people burn them because uh ashes. But I don't know if I'm gonna go as far as Lori and be like oh well, she's moved. I think I might end it with fire. But yeah, they're still wiggling around inside the song, all right inside the shark.
Speaker 1:But it's truly disgusting yeah, you know, like with magical zombies it's, it's never about like defeating the individual zombie. You have to like, you have to find the source of the curse yes, you have to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you gotta find the real problem and deal with the problem do you think any of the three main characters know the true source of the curse?
Speaker 3:uh, kofi, I think kofi definitely knows. I don't. I don't. I feel like kofi knows the source of the curse, um, mostly because he was there and he's kind of like he grew up around healing and magic, um, but I don't think he's figured out how to end it. If there is a way to end it, he probably didn't figure that out. Yeah, I had a whole grand scheme of everything and it kind of got shortened because, like, when I first signed on, they told me it was a novella. So then, so I was like that was my set. I was like I'm gonna do this. And then, like halfway through the book, they're like actually it doesn't need to be a novella, it could be a regular big old book. And I was just like, and for some reason my mind could not wrap around that after I've already solidified it was a novella.
Speaker 1:So I was just I think, well, you know, I think that's not bad, because what I one thing, that I've already solidified it was a novella, so I was just I think, well, you know, I think that's not bad, because what I one thing that I noticed is that while the the book is like very action oriented, it doesn't. It doesn't ever slow down, like I like I've read so many books where it gets to the action scene and like I kind of tune out because it's you know, the action scenes are boring and not always written very well. But this was like it felt like chapter two. We just we just start swinging swords and we don't stop until chapter like like three quarters of the way through the book and that's only for a brief pause. Yeah, and I can feel like that energy of like this has to end soon. So we're getting through it and it's moving really fast and then and then it just keeps going.
Speaker 2:But what's cool about it? Sylvester is like I. I don't like action typically. Like when it's an action movie, I'm just like, oh God, Like I just can't pay attention.
Speaker 3:I don't care.
Speaker 2:I'm gone. And the way that you wrote it was. I couldn't put it down. But not only it wasn't just like, okay, these brutal things are happening. You develop the characters through the action, which I don't often. I mean, maybe it's because I do just check out, that could be the case, but I don't think so. I think you did a really good job of of building the characters and telling their story and making me care about them while scary shit was happening, also just disgusting me in general, like being covered in shit.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah did you do research for the cover being covered in shit part? Uh, yes, actually I did.
Speaker 3:That's um where I figured out what a poop deck was.
Speaker 3:So um I did research about the poop deck and it was just like, basically I think it's supposed to be either the front or the back of the boat this was a while ago but so there's just like little stools and then you just sit down and you poop into the ocean. But I was just like that's not gonna be good enough for me, so I needed it to be like on an incline so it could slide down into the ocean and then I could cover her. So but, um, my editor at the time did not like that. He was like there is no room with poop on the boat. It's in my boat.
Speaker 2:I don't know what to tell you. I believed you, but this is what I want to know. Like I'm reading this and'm like are you thinking about your readers? And just like reveling in the fact that they're going to be gagging while reading these parts of the story.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, I definitely I want to pull emotions out of readers.
Speaker 3:I don't think I've ever really I never felt like I was a person that could make people like gag or um, be like turned away from the horror. I definitely knew I can make people laugh. I'm always I'm. That's one thing I know I can do. I can make somebody laugh. So that's what I normally focus on in my writing and then, like the horror and everything else just comes about with it. So this one, I was getting into kind of like the extreme horror community and I just, ever since I found them, I've been trying to just flesh out my horror and my scenes more and just make everything a little more graphic. I don't go as far as they do.
Speaker 2:I'm not built like that I don't think I can handle that based on my like the fact that I am turning away from your book.
Speaker 2:All the way back from dead days I was like no moving away from the horror a little bit to some of the relationships that exist in this book. Dio and bonnie's really fascinated me because dioio and Kofi save Bonnie multiple times in the early part of the book. They didn't have to and they already were very aware that Bonnie was part of the slave trade like a perpetrator Is that the word I'm looking for? They were young.
Speaker 3:Accomplice, Accomplice complicit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, they were benefiting from it. They even wanted to be a captain of a slave ship, at least that's what it seemed like their goal was, and yet they chose to save her. And then there were points where Bonnie felt almost redeemable, like, okay, maybe she's also an ally, but when the going gets tough, bonnie Bonnie ditches. Is that too much for me to say?
Speaker 3:on the podcast, sylvester no no, I think that's yeah, that's definitely Bonnie. I feel like she's. I feel like if the world was different, then maybe she could. She would be an ally because she can masquerade as an ally, because it would help her get what she wants.
Speaker 2:But since the world's um rules are set up that way she has, he has no reason to be full-on protective of these group of people but neither did dio and kofi and I think that that's like a thing I was sitting with right like dio and kofi had no reason to help bonnie when she was in need and she wanted her family to be helped.
Speaker 2:Um, and I couldn't help but draw parallels with white women today. It made me think about the fact that often white women can like appear as allies when it's convenient for them, but are also very frequently the direct source of oppression and can be shitty, and I've been told by folks I work with that sometimes a white woman is the scariest person in the room, actually not a white man, and that's really stuck with me. And I'm curious how you navigated that dynamic in this, how you managed to successfully navigate that dynamic in this book, because it's not like any one person, bonnie included, is just bad or good. You can see their complicated relationship with power. You can see that um is existing in a world where she can't be who she wants to be because she's a woman and that sometimes she seems to have some compassion for kofi and dio, but it gets muddied by her desire for more power, um and her self-protection. And I'm just curious what it was like to write that dynamic so vividly I definitely.
