Contemporary Authors

• Vengeance Bound Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2013
• Promise of Shadows Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2014
• Dread Nation Balzer + Bray (New York, NY), 2018
• Scream Site Soho Press (North Mankato, MN), 2018
• Evie Allen vs. the Quiz Bowl Zombies Stone Arch Books (North Mankato, MN), 2018
• Jeff Allen vs. the Time Suck Vampire Stone Arch Books (North Mankato, MN), 2018
• Tiffany Donovan vs. the Cookie Elves of Destruction Stone Arch Books (North Mankato, MN), 2018
• Tiffany Donovan vs. the Shadow Cats Stone Arch Books (North Mankato, MN), 2018
• Zach Lopez vs. the Unicorns of Doom Stone Arch Books (North Mankato, MN), 2018

1. Dread nation https://lccn.loc.gov/2017943393 Ireland, Justina. Dread nation / Justina Ireland ; [edited by] Jordan Brown. 1st edition. New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, 2018. pages cm ISBN: 9780062570604 (hardcover) 2. Evie Allen vs. the quiz bowl zombies https://lccn.loc.gov/2017015335 Ireland, Justina, author. Evie Allen vs. the quiz bowl zombies / by Justina Ireland ; illustrated by Tyler Champion. North Mankato, Minnesota : Stone Arch Books, a Capstone imprint, [2018] 106 pages : illustrations ; 20 cm. PZ7.I6274 Ev 2018 ISBN: 9781496549884 (library binding) 3. Jeff Allen vs. the time suck vampire https://lccn.loc.gov/2017032540 Ireland, Justina, author. Jeff Allen vs. the time suck vampire / by Justina Ireland ; illustrated by Tyler Champion. North Mankato, Minnesota : Stone Arch Books, a Capstone imprint, [2018] 122 pages : illustrations ; 20 cm. PZ7.I6274 Je 2018 ISBN: 9781496549860 (library binding) 4. Promise of shadows https://lccn.loc.gov/2013002959 Ireland, Justina, author. Promise of shadows / Justina Ireland. First Edition. New York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, [2014] 371 pages ; 22 cm PZ7.I6274 Pro 2014 ISBN: 9781442444645 (hardcover) 5. Scream Site https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011924 Ireland, Justina, author. Scream Site / by Justina Ireland. North Mankato, Minnesota : Soho Press, Inc., an imprint of Capstone Editions, [2019] 1 online resource. ISBN: 9781630791032 (reflowable ePub) 6. Scream Site https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004892 Ireland, Justina, author. Scream Site / by Justina Ireland. North Mankato, Minnesota : Soho Press, Inc., an imprint of Capstone Editions, [2019] pages cm. PZ7.I6274 Scr 2018 ISBN: 9781630791025 (hardcover) 7. Tiffany Donovan versus the cookie elves of destruction https://lccn.loc.gov/2017025567 Ireland, Justina, author. Tiffany Donovan versus the cookie elves of destruction / by Justina Ireland. North Mankato, Minnesota : Stone Arch Books, a Capstone imprint, [2018] pages cm. PZ7.I6274 Ti 2018 ISBN: 9781496549877 (library binding) 8. Vengeance bound https://lccn.loc.gov/2012006779 Ireland, Justina. Vengeance bound / Justina Ireland. 1st ed. New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, c2013. 310 p. ; 22 cm. PZ7.I6274 Ven 2013 ISBN: 9781442444621 (hardcover) 9. Zach Lopez vs. the shadow cats https://lccn.loc.gov/2018016939 Ireland, Justina, author. Zach Lopez vs. the shadow cats / by Justina Ireland ; illustrated by Tyler Champion. North Mankato, Minnesota : Stone Arch Books, [2018]©2019 1 online resource. ISBN: 9781496565266 (eBook PDF) 10. Zach Lopez vs. the shadow cats https://lccn.loc.gov/2018013827 Ireland, Justina, author. Zach Lopez vs. the shadow cats / by Justina Ireland ; illustrated by Tyler Champion. North Mankato, Minnesota : Stone Arch Books, [2018]©2019 pages cm. PZ7.I6274 Zab 2018 ISBN: 9781496565242 (hardcover) 11. Zach Lopez vs. the unicorns of doom https://lccn.loc.gov/2017025568 Ireland, Justina, author. Zach Lopez vs. the unicorns of doom / by Justina Ireland. North Mankato, Minnesota : Stone Arch Books, a Capstone imprint, [2018] pages cm. PZ7.I6274 Zac 2018 ISBN: 9781496549891 (library bindin

• Justine Ireland - http://justinaireland.com/biography/

  Justina Ireland enjoys dark chocolate, dark humor, and is not too proud to admit that she’s still afraid of the dark. She lives with her husband, kid, and dog in Pennsylvania. She is the author of Vengeance Bound and Promise of Shadows.

• Story Magazine - http://www.storymagazine.org/2015/11/30/fiction-doesnt-need-a-platform-talking-with-the-novelist-justina-ireland/

  Fiction Doesn’t Need a Platform: Talking with the Novelist Justina Ireland

  November 30, 2015 By Keigan Wersler
  Justina_Ireland_Lecture_Photo
  Justina Ireland reading at York College of Pennsylvania in 2015

  On Thursday, September 17, 2015, I met novelist Justina Ireland at lunch with the Story staff and several York College of Pennsylvania students. She was visiting as part of the college’s cultural series of lectures and readings, and she had agreed to do an interview with me after lunch for the Story website. When we arrived at the diner everyone but me ordered, as I’d eaten just before. A few people commented about my lack of sandwich; Justina even made a kind joke about it. I blushed. During lunch, we talked about the publishing market and how it needs to change from what it is today—Justina informing us about widespread lack of diversity and the great work of publishers like Lee & Low. Everyone swapped stories with each other as they ate, and I sat and listened.

  This was my first time meeting a published author, so I felt both nervous and excited meeting Justina. I’m majoring in writing, and spend most of my time reading, writing, or watching Japanese anime. An introvert, I’m a shy person that only talks openly to people with whom I’m already close. But chatting with Justina after lunch, my worries disappeared. She was comfortable to be around, funny and down to earth. I got the sense that she was talking to me, like we were having a normal conversation, not just the interview she’d so kindly agreed to.

  *

  Justina said before discovering her passion for writing she worked at a less-than-exciting day job that happened to have easy computer access, and she found herself using it more and more often to work on writing. Today Justina is a novelist of YA literature, also writing for a burgeoning YA nonfiction market. She has published two books, Promise of Shadows and Vengeance Bound, the second of which I read before meeting her. Vengeance Bound is a story about a girl named Cory Graff who has two Greek Furies trapped in her mind; by day, Cory tries to maintain a normal high school life, while also delivering justice to the Furies’ targets and searching for the man who ruined her life. I was an instant fan.

  Part of the reason she uses strong female protagonists, Justina said, was her reaction to the novel Twilight. She didn’t like how the main heroine was being portrayed to young readers, and romance isn’t absolutely necessary for YA fiction, she believes, because there is more to life than that. As a writer, she wants to create strong, relatable female protagonists, because young women need to read about those kinds of characters, not just more copy-cat Bellas.

  Strength seems important to Justina as a novelist and a person. She told me a lot of her inspiration comes from 10 years in the military, where she met a lot of strong men and women. History also inspired her, she said, notably Ida B. Wells, a black journalist and civil rights activist who famously embarked on an anti-lynching campaign throughout America—after which a mob destroyed her newspaper office and threatened to kill her if she ever returned to Memphis.

  One of the reasons Justina says she writes in the YA genre is that she believes it has “no limits on an author’s flexibility”—meaning it allows authors to be more open to innovation while creating otherworldly places, without risk of sounding unrealistic. She thinks that this is one of the best genres for writers and readers alike, because it can speak to everyone, and that both teenagers and adults can relate to the subject matter in YA books, even embrace it. Justina describes young adults as “adults without baggage,” who can enjoy their lives without hesitation. Adults, on the other hand, tend to act with caution because of past experiences.

  *

  Justina is a mother and she works full time, so she carves out time and “makes writing a priority”—writing most often around 4:30 A.M., working for about one-and-a-half hours before her husband and child get up. (Although there are times, she says, when she has to write in the evening.) She finds this method to be therapeutic and productive, allowing her to be alone with her thoughts without getting distracted by daily life.

  Fans of Justina are well aware of her active and popular social media presence, largely on Twitter and Tumblr. But concerning the need for aspiring writers to have an Internet presence, she doesn’t think it’s important. They should focus instead, she says, on finding an agent and getting their writing published; the online presence will come naturally later. She says (refreshingly) that “fiction doesn’t need a platform.” It needs to be able to stand on its own to be successful. No amount of hype, she says, can change how awful a book is.

  My last question for Justina is one I ask myself after I finish a book that compels me to spend hours surfing the Internet for what comes next, those novels that seem to beckon a sequel, a future life. So when I asked her if there was a possibility of a sequel to Vengeance Bound, I was shocked she said there wasn’t one, that she likes the concept of open endings for novels, because a character’s life doesn’t end after the last page. Not all YA books need to have closed endings, she says, all the loose ends wrapped up in a long series. Open endings are more relatable to readers, she adds, as there’s always more to a person’s story.

  *

  That evening on campus Justina gave a reading from her work, which I enjoyed more than any other I’ve attended as a student, because I felt that we all somehow got to know her on a personal level: she filled the room with her voice and empathy and laughter. She connected with the audience, drew us in with her stories. She read an excerpt from her other novel, Promise of Shadows, and a new essay, “Me, Some Random Guy, and The Army of Darkness,” about her first sexual experience. I bought Promise of Shadows after the lecture, and asked her to sign it. Thanking me for doing the interview earlier, she told me to go eat a sandwich.

  storymagazine_icon-01

  Keigan Wersler is a senior at York College of Pennsylvania, majoring in Professional Writing and minoring and Biology and Creative Writing. She is currently an intern for Story and still likes watching Japanese anime.

  Filed Under: Interviews, Story Online Tagged With: Interview, Justina Ireland, Science fiction, Vengeance Bound, Young Adult, Young Writer
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  Story #2. The Monsters issue includes new fiction from Lincoln Michel, Bennett Sims, and Genevieve Valentine; an excerpt from Blake Butler’s monstrous new novel, 300,000,000; essays from Kastalia Medrano, Corrine Lee, Alice Dreger, Stephen T. Asma, Theodora Goss, and Ryan Britt; interviews with artist Wayne White and bioethicist Alice Dreger; poetry from Susan Slaviero and Ruth Foley; a portfolio of hybrid verse guest-edited by Allison Campbell and featuring new work from Timothy Liu, Bianca Stone, Cole Swenson, and many others; and the first installment of our new feature, Raw Materials, an inside look at a story as it’s being created. The Contemporary Classic Reprint this issue is fiction from Dorothy Tse.
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• Vulture - http://www.vulture.com/2018/04/justina-ireland-profile.html

  QUOTE:
  Ireland argues that the industry should publish more books by nonwhite authors, and that white authors should think more carefully about how they represent black and brown people in their books.
  Ireland wanted to be a historian, and at 19, she enlisted in the Army to pay for college, ultimately serving as a linguistics expert specializing in Arabic. It wasn’t until she was married and pregnant, nearly a decade later, that she tried her hand at fiction writing; she wanted her daughter reading books written for kids that looked like her.

  Meet Justina Ireland, YA Twitter’s Leading Warrior

  How the activist and author of Dread Nation became the most controversial figure in young-adult literature, one tweet at a time.
  By Lila Shapiro

  Photography by Krista Schlueter for Vulture
  April 3, 2018 11:02 am

  Photo: Krista Schlueter for Vulture

  This winter, the comment section of an article in the School Library Journal took a surreal turn. The piece was about how children’s publishing was reckoning with its own #MeToo moment, and readers had been using the forum to air complaints of sexual harassment. Amid the charges of lewd remarks and predatory behavior, one user seized the opportunity to rehash an old complaint that felt bizarrely out of place. “I name the center figure of all toxicity in YA who is the source of all of this cancer: Justina Ireland,” Stegosaur wrote. “How many people know this and dare not speak it aloud?”

