Franklin High School English teacher Savannah Jones published her debut novel, Zombie Mom on Nov. 5. The novel follows a mother who is infected by a zombie virus as she tries to find a way to save her children before she turns.  Jones said, “After she turns, it’s kind of a continued journey where these people from the outside come in and they try to save her and her children and it’s like a journey towards a cure.”

Jones said she wanted to create a story that puts a unique twist on the classic horror staple of a zombie apocalypse by telling the story from the perspective of one of the infected rather than those who have escaped infection. “It’s told by the zombie, expressing everything that she’s going through and the way that it feels and the experiences of being a zombie” Jones said.

Zombie Mom was originally a project that Jones began in her master’s in creative writing program, where she and her fellow graduate students were given a specific genre to study.

The genre Jones and her classmates were given was horror: “We learned all about horror” Jones said.

The horror at the center of Zombie Mom is the inability of the main character to communicate her consciousness and humanity after being infected and turned into “a dangerous thing that [other people] objectified and turned into something that just was disposable” Jones said.

“The process of writing the book was long and labor-intensive,” Jones said. She edited her own first drafts and asked others to read and edit for her as she fine-tuned the novel. After putting the novel aside, unfinished, for seven years, Jones brought Zombie Mom back from the dead last summer, when she was able to create the final draft and submit the book for publication.

Jones said the work of completing a novel can be stressful. “[The writing process] was very anxiety-inducing,” Jones said. “The biggest feeling I had was anxiety.”

Jones said that based on her experiences writing Zombie Mom, she has advice for aspiring writers. “Even if it is no good in your eyes, or it needs more, or you don’t think that it has enough, … The biggest thing is getting it down on paper,” Jones said. “Just write.”

Jones, ever the English teacher, added that she advises writers to always use an outline. “An outline will help guide your writing and make sure that you have everything down that you want to write.”