Speaker 3:I definitely wanted to showcase bonnie as like a different form of racism or a different form of racist, because it's not that she outright hates anybody, she's just okay with everyone else hating people. So she's okay with the slave trade, whether it stopped or kept going, she would be fine with it. I think that was definitely her in the beginning. I feel like as she evolved, she kind of got sucked into the the mindset that, um, black people were in some way stronger or more fit to to do something that white people couldn't, and she kind of I feel like she might have got brainwashed at a point where she's just like, yeah, they're right, we could do this. I've seen it, I've been saved by two black people and they did go into hell and survive. So, yeah, we could definitely do that.
Speaker 3:And then you know that also furthers her goal because, um, you don't see it, but in my head I feel like they have this idea of using um the enslaved as basically like warriors and guards against zombies and things like that and, um, I feel like bonnie uses her, her um moment when she survived as this opportunity to elevate herself and be like I actually know what we can do, I actually know who we can get and I actually know how we can um get this done correctly because I've survived and so it just it just shows that she just kind of she's overlooking the overall pain of the black community, just so from a place where she's very overlooked and she felt seen and that's why she's she just thinks about kofi yeah, yeah, I mean, that sounds like a pretty typical narcissist.
Speaker 1:You know that when, when, uh, when it's convenient to them, they care about you and you can. You can be the light of their life for a very brief period of time, until it's time for them to shine yeah, yeah, I think it's more complex than her just being a narcissist, though, because I uh again.
Speaker 2:It comes back to power for me and like when you are, I think, when you've been assigned, uh, female, then it comes along with all of these other power dynamics and some people, especially in contexts where they have so little power, I think, just choose to grasp power over actually seeing the bigger picture, like you said, and I think that that's something that people are still doing today.
Speaker 2:I mean the fact that the majority of white women voted for Trump again, in my opinion, against their own interests and the interests, obviously, of the black community or any community that's not white and male. Like any opportunity to get that power, I think sometimes, just I wish I could say that it was true ignorance, but I do think it's willful sometimes. Yeah, and that's what's disturbing and also why I think that this book is important, because, while it's set in the transatlantic slave trade, every one of the dynamics that you pointed out in the book around race and sex and even language, barriers and culture is still really real today, and so one of the things I wanted to ask you was if dayo was in today's reality, right now, what do you think she would have to say about where we're at as a society?
Speaker 3:after the election. I think she would think we're fucked. But um uh, dayo is very worldly and she does that part of survival and because she loves to learn things, so that's why she speaks many languages and things. So I feel like she would see the world right now and just see that it's drifting apart. Everyone's just drifting apart and it's because of a bigger thing. It's not because of the people, it's because of the laws and the people who are overseeing it and the rich and whatnot. I feel like that's what Dayo would really notice in our society. It's not 100% because of us, it's experience.
Speaker 2:They're each sort of pawns in a wider profiteering scheme, basically for some very rich people, but there's still different levels of power within that, obviously very significantly. So I think that's really interesting. What do you think Kofi would say? Would Kofi just be mad?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Especially if, if you pulled Kofi from the time he's at to right now, he'd probably be like oh you guys ain't learning nothing.
Speaker 2:That could be a great sequel. Kofi returns in 2025 and just fucks shit up. Why not?
Speaker 3:Just starts raising his own little zombie army.
Speaker 2:I think I'd be rooting for Kofi. He'd be nice to dress. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Kofi for president. Yeah, we could do that. Anyone could win it now.
Speaker 2:That's terrifying.
Speaker 1:It did actually feel like it had a lot of parallels to modern times, like there's pirate ships, there's zombies, there's swords, but it also felt like you know this, this. It felt like my 2024 a little bit uh, yeah it.
Speaker 3:It definitely has aspects of everybody just kind of fighting in their own way to survive, battling different, um kind of racisms and and classisms and all these things that are keeping everyone down. And it's in this, I felt like in the story it is just kind of like an evil that's above them, like they're. They're just kind of trapped in this world that they didn't create, and even definitely with kofi, kofi can't wrap his mind around that. They're being punished equally. He doesn't build that sphere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a really powerful moment actually, because I was going to say that Mother Nature to me, is the fourth character, fourth main character in the book. The whole way through she has her own opinion about humanity and she's both incredibly beautiful Some of the scenes you wrote I just could picture myself there perfectly and also incredibly vengeful. And that moment where Kofi's grandfather says to Kofi we are all children of the same mother, so should one bleed, then all the children must bleed. It was really powerful. And I just where the fuck does that come from, sylvester?
Speaker 2:I, just where the fuck does that come from Sylvester Like are you just sitting there meditating in nature and being like this is why we all suffer. I've got to put it in my book. Like how does it, how does that emerge?
Speaker 3:I have thoughts, but never that deep. I don't think I've ever like sitting down and meditating and I tried meditation once, but I always fall asleep. It's just like yoga. I went to a yoga class once and I fell meditation once, but I always fall asleep. It's just like yoga. I went to a yoga class once and I fell asleep and it kicked me because I was snoring see that's.
Speaker 2:That's why I see pap to yoga so you say yeah see you say it's not, you don't have thoughts that deep, but this is like this book is deep yeah, no, um, it's.
Speaker 3:It's not that I don't have like, I have deep thoughts. I feel like I don't articulate myself very well, but I do have deep thoughts. I just don't. I don't think I've sat down to fully understand why the world is the way that it like. But with kofi and his grandfather, I really just wanted to set up the dynamic. I felt like the grandfather was very into Mother Nature and he knows why this is all can't just stop it. Everyone has to acknowledge that it's evil and everyone has to feel the pain of it before they can just heal from it. And yeah, that's definitely one aspect that Kofi isn't keen to. Kofi doesn't feel like everyone needs to be punished. Kofi feels like it's the aggressor that needs to be punished, and I feel like he's not grasping onto the fact that the, the people aren't being punished. It's just the process, the process of getting to where they need to be. Everyone's being punished.