  Ireland — the author of a middle-grade series, Devil’s Pass, and three young-adult novels including Dread Nation, out this week — knows what people say about her, and why they say it. Over the last several years, Ireland and others in the YA world have been using Twitter to call out what they see as an enduring tradition of racist nonsense in publishing. Ireland, who is black, is one of the most influential of these commentators — and perhaps the most cutting. Her critiques, which take the form of Twitter threads and blog posts, are exasperated, ironic, and funny. She has taken swipes at the white YA superstar John Green (“Can we get a Kickstarter to get John Green some black friends?”), diversity panels at publishing conferences (“‘separate but equal’ conference ghettos”), and even her own shortcomings as an advocate (“I am not always a good ally. I’m terribly ableist and overlook neurodiverse discussions and religious discussions. I’m working on it.”)

  As Ireland has repeatedly taken pains to point out, the world of children’s and young-adult literature is overwhelmingly, disproportionately white. Of some 3,700 books for children or teens that were published last year, just 340 were about children or teens who were black, according to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin. Of those, just 100 were written by black authors. Ireland argues that the industry should publish more books by nonwhite authors, and that white authors should think more carefully about how they represent black and brown people in their books. Some of her peers from marginalized backgrounds have urged “white, straight, able-bodied writers to stay away from writing marginalized voices,” as she noted in one Twitter thread. “Not me,” she added. “I think you can write whatever you want. But that means you’ve got to make sure you don’t fuck it up. If you do, Imma tell you.”

  Ireland says she often feels like she’s “tweeting to herself,” but in recent years, publishers have been paying attention. Most editors I reached out to worried that their corporate bosses would reprimand them for saying anything about Ireland’s brand of Twitter activism on the record, or even anonymously, but there were exceptions. One senior editor at a “big five” publishing house told me that Ireland’s bluntness was the key to her influence. “When these discussions first started, I have to admit I was a little shocked by the way people were criticizing each other on Twitter, but then I paused and I realized we wouldn’t even be having these conversations if people weren’t being harsh,” she told me. She explained that the kid-lit world, unlike its grown-up counterpart, has a long tradition of politeness and congeniality, which she found could sometimes stifle productive criticism. “You need to have people shouting in order to be heard,” she said. “If everyone was just sitting around being nice and sugar-coating their criticism, no one would hear them. Justina makes people pay attention, and there’s value in that.”

  Ireland reckons people really started listening a few days before the election of Donald Trump, when she tweeted out a chapter-by-chapter analysis of an upcoming YA debut, The Continent, calling it “a racist garbage fire.” Her tweets about the book went viral, and a week later, The Continent’s publisher pulled the book for revisions. Alvina Ling, the editor-in-chief of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, told me that this incident, along with the handful of other books that have been pulled after receiving heavy criticism on Twitter, has helped spawn a “culture of fear” among publishers. Ling, who is Taiwanese-American, doesn’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. “I think it will result in better books being published,” she said.

  Hardly anyone in mainstream publishing today would openly disagree with Ireland’s view that the industry needs to step up its commitment to diversity. Still, not everyone appreciates Ireland’s tone or methods, or the broader Twitter culture of which she is a part. Last summer, Vulture published a piece focused on the “toxic” culture of YA Twitter; in our conversation, Ireland told me she felt the movement has been mischaracterized. In other genres, she said, people are having the same “passionate discussions” over representation. “But only in YA is it like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening here! Think of the children!’” she said. In a widely read essay in the New York Review of Books, the acclaimed author Francine Prose likened activists like Ireland both to high-school mean girls and Soviet dictators: “The culture of young adult fiction is partly dedicated to helping young people avoid and resist bullying, yet it is being shaped by online posts whose aggressive, even ferocious, tone could itself be described as online bullying. One is reminded of how, under authoritarian regimes, writers have been censored (and persecuted) for referring, in their work, to the sufferings that their rulers would rather not acknowledge.”

  To Ireland and her allies, the fact that Prose sees them as the bullies is in itself a demonstration of the racial bias that pervades the young-adult literary scene. After Ireland criticized The Continent, death threats and rape threats piled up in her inbox, and a series of one-star reviews began dragging down her Amazon and Goodreads rankings. Someone sent an anonymous email to her editor urging him to drop her. Eventually, she deleted her tweets, as she almost always does.

  While Ireland is probably better known for her tweets than her novels, that may change with the arrival of Dread Nation, which has garnered a handful of positive reviews. Set in the late 1800s, the book conjures an alternate reality in which the Civil War dead have clawed their way out of the mass graves of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, prompting the government to force black and Native children into a never-ending war against the zombie menace. Kirkus lauded it as an “exciting must-read”; School Library Journal called it “a perfect blend of horrors real and imagined.” Ireland’s mother, however, is not among its fans. “She hated it so much,” Ireland told me, “but my mom is a white lady who doesn’t like to talk about racism.”

  Dread Nation’s heroine, Jane, is a mixed-race zombie-slayer whose inability to keep her opinions to herself keeps landing her in trouble. “Here’s a thing about me,” she tells the reader early on, “I ain’t all that good at knowing when to keep my fool mouth shut.” Ireland knows that feeling well. A few weeks ago, on a visit from her home in York, Pennsylvania, Ireland, who is 39, met me at a dive bar on the Upper West Side, her short hair wrapped in a pink bandana, her bright blue cardigan decorated with saucy pins (“Don’t @ me”). In person, she is much warmer than her Twitter presence suggests, with dimples and a throaty laugh. Over a round of IPAs, she described how the mess surrounding The Continent consumed hours she might have spent working on her own fiction. When I asked if she ever regretted her tweets, she nodded. “There is a point every single time where I’m like, I should have sat this one out,” she said. “But the other option is to just sit there and watch the shit pile up and never change. I hope it ultimately makes things better because otherwise …” She reached for her pint and took a long swallow. “Otherwise I’m just going to sit here and drink myself into oblivion.”

  Ireland and her peers are hardly the first to try to change children’s and young-adult publishing. That distinction probably belongs to W.E.B. Du Bois, who, in 1920, published the first magazine for black children, The Brownies’ Book. Its arrival was hailed as a milestone, but just a year later, it folded due to lack of funding. In one way or another, this pattern has repeated itself again and again in the decades since.

  In 1986, the acclaimed black author Walter Dean Myers wrote in the New York Times about the flourishing of books written by black authors in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and the heartbreaking decline that followed. “I actually thought we would revolutionize the industry,” he wrote. “Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. No sooner had all the pieces conducive to the publishing of more books on the black experience come together than they started falling apart.” That year, Ireland was 7, and already well aware of the shortage of books on the black experience. She was living in a trailer park outside San Bernardino, and spent most of her spare time in the stacks at the local library. She never found what she was looking for, though. The librarians always steered her toward books like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, an account of black children dealing with poverty and racism during the Great Depression. Ireland hated it. “Books were my escape from the shittiness,” she said. “The last thing I wanted was to read about kids suffering.” She loved fantasy, horror, and thrillers, but the black characters were always the first to get killed. She felt like those stories were written for someone else. “It’s like when you’re invited to a dinner party, and you’re sitting at the table, but everyone is talking past you,” she said. “I always felt like that when I read.”

  Ireland wanted to be a historian, and at 19, she enlisted in the Army to pay for college, ultimately serving as a linguistics expert specializing in Arabic. It wasn’t until she was married and pregnant, nearly a decade later, that she tried her hand at fiction writing; she wanted her daughter reading books written for kids that looked like her. Her first manuscript, a contemporary fantasy featuring a black protagonist, didn’t sell. This came as a surprise to Ireland’s agent at the time, Caren Johnson. “When I signed Justina, I was looking for main characters that were African-American and Latina,” she told me. “I’d heard from editors that they wanted more main characters who had different experiences to share.” But in the intervening years, the industry had failed to produce a best-selling young-adult genre book featuring a heroine of color. Publishers began to question whether such a book could really succeed. “By the time I went out with Justina’s book, in 2010, no one wanted to take a chance,” Johnson said.

  Most of the editors who read the manuscript told Johnson that they couldn’t “connect” with Ireland’s main character, which Johnson and Ireland both took to mean that they couldn’t relate to a character of color. As the rejection letters piled up, Ireland began working on a similar contemporary fantasy book, this one about a white girl. “I’m not dumb, I understand how the world works,” Ireland said. “I just wanted to get published.” She told me she thought the novel, Vengeance Bound, was “terrible,” but Simon & Schuster bought it at auction within a month of submission.

  Christopher Myers, the son of Walter Dean Myers, and an award-winning author and illustrator in his own right, noted that the industry has always been resistant to change. “There are structures at the center of the publishing industry that make it challenging to bring new voices to the forefront,” he said. “A black editor I once spoke to told me, ‘You would think that this is the most successful industry in the world, with a zero percent failure rate, given the teeth and claws that are used to hold on to the old way of doing things.’” Ling, the Little, Brown editor, pointed out that it’s hard for most new writers to get published, regardless of their race. Still, in a business where more than 80 percent of editors are white, the barriers are higher for writers of color. “Publishing is a passion industry, and as an editor, you’re taught that every book you aquire is ideally a book that you love,” Ling said. “If you’re not used to reading books with characters that are not like yourself, then I do think that it’s legitimate but unfortunate to say, ‘I didn’t connect to this character.’”
  Photo: Krista Schlueter/for Vulture

  Neither Vengeance Bound (published in 2013), nor Ireland’s second book with Simon & Schuster, Promise of Shadows , which came the year after, sold many copies. Ireland began to grow concerned that she might not get another shot with a major house, but in a way, a burden had been lifted: now she could write whatever she wanted, without worrying what the industry gatekeepers would think. She started working on Dread Nation soon after. She already had a few thousand words of the zombie saga written, when, in 2015, she began an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Hamline University. Her critical thesis focused on “microaggressions in children’s literature.” By then, a movement had begun to coalesce on Twitter: Authors of color and their allies were calling for change under hashtags like #weneeddiversebooks and #ownvoices. In response to these demands, publishers put out a call for more “diverse” submissions, and a spike in novels about nonwhite characters followed. But the majority of these books were written by white people. Myers told me the phenomenon reminded him of an old practice he’d heard stories about. “Back in the day, black grandparents would sometimes paint the characters in books brown colors, so that their children could see images that vaguely looked like them. In some ways that is the philosophy of a lot of the publishing industry: If we get enough brown faces we will have solved this problem.”

  If the goal of these ostensibly “diverse” books was to offer nuanced, thoughtful portrayals of marginalized cultures, some of them landed wide of the mark. Keira Drake’s The Continent, for instance — it told the story of a rich white teen who brings peace to a brutal land where dark-skinned natives wantonly slaughter each other. Ireland, like many of her cohorts, berated the text, but she also tried to help white writers like Drake do a better job. She started a database for “sensitivity readers” — writers from marginalized backgrounds who were willing to hire out their consulting services to authors trying to write outside their own experiences. The goal, she wrote at the time, was help authors see “internalized bias and negatively charged language” in their manuscripts during the editing process, rather than after the book was printed. The response was enthusiastic; hundreds of authors took advantage of the service.

  As her Twitter profile grew, Ireland gained a fan in Jordan Brown, a white editor at Balzer + Bray. “For me, a lot of what she was saying was really eye-opening,” he told me. But ultimately, he said, the choice to make an investment in her work was also a business decision. “The bottom line is that it makes good business sense to publish books across genres that represent the lives and experiences of all readers, not just white ones,” he said. In 2016, Ireland sent Brown the manuscript for Dread Nation, and he offered her a two-book deal. He realized that the heroine’s endless battle against the undead of the Civil War was, in part, a metaphor for Ireland’s frustrations with her fight against racism in publishing. “Very little that Justina’s written before can compete with Dread Nation,” Brown said. “She found a way to channel her worldview into a fictional character. Some writers go their entire career without finding that perfect combination.”

  This week, six out of ten of the young-adult best sellers on the New York Times hardcover list are by writers of color, a resounding rebuke to the hoary claim that books by such authors could not sell. This year will also see the publication of five major young-adult fantasy books by black authors, including Ireland’s. By all accounts, this is an all-time high, but Ireland is hardly ready to declare the industry redeemed. The number still represents just a tiny fraction of all the young-adult fantasy titles set to hit bookstores in 2018, and Ireland, like many others, wonders how long this momentum will last. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the resurgence is taking place at this particular moment, with a race-baiting birther in the White House. In his 1986 op-ed, Walter Dean Myers predicted that a “round of race riots, or the next interracial conflict” would prompt a spike of interest in black literature. “It will work,” he wrote, “but it’s a hard price for a transient market.”