Speaker 2:I can understand why he feels it's unfair, um, but I do think that the underlying message you're saying is true, like we all have to feel it and sit with what our history is and what our current reality is if we have any hope of it being better, and I think it's really. I just really love seeing stories like this that I think are pointing to a bigger answer and also a set of questions that people should be sitting with and reading and I just thought I was going to read a pirate book, so it's kind of cool. It's like I don't know if, as authors, you're also just grappling with this, and it's like this universe is a world where you can kind of play with these ideas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel like that's what authors do. I feel like we, we tackle subjects just in in different forms. I feel like with with me, I tackle a lot of, a lot of classes and a lot of racism and I I tackle a lot of. I feel like people see you one way and it's kind of like up to you to break that image that people have of you, and I feel like I try to do that with my characters. I feel like I introduced them one way and then they grow and they're trying to become inevitably the person that they're supposed like um with, like katherine.
Speaker 3:Katherine is just kind of like introduced as a badass and then you get to know that she's she's yeah, she's a badass, but she's just sees a wife and she's a mom and she just really wants to get home. That's the core of it. She just really wants to get home and like there's a. There's something that happens in playing dead three, where it it becomes a question of whether katherine is a hero or whether you're just kind of along for the ride and you're getting saved because you're in herfason.
Speaker 1:So I think I have no idea where we started that's the beauty of a conversation I uh, I think that's what really really good storytelling is. Like you, you kind of just nailed the idea that, like you have such simple and small narratives um, you know like who, who catherine is supposed to be, for example but then you have the really big questions that don't have answers, and it's all about the very small interacting with the very big yeah, that's a great way to describe what you did in this book and I think none of us have an exact answer.
Speaker 2:But there's just moments there's like do you ever read something? You're like that is true, I just know it in my bones. There were a few moments like that in this book. That one like the we are all children of the same mother. Should one bleed, then all the children must bleed was like, oh okay, I just got thrown some truth by sylvester barney. Um, it's really powerful. I was actually asking blah, blah, blah. I was going to ask if I could read one more quote for me from your book, if that's okay um, that's perfectly fine with me it is without context plagiarism
Speaker 2:I was highlighting the shit out of this book as I was reading. I just want to give reader or listeners, if they haven't read the book yet, a sense of just how beautiful your writing is. So there's just this moment. Not even going to say who it is, because that would ruin it. Lost in the sea, I was a small piece of the world being swallowed by the universe. I watched the stars and the blackness of the sky surround me, the water enveloped me and the currents tossed me about. It was as calming as it was frightening, not knowing up from down. Sylvester, do you do?
Speaker 3:mushrooms I did once. It was not a good experience, really, I did not like it. Well, I just like, uh, my mushroom story is, I was in college and then, like I had like three friends they were all gingers, like they all had red hair, but they were like, oh, we're gonna do mushrooms and I was like, oh, that's cool. And they're like, here you have one. And like I was talking to this girl and then it kicked in and I turned and I went to sit on the couch because I felt like my legs weren't moving and then this guy, or, or dude, he was just watching basketball and he turned around and he smiled and I was like you, devil, and I just that was. That was the mindset for the rest of the night. I was like he is the devil, he has horns and my friends were like you need to call him but maybe he was yeah, yeah, that's possible, that's possible.
Speaker 3:My friends also turned into lizards.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I never that was a strong mushroom, yeah it sounds like maybe you should have cut that in half yeah, well, you never know if you're eating just the mushroom, right.
Speaker 2:So I like the chocolate because I'm like I'm getting 0.5 of a gram right now. Exactly, that's terrifying, um, but I think you're saying that because that does feel like the kind of moment when you're on mushrooms when you wrote that, and there's a lot of moments like this where it's like again mother earth being this other major character in the book where terrible things are happening. Um, people are caught up in really difficult and impossible situations to figure out, like what quote-unquote right is. They're figuring out how to survive. But even in that there's this like calm.
Speaker 2:It was calming as it was frightening, not knowing up from down, and it just there are like these moments of breath in your book I don't know how else to describe it that just felt really beautiful and were a reminder that even in the trash fire of our current society, like these, opportunities are still available to us to just float on the verge of potential death. Here this person is seeing the beauty of the universe. It's wild to me. So I feel like what you'd wrote is something that I can't articulate, why I love it so much and I'm just trying really hard to find words for it, sylvester.
Speaker 3:So don't mind me while I fangirl over here. No, that for it, sylvester, so don't mind me while I fangirl over here. No, no, that's, that's amazing. I love the fact that it resonated with you like that and that you, you saw all these different integral parts of it. That's, that's awesome yeah, thank you that means a lot.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm thank you. It's, I think it's like a heart level, maybe that's what it is. There's like a heart, soul level where words I mean you did it with words I can't because I don't have that skill, so we'll leave it there yeah, leah, instead uses clay, yeah, and paint and makes dogs oh, I can't wait to make you your crown.
Speaker 3:Oh, sylvester, yes that looked awesome, like I. I was not gonna. I was like I going to make this crown, it's going to be amazing, and then, like for a few months into it, I was just like I haven't done anything but make an idea. Yeah, so yeah, you're definitely better, you're definitely better suited for this than I am All right.
Speaker 2:We all have our own moments of expression. It's also when I was making the crown for Lori Calcaterra, for those who need context expression. It's also when I was making the crown for laurie calcaterra, for those who need context I. I decided that I needed to make actual zombie wean crowns, and laurie was the first queen of zombie wean, so I made hers and then I offered to make you one, um, and you said no originally, but I've you know now we're gonna make one, which is exciting for you because you had your own ideas. Um, but I was laughing as I was making it the whole time, like, like, this is so disgusting and I'm just like laughing.