  Lately, Ireland has been taking breaks from Twitter to focus on writing the sequel to Dread Nation — and to “cleanse the soul.” She still works full time, a director of logistics and weapon-systems support for the Navy, and this fall she’s starting a Ph.D. in English literature. “Sometimes I feel like a kid-lit’s mule,” she told me. The work of pointing out white people’s blind spots can feel exhausting, thankless, and lonely.

  But she can never stay away from the fray for long. “She’s becoming famous for not being able to keep a hiatus,” her friend and fellow YA author Heidi Heilig told me. “I think there’s this fire in her that won’t let things go if there’s a fight.” In February, when I told her I was planning to publish a story on the revision of The Continent, she announced on Twitter that she was taking time off to avoid the pending Twitter “storm”; a month later, when the Washington Post ran a favorable story on the Continent revision, she couldn’t refrain from returning to express her displeasure. “All of these other books out here and we’re still talking about this mess,” she tweeted. It reminded me of something she’d told me over drinks. In Dread Nation, the zombie threat distracts the nation from its deeper problems, particularly the unresolved conflict over slavery. And in the world of YA publishing, as Ireland sees it, the battles over specific books haven’t yet forced the industry to adequately reckon with its long history of discrimination and bias. “We have the same conversations over and over and over,” she said. “We only deal with the immediate threat.” She drained her pint, and we stood to walk out into the rainy night. “It feels like a zombie sometimes,” she said. “It’s like, I thought I killed you. But here we are again.”
  Related
  Can You Revise a Book to Make It More Woke?

QUOTE:
artful blend of alternate history and horror
Therein lies the power of a well-written zombie story: It can provide an opportunity for society to talk about how our truest selves come out during difficult situations.

Zombies aren't the only monsters here: For Justina Ireland, the dark history of the American Civil War and the fantastical concept of zombies aren't nearly as far apart as most
people think
Justin Barisich
BookPage.
(Apr. 2018): p29. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 BookPage http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
"My brain works in concentric circles, and I always think of zombies as leading to upheaval and change, as signaling the end of an era and the beginning of a new one," Ireland says. "And the Civil War did the same thing historically--derailed everything. The only difference is that you're defending yourself from your neighbor rather than a ravaging horde."
Ireland is speaking from her home in York, Pennsylvania, about an hour from both Gettysburg and the city of Baltimore, where her third novel, an artful blend of alternate history and horror titled Dread Nation, takes place. The Battle of Gettysburg, which resulted in the largest number of casualties in the entire Civil War, "seemed like the perfect terrible moment for things to get even worse," says Ireland. "War is horrible enough because you've just lost someone, but there's a whole new level of trauma when your dead friend is trying to eat your face."
When Dread Nation opens, we meet the smart, fiery, impulsive Jane McKeene, who's been training for years at Miss Preston's School of Combat for Negro Girls. Jane was born the same week that the zombies--known as "shamblers"--first rose from their graves. Since Jane is biracial,
1 of 19 5/15/18, 9:57 PM
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she was sent to combat school as required by the Native and Negro Reeducation Act--in order to "groom the savage" out of her. Though she's one of the top students, Jane isn't content to become a bodyguard for the daughter of a rich, white family.
When Jane and her rival--the demure, rational, beautiful Katherine--are invited to the mayor's house as a reward for their lifesaving zombie-combat heroics, they soon discover that the zombies aren't the only evils they'll have to face down, nor are they the most sinister.
"A good zombie story is never really about the zombies," Ireland says, and while dealing with various hindrances, her characters develop a "consciousness of knowing that they live in a country that doesn't necessarily value them the same way it values other people." Throughout Dread Nation, the author incisively and repeatedly broaches racism, classism, sexism and religion as tools for social control, as well as the politicization of zombies and the use of pseudo-science to try to justify it all. "I've always found it interesting how people can do both good work and terrible work with the same passages of the Bible. And these are still things we do today--we still use religion and science to push our own prejudices and beliefs, to wield ideologies that promote our own personal agendas."
Therein lies the power of a well-written zombie story: It can provide an opportunity for society to talk about how our truest selves come out during difficult situations. "I think that's something a lot of zombie literature gets wrong," Ireland says. "When tilings get bad, we all of a sudden expect people to change drastically from the people who they were. But if they are inherendy selfish and already doing what they can to survive for themselves, then they're only going to cling more tighdy to the old ways of life, rather than letting them go and adopting new ones."
Consider the civil rights movement, post-Civil War Reconstruction or any opportunity for people to make a big change. " [People] want to protect the tilings they like, who they are and their identity," Ireland says. "And I don't think that's ever changed throughout history. They opted for the small changes because they were more comfortable as a society." For many of these same reasons, Ireland found the world of Dread Nation to be a difficult one to explore. "Time travel's not fun for people of color," she says. "It's like asking, 'What terrible era can I go live in?' But real people survived it, and that merits depicting."
Before she'd even begun writing Dread Nation, Ireland's desire to communicate these suppressed stories was confirmed in the most authentic and motivating way possible. During a visit to a predominantly black school, Ireland brought copies of her two previous books, Vengeance Bound, which features a white main character on the cover, and Promise of Shadows. A student noticed that Ireland's book jackets did not feature a person of color and raised her hand to say, "No disrespect, miss, but why'd you write a white girl? I can't find books with people like me in them."
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Ireland was mortified. "I had to go back and do some self-examination," she says. "I want to be able to go to a school and proudly hold up a black girl on the cover and say, 'I wrote this book. I hope you like it because I wrote it for you.' And every time I sit down at the computer to write, I can hear that little girl's voice."
With Dread Nation, Ireland wanted to write the best book she could. She was also thinking of the kind of readers she wanted to invite into her world (which she plans to revisit in a follow-up novel). "I just wanted this book to land in the hands of people who need to see themselves reflected. I wanted to find something that resonates with people and makes them sit up and take notice of a world they hadn't paid attention to before--and that it leaves them feeling refreshed and alive."
INTERVIEW BY JUSTIN BARISICH
DREAD NATION
By Justina Ireland
Balzer + Bray, $17.99, 464 pages ISBN 9780062570604, audio, eBook available Ages 14 and up HORROR
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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Barisich, Justin. "Zombies aren't the only monsters here: For Justina Ireland, the dark history of
the American Civil War and the fantastical concept of zombies aren't nearly as far apart as most people think." BookPage, Apr. 2018, p. 29. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532528608/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=bda38063. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532528608
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QUOTE:
All the classic elements of the zombie novel are present, but Ireland (Promise of Shadows, 2014, etc.) takes the genre up a notch with her deft exploration of racial oppression
With a shrewd, scythe-wielding protagonist of color, Dread Nation is an exciting must-read

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Ireland, Justina: DREAD NATION
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2018): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Ireland, Justina DREAD NATION Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (Young Adult Fiction) $17.99 4, 3 ISBN: 978-0-06-257060-4
Fighting the undead is a breeze for Jane, but the fight for freedom? That's a different story.
The Civil War is over, but mostly because the dead rose at Gettysburg--and then started rising everywhere else. Now the dangerous task of killing these shamblers rests on black people and Native Americans taken from their homes and forced into combat training schools at a young age. Jane McKeene, a black teen born to a white mother, is nearly finished with her training. She's fierce with a scythe but longs to find her way home to her mother. However, her plan is thwarted when she and her friends run afoul of a corrupt mayor and are sent to a Western outpost called Summerland. Sinister secrets lurk beneath the surface there, and the more Jane discovers, the more determined she is to escape, especially as the shamblers keep multiplying. All the classic elements of the zombie novel are present, but Ireland (Promise of Shadows, 2014, etc.) takes the genre up a notch with her deft exploration of racial oppression in this alternative Reconstruction-era America. It's no coincidence that the novel will prompt readers to make connections with today's racial climate.
With a shrewd, scythe-wielding protagonist of color, Dread Nation is an exciting must-read. (Historical fiction/horror. 14-adult)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Ireland, Justina: DREAD NATION." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2018. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527247984/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=084f54b6. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527247984
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QUOTE:
Mounting peril creates a pulse- pounding pace, hurtling readers toward a nail-biting conclusion that inspires and will leave them apprehensive about what's to come.

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Dread Nation
Publishers Weekly.
265.5 (Jan. 29, 2018): p190+. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Dread Nation
Justina Ireland. HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, $17.99 (464p) ISBN 978-0-06-257060-4
In this alternate-history horror tale, shortly after Jane McKeene was born, the dead rose and attacked the living, effectively ending the Civil War. A reunified army fought the shambling hordes until Congress passed the Negro and Native Reeducation Act, requiring adolescent children of color to train for battle. At age 14, Jane--who is mixed race--enrolled at Miss Preston's School of Combat for Negro Girls, hoping to avoid conscription by becoming a socialite's bodyguard. Three years later, Jane is close to earning her attendant certificate when she, her ex, and her rival stumble across a dastardly plot hatched by Baltimore's elite. First in a duology, Ireland's gripping novel is teeming with monsters--most of them human. Abundant action, thoughtful worldbuilding, and a brave, smart, and skillfully drawn cast entertain as Ireland (Promise of Shadows) illustrates the ignorance and immorality of racial discrimination and examines the relationship between equality and freedom. Mounting peril creates a pulse- pounding pace, hurtling readers toward a nail-biting conclusion that inspires and will leave them apprehensive about what's to come. Ages 14-up. Agency: DonaldMaass Literary. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Dread Nation." Publishers Weekly, 29 Jan. 2018, p. 190+. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A526116602/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=915d11a6. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A526116602
6 of 19 5/15/18, 9:57 PM

QUOTE:
Jane is a capable, strong heroine maneuvering through a world that is brilliant and gut-wrenching. This will take readers on a breathless ride from beginning to end.

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Dread Nation
Enishia Davenport
Booklist.
114.6 (Nov. 15, 2017): p51. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
* Dread Nation.
By Justina Ireland.
Apr. 2018.464p. HarperCollinslBalzer + Bray, $17.99 (9780062570604); e-book, $17.99 (9780062570628). Gr. 9-12.
Ireland delivers a necessary, subversive, and explosive novel with her fantasy-laced alternate history. America is changed forever when the dead begin to prowl battlefields during the Civil War. The horror births a new nation and a different type of slavery, in which laws force Native and Negro children to attend combat schools and receive training to put down the dead. Jane McKeene attends Miss Preston's School for Combat in Baltimore. She studies to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette, to protect the white well-to-do. For Negro girls like Jane, it's a chance for a better life; however, as she nears the completion of her education, she longs simply to return to her Kentucky home. But when families around Baltimore go missing, Jane finds herself entangled in a conspiracy that results in a fight for her life against powerful enemies. Ireland crafts a smart, poignant, thrilling novel that does the all-important work of exploring topics of oppression, racism, and slavery, while simultaneously accomplishing so much more. It explores friendship, love, defying expectations, and carving out your own path instead of submitting to the one thrust upon you. From page one, Jane is a capable, strong heroine maneuvering through a world that is brilliant and gut-wrenching. This will take readers on a breathless ride from beginning to end.--Enishia Davenport
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Davenport, Enishia. "Dread Nation." Booklist, 15 Nov. 2017, p. 51. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A517441849/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=82b2cc82. Accessed 15 May 2018.
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Gale Document Number: GALE|A517441849
8 of 19 5/15/18, 9:57 PM

QUOTE:
The Furies' angle in this paranormal romance is an original take on possession. What this novel suffers from is the large number of issues that plague Corey's past