Speaker 2:And then I would show it to people and they'd be like that is really disturbing, and so I kind of wondered if that was any. If I'm just a weirdo, I'm like this is so gross.
Speaker 1:Your mom and dad did not enjoy it no.
Speaker 3:Oh, they did it. Oh no crown.
Speaker 2:It's supposed to be disgusting. Um, let's talk about the creative process for your for this book. You said you had to do a lot of research on pirates. You did some research on the haitian revolution. What other like? Were you intentionally doing research for this book, or was it more about pulling together things you had learned about the transatlantic slave trade, the revolution?
Speaker 3:I think it was I think it was more pulling together things that I've learned, like um, I researched like terminology and things. The most deep dive research I've ever done writing is probably with um, camp linear, lamp linear. I did a lot of research for that um, but for dead soil is more just to make sure I had like the years right and the tone and the wording and like I had to figure out what would they call this or what did they do for their hair back then and things like that. I those I dived into to research and for for the Haitian revolution, I I looked into it to for character names and to make sure that I was doing things correctly yeah, uh, how about like um sea shanty playlists?
Speaker 3:ah, I have. I had the um dead soil playlist and it's not all sea shanties. I did listen to Nickelback's sea shanties. I'm a big Nickelback fan. I love Nickelback.
Speaker 1:So Nickelback has sea shanties.
Speaker 3:They have won a rock star. I feel like this was pandemic times as well. Weird things happen.
Speaker 1:I might listen to Nickelback now.
Speaker 3:It's a big shanty of rock star.
Speaker 2:Nickelback is the kind of band that I just love to hate, even though I don't have a good reason.
Speaker 3:So I appreciate and I know.
Speaker 2:I'm very hated by a lot of people, so I love that you're standing 10 toes down right now. I mean, like I love Nickelback oh yes, I definitely support Nickelback.
Speaker 3:Everybody hates them, but I'm like.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure you all know this is how you remind me pretty sure everybody's something so your hate ain't that deep.
Speaker 2:I've owned a nickelback album or two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I'm saying, I feel like.
Speaker 2:It's like a love to hate, but I don't have a good reason. It was like the same with taylor swift, when I realized I'd just been brainwashed into hating her and I actually knew nothing about her. It was just the media telling me I shouldn't like this person.
Speaker 3:So true time to get back to nickelback like when I learned more about them, it was kind of amazing because, like they had I guess they had like a, two albums before then and it wasn't going well and, um, basically, their, the studio that they had or or their record label that they had, was like, if this is blow up, we can't afford to have you guys, we're just gonna have to like drop everything. So chad I think that's his name he sat down and he studied all the songs that were number one for that year and then he created this is how you remind wow, and I don't know if he keeps that formula to keep on going. I remember one time I was in college and this one girl she was just like mid-back is terrible because all their songs sound the same. They there's this mash-up of both of them just to show. I was like I was shocked because I found that mash-up like a year ago and I thought it was just.
Speaker 2:I was just like this is amazing.
Speaker 3:I didn't know it was uh, it was a nickelback hater that did it to show you that the songs were the? Same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're just like this is fire.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like this is amazing. I can't believe they did this.
Speaker 2:It just shows it's a subjective thing, art yeah.
Speaker 3:It definitely is.
Speaker 2:But now I feel proud, like most of the time, like don't remind anybody, they're from Canada because they're just like. I hate Nickel Nickelback. But now I can be like Sylvester yeah, they're. Canadian.
Speaker 1:I love, I love bragging about Canadian stars uh, did you find yourself reflecting on your own identity and experiences when you wrote the story? I?
Speaker 3:think, uh, I think most definitely, I, I definitely reflected on my experience as just being a black man in america and, um, kind of like dipped into like my anger and my distrust of like the system and and just the the sadness of it all, because it is is very sad to look back on black history and then to know that, like black history is being kind of like erased from school and we barely learned anything about it anyway is is, uh is a sad thing but it's um, yeah, I, I definitely put myself into it, like for emotional aspects to just I.
Speaker 3:I had two different mindsets for one for kofi and one for daioh, and they both branch off from things that's your, you've thought about in, like black history, like dial is very. She doesn't understand how there could be slaves. She's like I would rather be dead or I would kill my master and things like that. So she doesn't understand the aspect of why there are. There are slaves and there are people in the black community.
Speaker 3:That was just like oh, that can happen to me, and like there's there's deeper things to it, like I feel like when she, when she meets a slave and she realizes, or an enslaved, she realizes that it's not just you, it's your husbands or it's your kids, it's your family, it's not just you. And I feel like Dayo realizes that they're not complacent, they're angry and they lash out in their own ways and they're always thinking about bleeding, they're always thinking about escaping. So I feel like that changed her mind and I wanted to tackle that because I feel like that's an an aspect that, since modern black America is so kind of separated from slavery that that pops in their heads every now and then it's like, oh well, that would never happen you don't know what will happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I understand that feeling as well, like I remember learning about um slavery, and in school as as a wee young person, it's like well, why don't, why don't they just rise up?
Speaker 2:there's more of them than there are of the yeah of the slave owners like but it's just not that simple and also we didn't learn about all the um attempted revolts like, uh, the one that you share this about in montserrat, is that? Is that correct?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, yeah, um, yeah, they didn't. They never really talked about the revolts. Like I think the haitian revolt is just like the most I learned about it. And then, like, depending where you are in America, they teach history so differently. Like when I came down South, my wife and her friends were telling me that it's fought as the war of the North aggression or something like that.
Speaker 3:I was just like yeah, I was just like okay, that's, that's weird. It was like it feels like, feels like uh like if a super villain was teaching a class.