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Ireland, Justina. Vengeance Bound
Deena Viviani
Voice of Youth Advocates.
36.1 (Apr. 2013): p675. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2013 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
3Q * 3P * J * S
Ireland, Justina. Vengeance Bound. Simon & Schuster, 2013. 320p. $17.99. 978-1-44244462-1.
When she was twelve years old, Amelie Ainsworth thought she was going to die. She prayed for someone to save her, and the Furies answered, but in return she had to take Alecto's place and accept a bond with Megaera and Tisiphone to help them carry out acts of vengeance. Now orphaned and seventeen years old, Amelie takes the alias Corey Graft, enrolls in a new high school, and plots her revenge against the psychiatrist who tried to cure her "multiple personality disorder" with debilitating experimental drugs. As she narrows in on his whereabouts, Corey meets Niko, a guy who quiets the Furies in her head and makes her wish for a life without death and hatred. Together they search for a way to separate Corey from the Furies before they fully overtake her body, soul, and mind.
The Furies' angle in this paranormal romance is an original take on possession. What this novel suffers from is the large number of issues that plague Corey's past: guilt over her cousin's death; kidnapping, possession, institutionalization, and abuse; the deaths of her parents and grandmother; and her desire for revenge. All this background makes it difficult to connect with Corey or believe that she can overcome anything by the end of the novel. Vengeance Bound is not an essential addition to collections, though fans of Tera Lynn Childs's Sweet Venom (Katherine Tegen, 2011/VOYA October 2011) and Aimee Carter's The Goddess Test (Harlequin Teen, 2011/VOYA June 2011) may enjoy this Greek spin.--Deena Viviani.
Viviani, Deena
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Viviani, Deena. "Ireland, Justina. Vengeance Bound." Voice of Youth Advocates, Apr. 2013, p.
675. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A342468510 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=03323392. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A342468510
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QUOTE:
There is some graphic violence in the book, but it is in no way gratuitous, and the circumstances of Zephyr's "powers" show more depth than you might expect from a book that also contains a healthy dose of action, a strong thread of humor, and just a touch of romance

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Ireland, Justina. Promise of Shadows
Barb Fecteau
Voice of Youth Advocates.
37.1 (Apr. 2014): p83. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2014 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC http://www.voya.com
Full Text:
(a) 5Q * 5P * J * S
Ireland, Justina. Promise of Shadows. Simon & Schuster, 2014. 384p. $17.99. 978-1-442-44464-5.
As Promise of Shadows opens, Zephyr is in hell. Literally. She is a "godslayer" who has been sent to the underworld as punishment for killing an Aethereal. When she and her friend escape to the mortal realm, she learns that she might be the Nix, a hero sent to protect humanity and the vaettir (not quite humans, not quite gods) from enslavement or annihilation.
Ireland does a wonderful job of creating characters described in myths and bringing them to our world. Zephyr is a harpy, trained for destruction, but she is also a teenage girl who is mortified by her awkwardness when she is around the boy--okay, vaettir--upon whom she is crushing. While the sense of place is strong from the very beginning, it might take a while for readers not familiar with mythology to sort out the settings. The juxtaposition of the Underworld and the Elysian Fields with "the mortal realm" of modern-day Virginia is captivating. Ireland also does a masterful job with throwaway comments that reveal the diversity in her characters with regard to race, sexuality, and of course, immortality without being heavy handed. There is some graphic violence in the book, but it is in no way gratuitous, and the circumstances of Zephyr's "powers" show more depth than you might expect from a book that also contains a healthy dose of action, a strong thread of humor, and just a touch of romance.--Barb Fecteau.
Fecteau, Barb
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Fecteau, Barb. "Ireland, Justina. Promise of Shadows." Voice of Youth Advocates, Apr. 2014, p.
83. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A424529916 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=0e2ceb0e. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A424529916
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QUOTE:
The complicated worldbuilding piles on the jargon, but Zephyr's narration hooks readers with snappy, hilarious one-liners. A dark, slyly funny read.

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Ireland, Justina: PROMISE OF SHADOWS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 1, 2014): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2014 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Ireland, Justina PROMISE OF SHADOWS Simon & Schuster (Children's Fiction) $17.99 3, 11 ISBN: 978-1-4424-4464-5
A reluctant Harpy discovers her destiny in an elaborate Greek-mythology-based fantasy. As the book opens, readers learn that Zephyr's sister, Whisper, was killed for her forbidden romance with Hermes; Harpies are v�ttir-partly human, therefore lesser-and are not permitted to intimately fraternize with full gods, called �thereals. In retaliation, Zephyr killed Whisper's �thereal executioner-a supposedly impossible act-and has been sentenced to eternity in the worst part of the Underworld, Tartarus (where the weather is crappy-literally). Zephyr's forbidden, dark power enabled the kill and, she learns, marks her as the prophesied Nyx, a champion of "shadow v�ttir," who maintains balance and protects v�ttir from �thereal tyranny. Knowing the �thereals will surely kill her soon, Zephyr escapes Tartarus with the help of Cass, her enigmatic friend and protector (who everyone they meet says is a liar and betrayer), Tallon, an attractive childhood friend, and his brother, Blue. They form a ragtag team to keep her alive so she can thwart a terrible plot against the v�ttir. The romantic plot is the least successful element of this character-driven story. Far more compelling are Zephyr's struggles to accept herself as a hero, considering she's failed her Trials to become a Harpy warrior. The complicated worldbuilding piles on the jargon, but Zephyr's narration hooks readers with snappy, hilarious one-liners. A dark, slyly funny read. (Fantasy. 13 & up)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Ireland, Justina: PROMISE OF SHADOWS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2014. Book Review Index
Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A357032895/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=9e86007f. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A357032895
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QUOTE:
Zephyr's emotions, feel all the more real for her tendency to overreact, and the mythos Ireland creates strikes the right mix of familiarity and invention, and is well worth exploring.

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Promise of Shadows
Publishers Weekly.
261.1 (Jan. 6, 2014): p58+. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2014 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Promise of Shadows
Justina Ireland. Simon & Schuster, $17.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4424-4464-5
As in Ireland's first novel, Vengeance Bound, her sophomore offering brings creatures from Greek mythology into the modern world. After failing her Harpy trials, Zephyr Mourning was looking forward to a low-key life in the Mortal Realm. Unfortunately, she accidentally killed a god, which landed her in Tartarus with an emotionless but oddly protective girl named Cass. The book moves along at a brisk clip once Zephyr's childhood friend Tallon frees her and Cass from Tartarus, sweeping Zephyr toward confrontations with both the goddess Hera and her own reluctant destiny. Ireland's foreshadowing is sometimes so heavy that the information feels stale by the time Zephyr realizes it, as when the truth of her parentage comes to light, but that's a minor quibble in an otherwise solid book. Zephyr's emotions, whether rage at a seer who holds back the whole truth or squirmy adolescent insecurity when she starts falling for Tallon, feel all the more real for her tendency to overreact, and the mythos Ireland creates strikes the right mix of familiarity and invention, and is well worth exploring. Ages 14-up. Agent: Elana Roth, Red Tree Literary. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Promise of Shadows." Publishers Weekly, 6 Jan. 2014, p. 58+. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A371687513/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=5a9a6c61. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A371687513
12 of 19 5/15/18, 9:57 PM

QUOTE:
perfect blend of horrors real and imagined,

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IRELAND, Justina. Dread Nation
Desiree Thomas
School Library Journal.
64.2 (Feb. 2018): p102+. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2018 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
* IRELAND, Justina. Dread Nation. 464p. HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray. Apr. 2018. Tr $ 17.99. ISBN 9780062570604.
Gr 9 Up--Slavery comes to a halt when the dead on Civil War battlefields begin to rise and eat their compatriots. The north and south put aside their philosophical differences and join forces against the undead. They are aided in their efforts by the passage of the Native and Negro Reeducation Act which forces African American boys and girls into combat schools. Graduates from these schools are a buffer between the living and the undead. Jane McKeen is a biracial girl sent to Ms. Preston's school of combat to obtain an attendant certificate. Jane is about to graduate when her friend, Red Jack, asks for help locating his sister Lily. Jane's attempts to discover Lily's whereabouts land her in a survivalist colony. Survivalists advocate a disordered view of natural selection that places Jane firmly under the thumb of a vicious sheriff and his psychopathic family. Jane is tasked with finding a way out of Summerland not only for herself, but also for those she loves. She must make some unlikely alliances of her own if she is to survive long enough to find her own path to freedom. This is a fictional exploration of the chattel slavery and American Indian boarding school systems. Ireland skillfully works in the different forms of enslavement, mental and physical, into a complex and engaging story. VERDICT A perfect blend of horrors real and imagined, perfect for public and school libraries and fans of The Walking Dead.--Desiree Thomas, Worthington Library, OH
* Excellent in relation to other titles on the same subject or in the same genre | Tr Hardcover trade binding | lib. ed. Publisher's library binding | Board Board book | pap. Paperback | e eBook original | BL Bilingual | POP Popular Picks
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Thomas, Desiree. "IRELAND, Justina. Dread Nation." School Library Journal, Feb. 2018, p.
102+. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A526734120 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=7780a9cf. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A526734120
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Ireland, Justina: Promise of Shadows
Barratt Miller
The Horn Book Guide.
25.2 (Fall 2014): p113. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2014 The Horn Book, Inc. http://www.hornbookguide.com
Full Text:
Ireland, Justina Promise of Shadows
373 pp. Simon ISBN 978-1-4424-4464-5 $17.99 EBOOK ISBN 978-1-4424-5357-9
(4) Zephyr Mourning, a teenage Harpy (half-human, half-god warrior), is rescued from Tartarus (Pit of the Underworld) by a childhood friend, only to discover that she is the subject of a prophecy that could irrevocably change the relationship between the demi-gods and the Olympian AEtherals. Although some aspects of the storytelling are unnecessarily convoluted, fans of mythology will enjoy this epic love story.
Miller, Barratt
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Miller, Barratt. "Ireland, Justina: Promise of Shadows." The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2014, p. 113.
Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A385996316 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=d07f1500. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A385996316
14 of 19 5/15/18, 9:57 PM

QUOTE:
The snappy, hilarious dialogue between the protagonist and her friends balances the ominous apocalyptic story line, which will also attract fans of underdog heroines.

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Ireland, Justina. Promise of Shadows
Amy M. Laughlin
School Library Journal.
60.6 (June 2014): p122. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2014 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
IRELAND, Justina. Promise of Shadows. 384p. ebook available. S. & S. 2014. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9781442444645. LC 2013002959.
Gr 7 Up--After murdering her sister's killer, Zephyr Mourning lands herself in Tartarus--a section of Hell--serving an eternal sentence. Feces rains from the sky and the Centaurs on guard have a tendency to kill unruly prisoners, but Zephyr has a few things going for her: she's a Harpy, which is a half-human, half-god warrior vaettir, and she only recently discovered she can unwittingly control and use dark magic. The teen used this forbidden power to avenge her sister Whisper's death, and it is this same ability which identified Zephyr as the much-revered and prophesied Nyx. Legend has it that the Nyx will protect and save all vaettir from the AEthereals--gods who subject the vaettir and other lesser mythical creatures to indiscriminate terror. With the help of her handsome childhood friend Tallon and his brother, Zephyr escapes Tartarus, along with fellow inmate Cass. This motley crew goes on a quest to discover if the reluctantly heroicized Zephyr really is the Nyx, and how she can stop the megalomaniac goddess Hera from wreaking havoc on the mortal and immortal realms. Though Ireland relies on preexisting knowledge of Greek mythology and doesn't spend enough time explaining complicated terminology, the fast pacing and dynamic plot will engage readers. An underdeveloped romance between Tallon and Zephyr is just enough to tantalize them. The snappy, hilarious dialogue between the protagonist and her friends balances the ominous apocalyptic story line, which will also attract fans of "The Hunger Games" (Scholastic), "Divergent" (HarperCollins), and underdog heroines.--Amy M. Laughlin, Darien Library, CT
Laughlin, Amy M.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Laughlin, Amy M. "Ireland, Justina. Promise of Shadows." School Library Journal, June 2014, p.
122. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A370319582 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=96df9e81. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A370319582
15 of 19 5/15/18, 9:57 PM

QUOTE:
The inane high school social dramas and unrealistically instant romance weigh down the narrative, but the mythical setup is, rewardingly, morally ambiguous.

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Ireland, Justina: Vengeance Bound
Claire E. Gross
The Horn Book Guide.
24.2 (Fall 2013): p115. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2013 The Horn Book, Inc. http://www.hornbookguide.com
Full Text:
Ireland, Justina Vengeance Bound
310 pp. Simon ISBN 978-1-4424-4462-1 $17.99
(4) Escaping from an abusive mental institution, Amelie (who has become one of the three Furies by way of nonconsensual possession) tries to balance a normal life with the Furies' need to enact bloody vengeance on immoral men. The inane high school social dramas and unrealistically instant romance weigh down the narrative, but the mythical setup is, rewardingly, morally ambiguous.
Gross, Claire E.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Gross, Claire E. "Ireland, Justina: Vengeance Bound." The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2013, p. 115.
Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A346628936 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=495d3446. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A346628936
16 of 19 5/15/18, 9:57 PM

QUOTE:
rollicking "Gone With the Wind and Zombies" adventure with a biting commentary on contemporary race relations in America.