Speaker 1:Like you know, this is wrong the north had some big feelings and then they picked a fight.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they picked a fight with us and we just wanted to be free and I was like I really don't feel like that's what happened, yeah well, the version I learned was also a lie, which was like lincoln's entire purpose for the war was to to free.
Speaker 2:The version I learned was also a lie, which was like lincoln's entire purpose for the war was to to free the enslaved people, which was also not all the case, right like there. Yeah, he was pictured as a white savior not. That's not what happened.
Speaker 3:So it's crazy. When you grow up and you actually like to learn things, you read books and you're just kind of like why were you grading me on these lies? I don don't understand why I had to go through this whole situation. You could have just told me you're watching me until my mom picks me up.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, they wanted you to learn the lies.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask you, Sylvester, what does it feel like to write a book that I think would probably be banned by Florida? Like seriously, your book has all of the ingredients, Not available in Florida. Yeah, like seriously all of the ingredients available in florida. Yeah, I feel like it's the kind of book that they would ban because it's too real.
Speaker 1:They roll it right off the back of the the shipping truck right into the bonfire florida is becoming a really scary place.
Speaker 3:I don't know what's going on with them. Like, if it wasn't for, uh, disney world and yeah, pretty much disney world I'd probably just write off.
Speaker 2:But you can go to Disneyland. It's just far away.
Speaker 3:I tell my wife that all the time, but apparently there's a difference. I don't understand it. I've never been to either of them, so she's just like it's not the same has she been to both of them. No but, she's out of it that is not the same we have. We have to go to disney world I think that's fair.
Speaker 2:I've heard this before too.
Speaker 1:I don't know why, um, but I've also been told that disney world's better I've also never been to either of them, yeah, but I have been to six out on it like oh, sixags is good.
Speaker 3:I just I had a thought like probably a month ago, and I was just like, is Bugs Bunny still at Six Flags? And apparently I guess they're not. I guess Warner Brothers and Six Flags broke up at some point, I don't know I haven't been there for a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did learn recently that the sixth flag at Six Flags is the Confederate flag.
Speaker 2:Are you serious?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it started in Texas so they had flags of things there. Wow, Citation needed. I did not know that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got to Google the fact, check us listeners, sounds true I did not know that Sounds true, so now it us listeners.
Speaker 1:But sounds true, I did not know. Yeah, sounds true so now it's fact.
Speaker 3:That's how podcasts work um I saw bugs, bunny and daffy duck beat up a six flag worker once, like I was waiting in line for I think it was like the superman rock, something like that. I was waiting in line and I see the Six Flags worker. He's got a bag of ice and then, like Bugs, walks up to him and then they're just kind of like arguing and then, like Daphne, slaps the bag of ice out of his hand. I looked at my sister and said do you see?
Speaker 1:this that's worth the ticket price. We're not to distract from this talk about six flags, but but were the uh? Were there moments in this book, and uh, and also camp lanier, that were, uh, emotionally challenging? And uh, how did you care for yourself while creating this story? Um I took breaks.
Speaker 3:Definitely with campanile.
Speaker 3:Campanile, I was really emotional because I I'm I'm not like, uh, I don't retain information like reading it, so I have to like I watch youtube videos and listen to podcasts and yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's just, it's just kind of hard like sitting down and hearing what happened to oscarville and hearing how, like the the biggest thing that I learned from it that shocked me was, um, but I shouldn't have been shocked, but they forced them off the land and then they forced them I think it was the chattahoochee or it was a river and you know a lot of black people they couldn't swim, and then they were just like you know, uh, then lot of black people, they couldn't swim, and then they're just like you know, then drown. Basically, they just forced them through the river to get them to the other side and a lot of people did drown and a lot of families were broken up. So like, yeah, sitting down, and when you really get into the stories and the personal stories of families and individuals that have lived all this, it is, it's hard. So, you know, I'll just I'll take a break if it's getting too hard or I'll just I'll just use that if I'm getting like angry or sad and stuff.
Speaker 1:I'll just, I'll just put it into the book I remember there was one time and I don't remember where you, where you said this, but I, I feel like, I feel like we were checking in on you about something and, um, or maybe you just made a post on social media, I don't remember. But he said I, I really thought I'd like writing pirate stories, but I don't think I like writing pirate stories yeah, I didn't like I the concept, the idea it was.
Speaker 3:So it was fun to be, but when I don't, I don't like like research, I'm not a research person, I'm not a fan of it. Um, and my wife she's a history major, so she's better at all that she finds all that fascinating. But if I'm not watching it I don't find it fascinating. If I'm like reading it in a book, I'm just kind of like, no, so that's uh, audiobooks would be better.
Speaker 3:And then then it's like then I had that editor who's like very he's I wouldn't say he's a terrible editor, he's a terrible editor for me and he was just like very detailed and very historical about things and that just kind of made me fall out of love with it. So I was just kind of like, yeah, pirates are fun, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna venture into this anymore. It was yeah, so it it does kind of suck, because I did have like a grand scheme idea for what deadil was supposed to be and how everything was supposed to end. But yeah, it kind of had a bad taste. I'm going back to the modern day zombies.
Speaker 2:Do you think you might return to it for a sequel, because there's definitely room. You leave it in a good place, but there could be more. I was excited about that, selfishly.
Speaker 3:I think I would. Um, I don't know, um, I don't know if the publisher ever would want to do that. I don't even know if I'm, like, ready to do it right now, but if I could, just I don't know if it'd be a book or a short story, but if I could finish it the way that I want to finish it, then yeah, definitely, I think it would be nice, because I had a whole full circle idea of how I wanted to end it oh see, I need that.
Speaker 2:I wish I could personally finance that. I'd be like, yes, I need to know, um, what that is. Maybe, maybe I'll just get lucky. If you, if you choose never to do it, like a year from now, can you just tell me?
Speaker 1:then I'll be satisfied, yeah this idea is like you know this idea of knowing where your story is going and knowing what the end is is a foreign concept to me. I I wonder what that's like.
Speaker 3:Oh, you know you don't um, you don't have like the overall ending, just uh uh no dance, pantsing it over here oh, like our pantsing is fine.
Speaker 3:That was my whole beginning of my career. I was just like I'm pantsing and I loved it and I've supported it. And then like I read, like save the cat. I read it probably like four or five times because I was just like I do not get this. And then when I got it I was just like, oh, this is my year, so I I like plotting now, mostly because it's just kind of like in my head. When I saw plotters I thought it was like too much because they have like index cards and push pins and I was like, yeah, you could be right. And then basically what I do is just like I open up a word document, I have like the template and I just kind of it's basically summarizing each chapter and it just makes it a lot easier in my head so I can hit all the key points that I want to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I probably don't plot as detailed as everybody else, but yeah, what I do now seems to work for me, so I'm sticking with it I started off plotting, but now nothing that I plotted applies anymore nothing makes it to the story like sometimes that happens like sometimes you're just like writing and like, uh, even on a short story I had it like plotted out and I was just writing and I was like, oh wait, I was supposed to do this and I was like, well, I guess that's not gonna happen because I'm not I'm not deleting all this I think it's dangerous to get locked into an idea too like that, where like oh yeah like you know where it has to go and then sometimes you force it to go there, but, like, having some amount of pantsing is necessary because you have to know when you're like, yeah, all that stuff that I planned, I need to delete that because it does not apply yeah, yeah, like if, if I stayed locked in to like my initial ideas, like katherine would have been dead.
Speaker 3:So it's a good thing I can like, because, uh, my initial idea was like, oh, I was supposed to be like this whole. Um, I don't know, it was like my first book, so I thought it would be nice to build up this character and then just kind of flip it and then it'd be sue who's there. But then a good thing I didn't do that, because nobody seems to like sue.
Speaker 2:So we love to hate. That's all um. Speaking more of just your writing career in general, what would you say like the biggest highs and lows of your last year If you're going to reflect on 2024.?
Speaker 3:Becoming the zombie king was a definite high point for me. I definitely love that. That's the best answer Because, yeah, because, like I showed up and I was just like I showed up and I was like I'm just going to have fun because, like, like I said, I don't really feel like I'm articulated as smart as most people, so I like, when everybody is the answer, I was just like, oh, wow, they really thought about it. I was just like, ooh, okay, so like winning was pretty amazing too. And then like the, the what do you call it? The reception that camp linear had the, the amount of people that really liked it and really got it. It had a ton of reviews. I think it's it's my most reviewed book, it's probably my most successful book.
Speaker 3:So to see that happen, that was that was pretty crazy. Crazy because, like you get to, sometimes you get to a point where you're just kind of like, am I really doing this? Is this really gonna be something that I can do? And I can like justify keeping going and, um, sometimes I feel like I can't. And then sometimes I'll have like really good days and I'll be like, yeah, I'm gonna do this forever and I mean it's not really like costing too much besides like time. But I try and I try and like I take days off so like when I'm off on fridays and saturdays I don't do anything book related. I try not to do like podcasts or anything related because I'm trying to just be with the family and I'm I'm lucky that I get to work from home because, you know, basically my boss pays me to write now.
Speaker 1:So he doesn't know that we won't tell it's OK.
Speaker 2:Sometimes in meetings. If we have meetings in my work that are like off camera, it's uh staff meetings or whatever, and that's what I'm usually cooking or making art, which, if they ever asked me, I pay better attention because I have adhd.
Speaker 3:I need to do something, I'm over here making my zombie crown, so I love working from every every time we a meeting, I go right to my like supervisor. Do I have to do this Like, yes, I'll try.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know, I do my best brainstorming and writing while I'm driving a dump truck, so I get that. Yeah, it's just not very safe. Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:You have your own?
Speaker 3:No, not at all You're dangerous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have your own. Not at all you're dangerous. Um, you have your own website, sylvesterbarzicom right, it's exactly your name, which is perfect, and um, you're able to actually, people are actually able to buy your books directly from you, versus just going to amazon. Um, you don't have to say anything about amazon, I'll do it. Amazon is evil. Go to sylvester Barsey's website. I'm curious about why you what you think about buying direct from the author and what difference does that make for you?
Speaker 3:I think it makes a big difference. I feel like if an author has a way to get you to product directly, you should definitely support that way, because it just gives more to profit to the author, should definitely support that way, because it just gives more to profit to the author. Like, um, you're not really making that much when you're selling through amazon and uh, yeah, that's, that's basically. It is just, it's just an easier way to support the author and to and you get paid faster too. Because, like, that was the number one thing that when I I decided to go direct and it just I got paid like the next day.
Speaker 3:Someone bought a book, I got paid like the next day and I was like, wow, or, if they pay through paypal, I get it paid like right then and there, versus waiting two months, like you had a really good month and now you gotta wait two months and your bills don't wait too much. So so it's gotta yeah, it's, it's crazy. So I love being direct. I've. When I first started, I was um exclusive with amazon and then I went direct, but I didn't know much about it and I wasn't really good at it, and now, now I think I'm just gonna, I'm gonna be direct um, with all my books, except for um. Me and my wife have like a romance series that we're supposed to come out with, because I feel like those do well, yeah um, yeah, so buy.
Speaker 2:Buy direct review on amazon yeah, and do um unboxing videos. I love those Because the way you package your books it's beautiful. That's part of the fun is getting a packaged book.
Speaker 1:I remember the first one that we got and it was wrapped in caution tape and all kinds of stuff and I just thought we were just going to get a book, yeah.
Speaker 2:I had a handwritten note from Sylvester, before you even knew us, that implied I wouldn't survive the Planet Dead apocalypse. Thanks for that. That's pretty great.