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'Dread Nation' is a rollicking 'Gone
With the Wind + Zombies' adventure
Katie Ward Beim-Esche
The Christian Science Monitor.
(Apr. 20, 2018): Arts and Entertainment: From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 The Christian Science Publishing Society http://www.csmonitor.com/About/The-Monitor-difference
Full Text:
Byline: Katie Ward Beim-Esche
Two days after Jane McKeene was born - a black baby to a wealthy white woman in Civil War- era Kentucky - the dead began to rise from the bloody fields of Gettysburg. Now a teenager, Jane attends a combat academy where the curriculum is equal parts etiquette and execution.
I don't know about you, but I'm all ears.
Dread Nation, Justina Ireland's latest YA novel, is a rollicking "Gone With the Wind and Zombies" adventure with a biting commentary on contemporary race relations in America. Those overtones should come as little surprise; Ireland is an outspoken activist whose frank comments about diversity in YA have spurred both uproar and introspection. She was recently described in a Vulture profile as "YA Twitter's leading warrior" and "the most controversial figure in young- adult literature."
In the warped alt-history of "Dread Nation," the North and the South have agreed to table the Civil War and battle the undead, known as "shamblers." Though the original conflict was shelved in the face of the plague, its issues were never resolved. It should be said that modern politics are never out of frame in this novel; Ireland isn't shy about invoking #MAGA or underlining her point that, as with the shambler hordes, racism just won't die.
"Dread Nation" politics are dominated by the Survivalist party. She explains, "Survivalists believe that the continued existence of humanity depends on securing the safety of white Christian men and women - whites being superior and closest to God - so that they might 'set about rebuilding the country in the image of its former glory,' the way it was before the War Against the Dead."
The Survivalists see the plague as God's punishment for previous efforts to establish egalitarianism; scientists have only just began to study viruses and pathogens here. In order to keep shamblers at bay, an earlier Congress passed the Negro and Native Reeducation Act (NNRA), which decreed that blacks and Native Americans alone should fight the undead.
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http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Under the NNRA, minority children are removed from their families and placed in institutions "for the betterment of themselves and of society." Jane attends one such combat school outside of Baltimore. In an afterword, Ireland unpacks the all-too-real exploitation and forced assimilation in institutions such as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School; she also includes a list of recommended reading material.
If Jane finishes at the top of her class, she could be hired as an Attendant (a kind of battle-ready lady's maid and virtue chaperone for well-to-do white women). Yet Jane doesn't care about becoming an Attendant. Her only goal is to return home to her mother's plantation. She hasn't received a letter from her mother in almost a year.
As a child, Jane watched friends be infected and subsequently killed. This scarring experience gave her two life lessons: "One: the dead will take everything you love. You have to end them before they can end you. That's exactly what I aim to do. And two: the person poking the dead ain't always the one paying for it. In fact, most times, it's the ones minding their own business who suffer. That's a problem I still don't have an answer for yet."
Jane is a YA treasure. She has voice for days and sass in equal measure, plus a casual relationship with honesty, which gets her both into and out of trouble ("The truth and I ain't very close - uneasy acquaintances at best.")
As an experienced fighter and decent markswoman, she takes neither verbal nor physical prisoners. Combat scenes show her dispatching the dead with the same delightful, ruthless efficiency of River Tam from the TV show "Firefly."
Dialogue in "Dread Nation," both mental and spoken, has the precision of a dagger and the wallop of a 12-gauge shotgun. Saucy, snappish highlights include Jane's commentary on her arch rival, Katherine, an "offensively pretty" fellow student whose light skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes "make [Jane] question the school's admissions criteria." Katherine is dead-set (no pun intended) on a comfortable Attendant life. She's forever trying to pass as a lady, even wearing corsets into battle; Jane's accompanying eyerolls test the limits of ocular physics.
"She's the prettiest girl at Miss Preston's, and I figure that's as good a reason as any to hate her," Jane quips. "She's a know-it-all that could try the patience of Jesus Christ himself. I ain't a very good Christian, so you know where that leaves me."
When a local family vanishes, Jane finds herself investigating, along with Katherine and a roguish acquaintance. Together, they discover a slew of powerful enemies involved in a massive conspiracy.
Whew! It sounds like a lot of plot, but it flows smoothly under Ireland's guiding hand. I enjoyed "Dread Nation" far more than I thought I would, as zombie fiction isn't my typical fare.
Dozens of fandoms will relish "Dread Nation," though. Send out the word to those who've watched "Westworld," "Firefly," or "Zombieland"; anyone who's played the "Borderlands" video games; fans of Gail Carriger's "Finishing School" or "Parasol Protectorate" series; and readers who crave a splash of wry, cutting humor in this cracked American history.
18 of 19 5/15/18, 9:57 PM

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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Beim-Esche, Katie Ward. "'Dread Nation' is a rollicking 'Gone With the Wind + Zombies'
adventure." Christian Science Monitor, 20 Apr. 2018. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A535603737/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=5283416e. Accessed 15 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A535603737
19 of 19 5/15/18, 9:57 PM

Barisich, Justin. "Zombies aren't the only monsters here: For Justina Ireland, the dark history of the American Civil War and the fantastical concept of zombies aren't nearly as far apart as most people think." BookPage, Apr. 2018, p. 29. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532528608/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=bda38063. Accessed 15 May 2018. "Ireland, Justina: DREAD NATION." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2018. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527247984/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=084f54b6. Accessed 15 May 2018. "Dread Nation." Publishers Weekly, 29 Jan. 2018, p. 190+. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A526116602/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=915d11a6. Accessed 15 May 2018. Davenport, Enishia. "Dread Nation." Booklist, 15 Nov. 2017, p. 51. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A517441849/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=82b2cc82. Accessed 15 May 2018. Viviani, Deena. "Ireland, Justina. Vengeance Bound." Voice of Youth Advocates, Apr. 2013, p. 675. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A342468510/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=03323392. Accessed 15 May 2018. Fecteau, Barb. "Ireland, Justina. Promise of Shadows." Voice of Youth Advocates, Apr. 2014, p. 83. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A424529916/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=0e2ceb0e. Accessed 15 May 2018. "Ireland, Justina: PROMISE OF SHADOWS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2014. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A357032895/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=9e86007f. Accessed 15 May 2018. "Promise of Shadows." Publishers Weekly, 6 Jan. 2014, p. 58+. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A371687513/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=5a9a6c61. Accessed 15 May 2018. Thomas, Desiree. "IRELAND, Justina. Dread Nation." School Library Journal, Feb. 2018, p. 102+. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A526734120/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=7780a9cf. Accessed 15 May 2018. Miller, Barratt. "Ireland, Justina: Promise of Shadows." The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2014, p. 113. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A385996316/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=d07f1500. Accessed 15 May 2018. Laughlin, Amy M. "Ireland, Justina. Promise of Shadows." School Library Journal, June 2014, p. 122. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A370319582/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=96df9e81. Accessed 15 May 2018. Gross, Claire E. "Ireland, Justina: Vengeance Bound." The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2013, p. 115. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A346628936/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=495d3446. Accessed 15 May 2018. Beim-Esche, Katie Ward. "'Dread Nation' is a rollicking 'Gone With the Wind + Zombies' adventure." Christian Science Monitor, 20 Apr. 2018. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A535603737/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=5283416e. Accessed 15 May 2018.

• Rich in Color
  http://richincolor.com/2014/04/review-promise-of-shadows/
  Word count: 479

  Review: Promise of Shadows
  Posted on 4 April, 2014Author Jessica

  promise

  Title: Promise of Shadows
  Author: Justina Ireland
  Genres: fantasy
  Pages: 371
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
  Review copy: the lovely library
  Availability: March 11, 2014

  Summary: Zephyr Mourning has never been very good at being a Harpy. She’d rather watch reality TV than learn forty-seven ways to kill a man, and she pretty much sucks at wielding magic. Zephyr was ready for a future pretending to be a normal human instead of a half-god assassin. But all that changes when her sister is murdered—and she uses a forbidden dark power to save herself from the same fate. Zephyr is on the run from a punishment worse than death when an unexpected reunion with a childhood friend (a surprisingly HOT friend) changes everything. [Image and summary via Goodreads]

  Review: (For the good of everyone, I’ve abbreviated the book blurb above, since it pretty much gives away everything that happens in the book. You’re welcome.)

  The book starts out with Zephyr Mourning serving time in the Underworld, in the pits of Tartarus. Zephyr is, essentially, a failure of a harpy. She’s no military genius like her tough, high-powered mother and she’s not much good at magic either. How Zephyr, a peace-loving harpy afraid of the dark, ends up a murderer shovelling mud in the pits of Tartarus is a story that slowly unfolds as the plot moves forward.

  Zephyr’s background and past are revealed through a series of convenient reminisces and flashbacks that gradually color in the story. At times, I felt like I’d picked up the wrong book, and that there was a prequel waiting to be read first. (There isn’t, alas.) Some of the relationships were explained through flashbacks — with Nanda, her godmother, and with Tallon, her childhood-friend-turned-hot-love-interest — which made it a little difficult to connect with them. Fortunately, her relationship with Cass, her levelheaded companion in Tartarus is both believable and heartwarming.

  Promise of Shadows is set in a modern-day world where, where Greek mythology is both true and relevant. The immature, petty behavior of the pompous Greek gods and goddesses is the highlight of the book and pretty hilarious. More than once, Hera (Zeus’s wife/sister) makes an appearance just so she can act haughty and turn her nose down at Zephyr. Both the worldbuilding and the background history in Promise of Shadows are fascinating enough that I would love to read a prequel.

  If you’re a fan of Greek mythology, Promise of Shadows is definitely a must-read!

  Recommendation: Get it soon!

  Justina Ireland’s post at Diversity in YA: Writing About Diversity Is Harder Than I Thought

• American Booksellers Association
  http://www.bookweb.org/news/justina-ireland-spring-kids%E2%80%99-indie-next-list-pick-%E2%80%9Cdread-nation%E2%80%9D-103579
  Word count: 1893

  Justina Ireland on Spring Kids’ Indie Next List Pick “Dread Nation”
  By Liz Button on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2018
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  Independent booksellers across the country have selected Dread Nation, the new YA novel by Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray, April 18) set in an alternate version of Reconstruction-era America, as a top pick on the Spring 2018 Kids’ Indie Next List.

  Dread Nation coverIn Dread Nation, the course of the Civil War is derailed when Confederate and Union soldiers start to rise from the dead — a drastically different American history than the one we know. In the year 1880, Jane McKeene is one of many children of color mandated by the government to attend combat school to learn how to kill zombies for the upper classes. But this world has more in store for the strong-willed Jane, whose tendency to question authority leads her into battle with enemies both alive and undead.

  “Dread Nation is not just a zombie story; you could have weeks of book group meetings and still be talking about it,” said Clarissa Murphy of Papercuts J.P. in Boston. “Ireland is an author to keep your eyes on. She writes with meaning, intention, and spark. Her characters leap off the page and demand attention. In Ireland’s tale, the world is crumbling, racism is making a fierce comeback (if it ever really left), and you won’t be able to help drawing connections to recent current events.”

  Justina IrelandIreland lives with her husband, child, and dog in Pennsylvania and is the author of two other YA novels, Vengeance Bound and Promise of Shadows (both S&S Books for Young Readers). Bookselling This Week spoke with Ireland about the intersection of history and zombies in her new book, for which she already has a sequel in the works.

  Bookselling This Week: Where did the idea for this book come from?

  Justina Ireland: The first draft I wrote was after I read the graphic novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies [by Seth Grahame-Smith, Quirk Books], and I was struck by the idea of these women going and fighting zombies in these very corseted gowns. It made me laugh because that’s not how it would be! That’s not how it would be in any time period, because if you’re upper class, usually you’d have the lower classes to do the menial labor for you.