Speaker 1:What do you wish someone had told you about self publishing when you first got started?
Speaker 3:I don't know, probably to not really concern yourself with what everybody else is doing or everybody else's success. You really just need to focus on you, because everybody has their own path. It happens in their own time. Like I've been writing since I've been writing forever, but I've been publishing since like 2017. And I've seen people who are like blown up, like there's, like the year I started, two other authors started and they've had massive success because they write faster than me and because they really do so.
Speaker 3:um, it's hard to believe that somebody writes faster than you oh yeah, there's like um, because when I first started it was um, what was it? Rapid release. So rapid release was um, big for indies, and basically it's like some people write all these books and then they'll release it every two years or not every two years, every two months that's not rapid, but um, so they would release it every two months. And then some people would, um, you know, just write really fast and release it every two months. And I come from the the apocalypse. The apocalyptic genre was series based, so like you'll find things like um, uh, zombie fallout, I think that's like 15 or 16 books, yeah, yeah, so, um, that's that's where I was coming from. So I saw all these people I started with and they were like book five is coming out on Friday.
Speaker 1:And I said I hope I don't. And meanwhile they say things like you won't see success until you've written your 12th book in the series.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they'll say things like that and like, um, I feel like it's good to take advice and to learn things, but I don't feel like it's good to just, um, get wrapped up in what someone else's success is doing, because it still is your own joy. Yeah, like If I was 100% worried about how these people were succeeding, it would have took away from other things that I was doing. It would have took away from trying to do a podcast with Dwight, or it would have took away from doing young adult and things like that. I have my own process and my own path and I feel like that's the number one thing that kind of hurts writers is they get lost in this. Well, it's happening for them. Why is it not happening? I think you can take the aspect of things that they're doing, like, if you see them doing certain things, you can implement them and do them for yourself, but don't just sit there and dwell on the fact that someone's succeeding and you're not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's really wise, because there's so many people that'll tell you, do this and don't do this, or if you're writing in this genre, that you'll never sell anything. And you have to write something that has a modern, magical realness, urban, vampire, young adult, or else you won't sell a single book and what you have is you have like a thousand authors selling the same vampire romance book. That's like the song of blank and blank. It's like how do you expect to stand out in that crowd? It's like sure, it's popular, but they already found the popular book. You got to write your own thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they should just be reading dead soil yeah yeah, there's.
Speaker 3:there's always people that like make umbrella statements or just like um put down a whole genre, like there's um. A few years ago there was like an issue with the apocalyptic genre and just like the zombie apocalypse. So there's like ems and there's like a meteor hit the earth and stuff. And then they're like zombies don't sell, right, you should do this. Emps is what's selling it. I was just like I can't do that, like I need I need a monster or something. Like to just be like straight forward. I don't. I don't take too much enjoyment from that, so like to hear them say that. I was like, ah, and then I know it's not true, because if zombies were dead, there wouldn't be like 15 spinoffs of the Walking Dead. Yeah, if zombies were dead and gone, there wouldn't be all this zombie content. And it's not that zombies aren't selling, it's just you haven't found the people that you're looking for, right, like you just haven't found your, your people.
Speaker 2:and when you do, you'll be fine we're so sure, glad we found you because it's like you're out there, other great zombie authors are out there. We had no idea when we first started this podcast and, um, I'm just glad we're. I'm not gonna name some names, I was about to trash talk some mainstream zombie authors. I won't do that. I'm just glad that, like in this last year, I've read your book um the dead or dead soil, the dead weight, by joe salazar. Martha's notebook by kurt folster, like all um indie authors or small publisher authors that have such a high caliber of work in the zombie genre, and we've all found and support each other and I think that's really cool yeah so, and everyone's found like their own way to tell that story too yeah, I get so often like when we do tell people that we have a podcast sylvester, they kind of look at us weird about the zombie part.
Speaker 2:I'm like I don't really read that.
Speaker 1:I'm like, well, just start with like this book or that book, because it's so much more than monsters yeah, and now we we have another book to add to that, which is historical regency era pirate, golden age zombie would you like to have your heart ripped out over and over again, while questioning the very roots of our society and being highly entertained and not knowing what's going to happen next?
Speaker 3:read dead soil yeah, no, like when I saw um, the zombie book club podcast, when I first saw it, I was like this is amazing and you know, because like there's not that, I don't feel like there's a lot of people that focus on the zombie genre as a whole, so I thought it was really cool and, yeah, I, I found a lot of authors because of you guys. So you guys are doing great work. Yeah, so we're gonna keep doing. Keep it up.
Speaker 2:I think you guys are doing great all I gotta say is you better be back for zombie ween 2025, ready to defend the crown oh yeah, I have to defend my crown. I wonder who's gonna try and take it I know laura will be back trying to take it. Yeah, she'll want a second crown, yeah you do have to go head to head one more time show down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm ready for it I'm hoping that we get enough zombie wings that we can have, like a zombie wing, all-stars yeah, the clash of the royals yes, the all-stars gets a scepter yeah, um, I have to ask you this question before we finish, um, which is gonna sound sort of out of nowhere, but I I gotta ask it. If you could have a conversation with your ancestors about dead soil, what do you think they would say to you about your book?
Speaker 3:oh, I can talk to my ancestors. Um, I don't know, I feel like they would. I feel like they would be proud of the fact that I'm able to even tell this story and that I'm able to weave in history, and I feel like. I feel like they'd be entertained. I feel like it's a revenge story I feel like there's.
Speaker 3:I'm big on revenge and justice and so like with um camp lanier, that was big for me. So I feel like seeing just a little revenge and seeing um the what how do you say that? Comeuppance or something? Yeah of the people? Yeah, would, um would be something that they would enjoy, but I think just the aspect of me writing and being able to chase my dreams would be the focal point of our conversation that's really beautiful.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they're very proud of you yeah, yeah you know, people believe in if the roles were reversed. I was talking to my ancestors about a book.
Speaker 2:They'd be like that's nice, good for you you spent your time reading people are still reading in the future, huh no um last question what's next for you and where can people find you?
Speaker 3:um, what is next for me? Uh, actually, this year I'm 100 trying to focus on the business aspect. I'm trying to make like, I'm trying to put all my books in every format. So I want to get audio books and hard covers. I want to just do everything. So, basically, what's next for me is, yeah, audio books, world domination. That's what's next.
Speaker 1:I'll buy every single one. I'll give you your jumpstart in the sales area, yeah, and people can reach me.
Speaker 3:I'm pretty much on like every social media platform now. Because I got blue sky, because everybody was like, oh, I'm leaving twitter and uh, and I got um lemon eight. Oh, because I guess tiktok was. But yeah, tiktok was supposed to go away and they're owned by the same people, so interesting it's. Basically, if pinterest and instagram had a big, that was, that's pretty much it. Your feed looks like pinterest and your content looks like instagram. So, um, yeah, anyway, on all those it's at sylvester barson because, you know, keep it's not as creative as everybody else yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you're a good marketer because your name is all you need. Um, yeah, go go buy dead soil. If you haven't yet, you will not regret it. You can also go back and listen to episodes 66 and 67, which is the 2024 zombie ween game show, so that you can see how sylvester snatched the crown. Uh, laurie, almost got it, but you just went in there.
Speaker 1:Sylvester, my crown, yeah, there was a moment where I definitely think yeah I.
Speaker 3:I think it was the sloppy joe kathryn said. I feel like that's, that's what solidified us.
Speaker 2:I think it was too, but your motivational speech was wonderful and unexpected also it wasn't plagiarized from lord of the rings yeah, laurie I
Speaker 3:was sitting there. I was just like I've heard this before, but yeah, that was awesome. I can't wait to do it again.
Speaker 2:That was awesome yeah, well, we will definitely have you back whenever you want to come on the show. Sylvester, it's always a pleasure. Thanks for being out there doing your thing and, um, thanks for being our first zombie ween king, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me can't wait to, like you know, stunt on my subjects wow, I feel like I just fangirled all over the place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I also fangirled all over the place yeah um, and I did a lot better than I thought I was going to do, considering my energy levels today yeah, dan, you're still hung over from new year's day two of new year's hangover yeah sylvester, you were very patient with us, trust me, when you were listening to those listeners.
Speaker 2:You're missing so many fuck-ups on my part and dan's part. Sylvester was perfect the whole way through, as always there's so many moments where I'm like what yeah? I think that's probably the weirdest thing. If you're ever a guest on our show, like you hear the polished edited product from Dan, you have no idea what absolute dumpster fires we are in real life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's hard to believe, but we actually record five hours of content every podcast, and then we just cut out the best parts and we're left with like an hour.
Speaker 2:oh, that's not true, I lied that's not true, but thank you for joining us on my book club. Thank you, sylvester barzy, for coming on. It's always an incredible pleasure. And please go get dead soil, you will not regret it, yeah dead soil, all the camp lanier, yeah planet dead, dead the briggs boys the briggs boys, uh, the blood one, I think it's called young blood young blood that's definitely right now.
Speaker 1:It's on our shelves, I think it's hiding on the shelf somewhere, um, but yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's really great because, like, I read dead planet, or actually you read it to me, leah, yes, and then you read to me this book, yeah, and it's incredible to see the transformation of the writer over that long period of time between the first book and the most recent book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sylvester came out of the gate with an excellent book in Planet Dead, but you can still see this evolution in their writing. That's really cool, so highly recommend both. I actually read planet dead and then read dead soil, so you can see that bookend of an author.
Speaker 1:Yeah, experience of like the journey of writing and then read all the way to the middle yeah, read them all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I'm planning on doing, if I could just make time to read something that was not zombie related. Um, there's a few books like Camp Linear. I started and haven't had a chance to finish yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I know it's a really good one. I've heard so many great things.
Speaker 1:Leah, did you know that people can find us on the Internet?
Speaker 2:I didn't. Is that how people are hearing us right now?
Speaker 1:They are. They are hearing us that way. But, yeah, you can. You can show us your support if you like to Do. You want to support us? I'd like it if you did, me too. You can support us by leaving a rating or a review on whatever podcast platform you listen to, or all of them. Just go through the list. We have links to all of those things in the link tree down in the description. You can also send us a voicemail up to three minutes at 614-699-0006. You could tell us anything, you could ask us questions, you could tell us your favorite zombie movie, you could pitch your zombie book and you might find yourself on the podcast. Surprise, surprise, you're on the podcast. Uh, surprise, surprise, you're on the podcast. Um, but you can also follow us on instagram at zombie book club podcast. Uh, or you can join the brain munchers collective discord where we talk to people all the time. Um, again, those links are all in the description yeah, come hang out with us in the discord.
Speaker 2:That's the most important one yeah, we've been.
Speaker 1:We've been in the discord like every single day.
Speaker 2:That's great. We're probably going to do more like monthly movies or something like that streaming together. We had a lot of fun with Zombievers, so come join us. We appreciate you. My last request is have you shared this episode with a friend yet I think you should.
Speaker 1:Have you shared it with your grandmother? Perfect audience. Your mother, perfect audience. Grandmother would love this podcast yeah, help us grow.
Speaker 2:Also, please help me peer pressure dan to get stickers on our website so you can put stickers of us we need we need stickers on our website and on that note, may you have a lovely day yeah, have a lovely apocalypse.
Speaker 1:Yes, um, and thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:The end is nigh might be crazy, but the end is nigh.