  So the draft was just there on the back burner, and then when Mike Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, I saw how people took sides and how this fissure in our society was revealed for what it was. It was like a wakeup call, and it gave me a whole new direction for the story: to analyze those ideas of race and power and how that manifests in day-to-day life, not just in Jane’s world but also in our own.

  BTW: What was your research process for the historical aspects of the book?

  JI: My bachelor’s degree is in history, so history has always been a part of my life. I live not that far from Gettysburg, so I did a lot of research on the Civil War and how people were spread out during that time. I looked at population maps from that time period to understand what would actually happen if there was this massive plague or zombie apocalypse.

  I also read a lot of documents from the Freedmen’s Bureau [the government agency that provided resources for former slaves], which was active during Reconstruction, and about the Native American boarding schools established by the federal government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs in the late 1800s [which separated children from their tribes and sent them to special government schools]. This structure was promoted as a way to benefit Native Americans but really benefitted the people who ran the schools. Churches got federal funding; local people got free labor. There was a lot of abuse that happened as well. I wanted to take something that from the outside might look like a good idea but from the inside was rotten at its core and build upon that parallel. That’s how I came up with the idea of this high-end finishing school for black girls to kill zombies, because it fit into what we know of our own history at that time.

  BTW: Was this the first time you’ve written about a historical topic?

  JI: My first two books use the lens of Greek mythology to look at different ideas, but I think in those books I was trying to hew closer to commercial ideologies and make something that I thought people would want to read. With this book, I felt like I wrote something that people needed to read. I did try to tackle important ideas in the book, but mostly I’m hoping that people bring their own experiences to the story and learn to think about something in a new way.

  Now, especially, as we look at how socially active teens are, like following the Parkland shooting and with Black Lives Matter, I think we do need to give younger readers a way to take these big ideas and ingest them and look at them critically. I’m hoping that by adding zombies and putting these ideas in a historical context, they’re removed from that kind of rawness and immediacy and people get some perspective. People can be really defensive when we talk about power structures and systemic racism, but through the lens of fiction, it’s a little easier to get them to stick their toes in the pool of those ideas.

  BTW: In pop culture, zombies often serve as a metaphor for larger ideas or social issues. Is this the case with Dread Nation?

  JI: Yes, in this book, the monsters are definitely that legacy of chattel slavery and of the Civil War. There was just an NPR survey that found only eight percent of high schoolers think slavery was the cause of the Civil War, and as recently as last summer, when they were talking about taking down Confederate monuments, there were people saying that the war wasn’t about slavery, that it was about all these other things.

  We’re still kind of dancing around this topic of our greatest sin: that America was built on the backs of other people through a series of conquests either over native tribes or black people. So zombies are a great visual metaphor for something that just won’t go away. I do think we have to reckon with the legacy of slavery in this country, and our own colonialism and the way we interact abroad. As long as we’re not having those conversations, we can’t be better as a society and as a country — we’re just doomed to repeat these cycles.

  BTW: How did you create the character of Jane? Were you thinking about her role more broadly as a strong female protagonist in the mold of a Katniss or a Hermione?

  JI: I actually based Jane off of Huck Finn. I think a lot of times female protagonists, especially in YA, tend to fall into a trap of being this or that: a female character can be badass or she can be feminine; she can be very introspective or she can be very outspoken. We don’t do a good job of that in YA, so I think sometimes the best way to build a great female character is to look at male characters that have gone before and see how the writer was able to give them their humanity.

  In the context of its time, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was questioning some very big ideas about American society, but at the end of the day it didn’t necessarily change anything. I wanted to write a character that did the things that I think Huck Finn failed at. One thing Huck Finn does well is questioning the power structures around him, but he’s not necessarily good at taking action. He waits until the end of the book to help Jim get down the river, and he’s mostly doing it because it’s as much fun as it is the right thing to do.

  When it came to Jane, I wanted to first of all give black girls a character so that they could say yes, black women existed in the 1880s not just as slaves or mammies; they had their own adventures as well. But I also wanted to make a character who was going to question the power structures around her in that very picaresque style. And, of course, you can’t come into any YA novel without knowing the current literature, the Hermiones and the Katnisses.

  BTW: What has been the role of indie bookstores in your life?

  JI: I’m actually one of those people who live really far from an indie bookstore, but I’m doing my preorder campaign through The Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore, which I love. I also wrote half of this book at the Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg. I think having an indie in your area is such a privilege. If you don’t, book discovery can be really difficult. I think any author who is not a big fan of indie bookstores is really missing an opportunity. Mostly any time I do an event, it’s with an indie bookstore.

  I think it’s great that people can buy a book off of IndieBound and still support their independent bookseller even if they can’t get to a bookstore. I do think indie bookstores support authors in a way that is more tangible than any chain.
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• Book Page
  https://bookpage.com/interviews/22520-justina-ireland
  Word count: 1035

  Justina Ireland
  Zombies aren't the only monsters here

  BookPage interview by Justin Barisich

  For Justina Ireland, the dark history of the American Civil War and the fantastical concept of zombies aren’t nearly as far apart as most people think.

  “My brain works in concentric circles, and I always think of zombies as leading to upheaval and change, as signaling the end of an era and the beginning of a new one,” Ireland says. “And the Civil War did the same thing historically—derailed everything. The only difference is that you’re defending yourself from your neighbor rather than a ravaging horde.”

  Ireland is speaking from her home in York, Pennsylvania, about an hour from both Gettysburg and the city of Baltimore, where her third novel, an artful blend of alternate history and horror titled Dread Nation, takes place. The Battle of Gettysburg, which resulted in the largest number of casualties in the entire Civil War, “seemed like the perfect terrible moment for things to get even worse,” says Ireland. “War is horrible enough because you’ve just lost someone, but there’s a whole new level of trauma when your dead friend is trying to eat your face.”

  When Dread Nation opens, we meet the smart, fiery, impulsive Jane McKeene, who’s been training for years at Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls. Jane was born the same week that the zombies—known as “shamblers”—first rose from their graves. Since Jane is biracial, she was sent to combat school as required by the Native and Negro Reeducation Act—in order to “groom the savage” out of her. Though she’s one of the top students, Jane isn’t content to become a bodyguard for the daughter of a rich, white family.

  When Jane and her rival—the demure, rational, beautiful Katherine—are invited to the mayor’s house as a reward for their lifesaving zombie-combat heroics, they soon discover that the zombies aren’t the only evils they’ll have to face down, nor are they the most sinister.

  “A good zombie story is never really about the zombies,” Ireland says, and while dealing with various hindrances, her characters develop a “consciousness of knowing that they live in a country that doesn’t necessarily value them the same way it values other people.” Throughout Dread Nation, the author incisively and repeatedly broaches racism, classism, sexism and religion as tools for social control, as well as the politicization of zombies and the use of pseudoscience to try to justify it all. “I’ve always found it interesting how people can do both good work and terrible work with the same passages of the Bible. And these are still things we do today—we still use religion and science to push our own prejudices and beliefs, to wield ideologies that promote our own personal agendas.”

  Therein lies the power of a well-written zombie story: It can provide an opportunity for society to talk about how our truest selves come out during difficult situations. “I think that’s something a lot of zombie literature gets wrong,” Ireland says. “When things get bad, we all of a sudden expect people to change drastically from the people who they were. But if they are inherently selfish and already doing what they can to survive for themselves, then they’re only going to cling more tightly to the old ways of life, rather than letting them go and adopting new ones.”

  Consider the civil rights movement, post-Civil War Reconstruction or any opportunity for people to make a big change. “[People] want to protect the things they like, who they are and their identity,” Ireland says. “And I don’t think that’s ever changed throughout history. They opted for the small changes because they were more comfortable as a society.”

  “There’s a whole new level of trauma when your dead friend is trying to eat your face.”

  For many of these same reasons, Ireland found the world of Dread Nation to be a difficult one to explore. “Time travel’s not fun for people of color,” she says. “It’s like asking, ‘What terrible era can I go live in?’ But real people survived it, and that merits depicting.”

  Before she’d even begun writing Dread Nation, Ireland’s desire to communicate these suppressed stories was confirmed in the most authentic and motivating way possible. During a visit to a predominantly black school, Ireland brought copies of her two previous books, Vengeance Bound, which features a white main character on the cover, and Promise of Shadows. A student noticed that Ireland’s book jackets did not feature a person of color and raised her hand to say, “No disrespect, miss, but why’d you write a white girl? I can’t find books with people like me in them.”

  Ireland was mortified. “I had to go back and do some self-examination,” she says. “I want to be able to go to a school and proudly hold up a black girl on the cover and say, ‘I wrote this book. I hope you like it because I wrote it for you.’ And every time I sit down at the computer to write, I can hear that little girl’s voice.”

  With Dread Nation, Ireland wanted to write the best book she could. She was also thinking of the kind of readers she wanted to invite into her world (which she plans to revisit in a follow-up novel). “I just wanted this book to land in the hands of people who need to see themselves reflected. I wanted to find something that resonates with people and makes them sit up and take notice of a world they hadn’t paid attention to before—and that it leaves them feeling refreshed and alive.”

  This article was originally published in the April 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

  Author photo by Eric Ireland.https://bookpage.com/interviews/22520-justina-ireland

• Locus
  https://locusmag.com/2017/08/justina-ireland-dread-nation/
  Word count: 1632

  QUOTE:
  Dread Nation is about a zombie apocalypse during the Civil War, but it’s not really about the zombies, because a lot of the time, zombie novels lose the importance of zombies: they’re about an upheaval in society that makes you reevaluate your humanity. It’s about exploring people with their humanity stripped away. My novel follows a black girl on her journeys, trying to come to terms with this society where she knows the undead are not human. That is not humanity. But then, why is she also not human? How is she considered closer to livestock than to humans? It’s really about the idea of human­ity, and who gets to be human and who gets shunted to the side as the other.

  Justina Ireland: Dread Nation
  August 13, 2017 Interviews

  Locus Magazine, Science Fiction Fantasy

  Justina Ireland was born in French Camp CA, and grew up in San Bernadino and outside Sacramento. After graduating high school, she joined the Army, got married, and later settled in Pennsylvania with her husband. In addition to writing, she works as a supervisor in logistics for the Department of the Navy.

  First novel Vengeance Bound, a YA fantasy about a girl with a psychic link to the Furies, appeared in 2013, followed by YA fantasy Promise of Shadows (2014). Her YA paranormal thriller Girl Reaper is being serialized online by fiction app INKLO. Middle-grade series Devil’s Pass has four books out in 2017: Evie Allen vs. the Quiz Bowl Zombies, Jeff Allen vs. the Time Suck Vampire, Tiffany Donovan vs. the Cookie Elves of Destruction, and Zach Lopez vs. the Unicorns of Doom. Her YA Civil War-era zombie novel Dread Nation is forthcoming, along with adult SF novel The Never and the Now.

  With Troy L. Wiggins, Ireland co-edits FIYAH, a quarterly magazine of black speculative fiction launched earlier this year.

  ‘‘If you never see yourself represented in media, do you exist? It feels very simplified when you put it that way, but for a long time as a child, I felt that way myself. I’m biracial. My mom is white, but there were a lot of years when I thought, ‘If I were born white, my life would be so much better.’ I could be a princess and I could go on magical adventures and do all these things that only white kids do. Occasionally a plucky redhead. But none of that is open to me because I’m a black girl who lives in a trailer park, right? As I got older, and especially as my daughter began reading books, I looked around at the media we have, and thought, ‘This is pretty fucking awful. This is like an apartheid of black people.’

  ‘‘This is right about the time I was starting to write, and N.K. Jemisin’s Hundred Thousand Kingdoms came out, and I lost my shit. I had heard nothing about it. I wasn’t really involved in adult SF/F online space, and I was only peripherally involved in YA. I had gone to the library and found this book, with this gorgeous cover that was very magical and sparkly. It was big, and I love big books, so I got it from the library. I couldn’t believe the main character was black. She’s clearly described as biracial. She talks about her hair, she talks about trying to fit in with her father’s white relatives who are very powerful. I was a third of the way through and I was like, ‘What? Did I miss something?’, and I went back and read it again. It was so exciting to see someone who first of all was biracial so they understood the competing of two worlds and navigating that, but second of all was just there to have a really hot sexy adventure. That book is sexy as hell and you can’t tell me it’s not – because everyone loves a pantheon. I was like, ‘oh my God this can be done?’ It was awesome.”

  *

  ‘‘If you talk to authors of color, especially of young adult, not sci-fi, they’ll say, ‘Yeah, I did that too.’ Their first book on contract is all white main characters. I call that the Beyoncé method. Come in with Destiny’s Child, and then drop ‘Formation’ on their ass. There’s also this theory in young adult that you get one chance and if you don’t make it, then you’re out. I guess my career is over. I’m just going to talk about the shit nobody wants to talk about. Then I sold more books, so, I might as well keep talking about it. Publishing is the worst confluence of art and industry. We really want to make money, but here’s art, and here are industry forces. What does that do to people? A lot of people are struggling in the industry. They feel isolated and alone. You don’t get in with a group of friends and write together – you could, but writing is solitary, and people don’t like to talk about their failures. I think publishing makes us feel bad about our failures. If you go out on submission and your book doesn’t sell, you think, ‘But I was told once I had an agent my book was going to sell.’ It happens to everybody, though. We talk about the business side of struggle, sometimes, but not a lot, and we never talk about how we feel alienated, or like our stories aren’t embraced by the industry.”

  *

  ‘‘I started writing after I had my daughter. Anytime you have that upheaval in your life, you step back and think, ‘What did I do?’ I knew I didn’t want to be just a mom. I’d seen enough other women go, ‘All right, my life is done, I’m a mom.’ I don’t want to do that. All these things I haven’t done, that I want to do, I have to do them, and writing was one of them. The first novel I wrote was a terrible book. It will never see the light of day. Then I finished the second book, and that was better. I got an agent, it went on submission, and it didn’t sell, but I still think it’s re­ally good. I will be serializing it on a new platform called INKLO. It’s called Girl Reaper. It’s about a girl who’s a reaper. I’m terrible at titles. Every time I have a book, the editor says, ‘Okay, about the title.’ I’m like, ‘You do what you need to.’ I hate titles so much. I wrote all the other words, but not those.

  ‘‘Dread Nation is about a zombie apocalypse during the Civil War, but it’s not really about the zombies, because a lot of the time, zombie novels lose the importance of zombies: they’re about an upheaval in society that makes you reevaluate your humanity. It’s about exploring people with their humanity stripped away. My novel follows a black girl on her journeys, trying to come to terms with this society where she knows the undead are not human. That is not humanity. But then, why is she also not human? How is she considered closer to livestock than to humans? It’s really about the idea of human­ity, and who gets to be human and who gets shunted to the side as the other.”

  *

  ‘‘I grew up in California, where nobody’s itching to go out and shoot people. In Pennsylvania, it seems like a very honorable thing to do, to join the army, get out of your small town and serve your country. In California, that’s not something we do. Also, as a woman, why would you want that? It’s all sweaty dudes. They were right. My career was all sweaty dudes. But there’s something about being able to handle sweaty dudes – even in my day job, I am one of eight supervisors, one of only two women, and the only black woman there. I spend a lot of my time fighting with men. It’s not fighting just to fight, it’s fighting because I’m like, ‘You’re not going to treat me that way – you’re not going to talk to me that way.’ I have things to contribute, and you’re going to listen, especially since my job involves policy, a lot of times I’m telling people things they don’t want to hear.”

  *

  ‘‘I think that’s what Fiyah is trying to do. We’re doing for oneself, but we want to get authors to participate. We also have a robust online community. We’re going to do Camp Nano, we did Nanowrimo for November, to get people together talking about writing, and to connect as a community. We also want them to go break down doors. I don’t want black authors just to submit to Fiyah. I want you to submit to all the venues. Our payment is token, we’re only paying $150 for a short story and $300 for a novella. I want you to go submit to Tor.com and Apex and Clarkesworld, and all those other venues considered to be the premier science fiction and fantasy publications. Until you’re comfortable getting there, send us your stuff. All of our rejections are personalized, and we talk about what works and what doesn’t. I’m really excited about it.’’

  *

• Black Gate
  https://www.blackgate.com/2018/03/15/future-treasures-dread-nation-by-justina-ireland/
  Word count: 438

  Future Treasures: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

  Thursday, March 15th, 2018 | Posted by John ONeill

  Dread Nation-smallJustina Ireland is author of the YA novels Promise of Shadows and Devil’s Pass. Her latest, Dread Nation, is an audacious fantasy set in a post-Reconstruction America battling a plague of zombies risen from Civil War battlefields, and it’s getting a heck of a lot of pre-release buzz for a zombie book. Booklist calls it “Brilliant and gut-wrenching,” and Publishers Weekly praised its “Abundant action, thoughtful worldbuilding, and a brave, smart, and skillfully drawn cast… [with] a nail-biting conclusion.”

  Bustle has a great interview with Ireland in which she says, “Sure, you have well-to-do white women fighting, but it didn’t seem realistic. It would’ve been black women fighting in the streets.” That led her to the intriguing idea of a school for black and Native girls who train to fight the swarms of undead. Dread Nation arrives in hardcover next month.

  Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania — derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.

  In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.

  But there are also opportunities — and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.

  But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.

  But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.

  And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.

  Dread Nation will be published by Balzer + Bray on April 3, 2018. It is 464 pages, priced at $17.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by David Curtis.

• Tor
  https://www.tor.com/2018/04/03/book-reviews-dread-nation-by-justina-ireland/
  Word count: 1482

  A Tale of Two Americas: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
  Alex Brown
  Tue Apr 3, 2018 2:00pm 12 comments 2 Favorites [+]

  In Justina Ireland’s fantastic new young adult novel, Dread Nation, the world is upended when the dead rise from their graves at Gettysburg. In order to salvage what’s left of the US, the Civil War ends in a compromise that frees the enslaved but forces them into combat schools that train them to slay the undead shamblers. Jane McKeene, a Black teen born to a white mother, is shipped off to the most prestigious of schools, Miss Preston’s, where she hones her skills. During the day she trains with other brown-skinned girls eager to be selected as an Attendant to a wealthy white family (thus sparing them from the hardship of fighting shamblers on the frontlines), and at night she haunts the countryside, taking out shamblers and saving the innocent.

  When her sometimes beau, Red Jack, asks for her help in locating his missing sister, Jane and frenemy classmate Katherine run afoul of a corrupt mayor and his clan of Survivalists, a political party made up of mostly white people looking for new ways to inflict old oppressions and subjugations on African Americans. The trio are hauled off to a fledgling town in the middle of Kansas built on secrets, lies, and horrific exploitation. All Jane wants is to get back to Baltimore and find her mother, but first she’ll have to outlast flesh-eating shamblers and racist white people.

  Buy it Now

  There are three main ways to read Dread Nation. Some readers will focus on the pop culture candy of a nineteenth century alt-history zombie apocalypse. Many (including those who call themselves allies) will relish the allegorical way Ireland explores racism, classism, feminism, sexism, and bigotry. They might even catch wind of the conversations about colorism. And then there’s the third way wherein Black Americans have a conversation with each other about our shared heritage and lived experiences.

  Let me give you an example of what I mean. Early on in the book, Jane gets in trouble and frets over her possible expulsion from combat school. She knows exactly how lucky she is to be at Miss Preston’s, which offers more than a year of intense and sophisticated training. Most Black and Native kids spend less than six months in an academy before having to fight shamblers, and, as she notes to herself, the results are discomfiting to say the least: “Half the Negroes from those programs end up a shambler their first month on the job.” Poor training means dead slayers. Straightforward concept, right? Look again and you’ll see commentary on how the system is structured to offer people of color just enough to make white people seem benevolent but not enough to provide POC any substantive good (we see this again when Jane and Katherine encounter the vile Kansas preacher).

  Boiling underneath Jane’s comment and Ireland’s subtext is the real history of the US. Life expectancy rates varied depending on type of work, geographic location, and personality of slaveholder, but could be as low as 22 years. Half of all infants born into slavery died before their first birthday. The average child mortality rate was 65%, but some plantations were as high as 90%. Nearly 40% of enslaved Africans born on a cotton plantation died before their fifteenth birthday—55% for those unlucky enough to be born on a rice plantation. Rice plantations were one of the worst places to be enslaved; toiling under the hot sun for endless hours in fields thick with mud and often flooded waist-high with disease and animal-infested water might kill dozens of enslaved Africans on a single plantation every season.

  In Ireland’s story, the US would’ve been overrun years before had they not forced African American and Indigenous children to wage their shambler war for them. In the real world, this nation would literally not exist had it not been for slavery. Walk around a Southern city like Charleston and nearly ever brick more than 200 years old was made by enslaved African hands. If this nation was built on the backs of African Americans, African American women bore the heaviest load. So when Jane talks about needing to stay at Miss Preston’s, it’s not just a fear of becoming shambler bait that drives her. She knows as well as my ancestors did that enslavement exists on a spectrum. The knowledge of what it means to be a Black woman in white America permeates Jane’s determination and stokes the flames of fear.

  We see this in action as Jane and Katherine learn to navigate the hateful town of Summerland. Throughout their time there, both girls are subjected to a new form of Black enslavement in a post-slavery world. What Jane suffers through isn’t that far fetched in our world. Research Parchman Farm and Angola Prison, two state penitentiaries constructed on the skeletons of former plantations that give the phrase “slavery by another name” a whole new meaning, and you’ll see what I mean. Katherine, too, is trapped. Her prison is gilded by tenuous privilege, but it’s still a prison. Although Katherine’s imprisonment is figurative while Jane’s is literal, both must also contend with the leers and sneers of power-hungry white men. As Black people, the Survivalists treat them as if they were draft animals, but as Black women they exist simultaneously as less than human and sexual objects to use and abuse.

  Dread Nation is the perfect example of why we need more diversity in the YA author pool. Only a Black American woman could write Dread Nation. The true history of Western civilization is etched into Black bones. It is passed down through the generations not as object lessons but as fragments of memories imbued with subtext. A single sentence carries with it a tone of respectability and the implication of revolution. We teach our children and grandchildren how to interpret not only what our oppressors say but what they don’t say. We teach them to see what they do, what they refuse to do, and what they promise to do but never will. And we add those lessons to the stockpile and hope the next generation will be able to do what we couldn’t. Ireland tapped into our collective knowledge of the past and dreams for the future and poured it into Dread Nation. She revealed the truth of the real America by rewriting the fictional one.

  I didn’t just love Dread Nation. I felt it down to my core. It moved me in ways I didn’t expect. The only time I had to set the novel aside was the scene where one character is whipped, not only because I was invested in their well-being but because my ancestors’ deep-rooted history came bubbling up. It was a hard chapter, not gonna lie, but it had to be there. Fortunately for me, a little while later my stress was salved by two characters having an unexpected heartfelt conversation in which it turns out both are queer. The way Ireland revealed their identities was lovely in its simplicity and sincerity.

  When I think of using young adult fantasy fiction to explore systemic racial oppression, a nineteenth century zombie apocalypse isn’t the first thing to come to mind. Yet in Justina Ireland’s more than capable hands, it works. I loved the characters, the setting, the pacing, the themes, the story, and the story. In all honesty, I can’t think of a single legitimate complaint about this delightful, impactful novel. Whether or not you like it is entirely up to you, but if you don’t I’m giving you some serious side-eye.

  I feel like I’m running out of ways to express how much I needed and wanted this story, and how thrilled I am that there are Black girls out there who get to have this at such a formative time. It breaks my heart that there are only four YA fantasy novels written by Black women being published this year. Think of all the Dread Nations we were denied. At least we have this here, now. And if the publishing world were smart, they’d have more like it in the pipeline for 2019.

  Dread Nation is available from Balzer + Bray.

  Alex Brown is a YA librarian by day, local historian by night, pop culture critic/reviewer by passion, and QWoC all the time. Keep up with her every move on Twitter, check out her endless barrage of cute rat pics on Instagram, or follow along with her reading adventures on her blog.

• Black Nerd Problems
  http://blacknerdproblems.com/dread-black-review-justine-irelands-dread-nation/
  Word count: 1026

  Dread and Black: A Review of Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation

  I first began following Justina Ireland’s writings about a year ago, after reading the first issue Fiyah Lit Mag, for which she is an editor. As fierce and touching and slightly funny as the stories are in Fiyah, Justina is the same. She’s a stand-up advocate for Young Adult fiction and how to improve the inclusion of marginalized writers in “the mainstream.” So when she announced her latest book, Dread Nation, I hit pre-order right quick. I was not disappointed. This book is as stand-up, fierce, and wryly funny as anything I’ve read in a while. I was entertained every step of the way.
  The Plot

  Dread Nation is the two-part story of Jane McKeene, a student at Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls. There are lots of combat schools for negroes, but Miss Preston’s is one of the best. Why combat schools? Well, you see…the undead. In Ireland’s alternative history, during the battle of Gettysburg, all those dead bodies didn’t stay dead. They rose up as deathless monsters, fighting both the Union and Confederate armies. This stopped the War of Northern Aggression in its tracks. Check the promo video:

  In the aftermath of the War, the United States has remained united. The Southern states have been overrun and the Northern states have shrunk to isolated walled cities. Slavery has been officially abolished, but in its place, there is now mandatory schooling for Negroes and Indians, where they are taught how to kill the undead. These new soldiers are then sent out to defend good white people. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this is really slavery under a different name.

  Jane McKeene is training to be an Attendant, that is a Black servant to a white woman, part bodyguard, part chaperone, part personal slave. It is a good calling. But all Jane really wants to do is get back to her momma in Kentucky. Jane’s relationship with her mother is one of the backbones of the book, illustrated in the opening “letters” of each chapter, which establish Jane’s background and are often in stark, and ironic, contrast to the happenings of the chapter. For example, here’s the opener from Chapter 3:

  “I know you probably worry about the number of undead out here in the East, but Baltimore County is the safest in all the country. They say so in the newspaper, and you know the paper would never lie.” — Ch 3

  The irony of the intros is a fruitful literary technique used to perfect effect.
  Jane McKeene

  I hesitate to call Jane “spunky” because of how typical that sounds. She’s not “spunky,” but she does have spunk — energy, spark, dare, drive. Her personality is very much like Tom Sawyer of Mark Twain’s work. Jane goes so far as to carry a copy of Tom Sawyer in her pocket for part of the book. Jane is imperfect but very much a delightful heroine. She is constantly fighting on multiple fronts: against the expectations of white people around her, against her own impulses, and against the undead.

  “…the easiest lie to tell is the one people want to believe. ” — Ch 5

  Joining Jane in school is her enemy turned friend, Katherine (never Kate), another girl at Miss Preston’s who skin and hair allow her to pass for white, if she wanted to. Also there’s Red Jack, a local scoundrel and former boyfriend of Jane’s, who along with Jane’s curiosity, pull the three of them deep into a drama involving all of Baltimore. A drama that then draws them out of the city and beyond to much more dangerous locations.
  Rise Up

  Dread Nation is suitable for most readers, definitely down into the mid-teen age ranges, yet the themes around slavery, freedom, and self-determination work well for adults too. I would love to see Dread Nation taught in schools along with Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, juxtaposing who the two stories center and how they upend the social hierarchy in different ways

  One of the strongest threads of the book is about how these 3 Black young adults use the perceptions of the white people around them to their advantage. They, and the other Black characters in the book, demonstrate both a deadly practicality in the face of white savagery, and a cunning, proactive ability to manipulate white prejudice to survive. We so often get images of Blacks as victims, waiting to be saved — there are no victims in this book. Only people playing the victim while others fight to get by.

  “I never cared much about being an Attendant. All I ever wanted was to be free.” — Ch 17

  In some ways this is a story about passing. About lying for the right reasons and learning what the right reasons are. About using your gifts to survive and help those you love do so too. Jane has lots of gifts on display; she’s clever, strong, willful, honest, and she can kill the undead with a pair of scythes in a very unladylike way. She’s afraid, but she doesn’t let fear stop her; she doubts, but she relies on her friends to get her through. And at the end, when she finally reveals all of her secrets to the reader, I fell completely in love with Jane. She’s a heroine on par with any other, and I’m excited to see where the story takes her next.

  You can buy Dread Nation now where ever you get your books. Also, follow Justina Ireland for any more information, supplemental materials, YA conversations, and announcements for her future work: http://justinaireland.com/home. You’ll thank me.

  Hungry for more #BNPLit? Read more here.
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• The Book Wars
  http://thebookwars.ca/2018/03/review-dread-nation-justina-ireland/
  Word count: 688

  Review: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
  Posted on April 4, 2018 in Review, Young Adult

  The day I came squealing and squalling into the world was the first time someone tried to kill me. I guess it should have been obvious to everyone right then that I wasn’t going to have a normal life. — [X]

  Look, I’m just going to cut to the chase: the book right here? This book lives up to the hype and then some. You can read on to find out why, but if you’ve trusted my previous reviews you better give Justine Ireland your coin because she deserves it. To be honest, she deserves it for describing a character as being “saltier than Lot’s wife” alone. But she gives you so much. We do not deserve such goodness, but I’m thankful we got it anyway.

  Jane McKeene is your not-so-typical teenager. With her skin just light enough to earn her a future as a housemistress, Jane’s life would have been one that you’ve probably read about in history books. (Or, maybe some other books because who knows what everyone studies in class, honestly. I know very little of slavery in America was covered in my Indian schooling system, so I won’t assume.) But all of that changes when the dead rise and change the course of history. Suddenly, Black and Indigenous children are separated from families to train as zombie killers, as protectors of respectable white folks.

  Even without her unusual fate, Jane is never someone you could mistake for average. But being special sometimes means that a special kind of trouble finds you. A chance zombie attack during a lecture about the possibility of finding a vaccination (and the consequent dispatching of the undead), takes Jane and two of her friends away from Baltimore. Jane, Katherine, and Jackson are taken west, to Summerland, a mysterious town governed by a racist priest and his fanatical son who happens to be the sheriff. The novel follows Jane and Katherine as they con and fight their way to each other and, hopefully, to freedom.

  And here I will stop with my summarizing because everything feels spoiler-y honestly. What I can say is that I’ve never read characters like Jane and Katherine before, each navigating a difficult world that hates their respective Blackness is different ways, and yet finding a way to have each others’ backs. Ireland writes the girls’ experience with such nuance. But how could she not, given that every since page is written with such care. The story blends fantasy and history so perfectly, while also managing to critique America’s current political climate. This book is just so damn smart. And at the centre of it all is a character who is so determined, so brave, so real, that you just can’t help but root for her from start to finish.

  Also? Katherine is somewhere on the aromantic (possibly asexual) spectrum, you guys. That’s right, just in case you thought the book couldn’t get better. And I believe Jane admits to being attracted to women sometimes, so we also get bisexual representation here. (But going back to Katherine, I almost wept. I feel so blessed.)

  Justina Ireland has successfully resurrected (ha) the zombie horror novel. She has taken a sub-genre that was mediocre at best and appropriative at worst, and turned it into sheer excellence. I say again, we do not deserve this goodness, but I’m so grateful to all the gods that we got it anyway.

  The book comes out on Tuesday, April 3rd. Please, please read this book immediately. You do yourself a disservice if you do not.
  Get the book
  Dread Nation
  Dread Nation
  by Justina Ireland

  Publisher
  Balzer & Bray/Harperteen
  Language
  English
  Publication Date
  April 2, 2018

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• The Furious Gazelle
  http://thefuriousgazelle.com/2018/03/25/dread-nation/
  Word count: 612

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  Book Review (spoiler-free): Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
  March 25, 2018 / The Furious Gazelle Editors / 0 Comments

  Review by E. Kirshe

  Dread Nation by Justina Ireland is already on a bunch of lists of books to watch out for and there’s a good reason for that.

  Set in Reconstruction-era America, history has taken a turn thanks to the undead plague that arises during the Civil War. The North and South agree to stop fighting each other in order to put down zombies (called shamblers here). The story is told through the first-person narration of Jane Mckeene. Jane is finishing her training to become an Attendant, a person trained in both weaponry and etiquette in order to protect wealthy white women. Thanks to the Negro and Native Reeducation Act this career path is not a choice. Even being the daughter of a very wealthy white woman does not prevent Jane from being required to train at Miss Preston’s school of combat in Baltimore.

  Ireland creates a richly drawn brave new America- the worldbuilding in this book is extensive and expertly sprinkled across the pages. Even with the first person narration it never feels like an info-dump. Lots of true history is blended into Ireland’s version- history buffs will recognize some key phrases and inspiration.

  Most of the horrors in Ireland’s alternate history America have little to do with zombies. Jane knows how to talk herself into trouble but that, as she puts it, has “a lot less to do with what I say than who I am”. No part of America is truly safe for Jane shamblers or no. Recognizable and racist politics under the guise of survival and restoring the country to pre-shambler greatness permeate the book and keep it tense. There’s surviving the undead and surviving a world that will use you but doesn’t want you. By the time Ireland drops Jane into the physical manifestation of what a great America means in the “Old West” town of Summerland the stakes are high.

  Jane is a fantastic character. She is shrewd, funny, talented, ruthless, not heartless. She is full of righteous anger and it is completely refreshing. Jane is anchored by the people she loves which brings me to the next great thing about this book- the central and deepest relationships in this book are friendship and familial. The connection between Jane and her mother are literally at the forefront of each chapter. One of Jane’s main motivations as the book goes on his her desire to do right by her friend Katherine (who, like all of the supporting cast, is just as fully realized as our narrator). Jane is even drawn into the central plot of the book by another character’s concern for his sister. Romantic love is very much a side piece. To top it off everyone is basically a shambler killing badass. Women beating the crap out of men or monsters will never get old.

  Dread Nation is intense, suspenseful, thoughtful, and so very well written. At 450 pages the book pushes forward quickly while maintaining suspense and offering surprises. Ireland explores topics of privilege, oppression, racism, and slavery in a grimly subversive way. As the increasing perils both political and undead come to a head the reader is given a thrilling conclusion.

  Release date: Apr 03, 2018

  The Furious Gazelle received a copy of Dread Nation in exchange for a review.

• All about Romance
  https://allaboutromance.com/book-review/dread-nation-by-justina-ireland/
  Word count: 974

  Desert Isle Keeper
  Dread Nation

  Justina Ireland

  Buy This Book

  If you read only one YA novel this year, make it Dread Nation. Part Zombie Land, part Django Unchained, channeling a bit of The Hunger Games and also something wholly original, this is a tale of what happens when the undead rise while America’s race war rages.

  The Civil War is over. But not because the North won. No, the North and South were forced to put aside political differences when the dead rose on the battlefield of Gettysburg, eating anyone living regardless of the color of their uniform. A truce was quickly established and hasty solutions to the serious problem of humanity falling to the zombie plague began. One response is the Negro and Native Reeducation Act. Funded by Congress, these special schools produced young men and women of color expertly trained in the art of zombie killing. Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls is just that kind of establishment. A place where training in etiquette and battle are equally important, the school provides Attendants to young women of good breeding, ensuring that the well-to-do have a lady’s maid who can set a fine table and kill any undead who try to eat the guests.

  Jane McKeen is a student at Miss Preston’s. She’s clever, resourceful, deadly with a sickle and a wee bit independent. She’s got no intention of being an Attendant to anyone but her Mama back in Kentucky, and once she’s had her fill of training, she’ll head home and protect the folks on the family plantation. Her plans may be dashed, however, by her poor results in an exam regarding European place settings and the appropriate titles for nobles. Already on probation for the unladylike act of reading newspapers, she is now in danger of expulsion. Jane reluctantly agrees to attend an extra-credit lecture on the science of zombies in order to show she knows how to behave appropriately in a social setting. Unfortunately, her manners at the event are found lacking; fortunately, the professor giving the lecture is attacked by his zombie experiments and Jane’s ability to fight the undead saves the notable attendees, including the mayor’s wife. Her heroics keep her from getting expelled but land her in a whole other heap of trouble.

  For unbeknownst to Jane and the other Miss Preston girls, things in the war for the survival of humanity are not going well. Mysterious disappearances are occurring in the local community. And in the area beyond that? Let’s just say that what awaits Jane and her friends beyond Baltimore’s borders is a far more difficult dilemma.

  Skillfully combining fantasy and history, Ms. Ireland creates a world which gives thoughtful examination to slavery, Jim Crow, and the Native American boarding school systems which once existed with the goal of destroying native culture and enslaving native children. Through the eyes of the engaging Jane, we examine the theories – scientific and religious – which were used to justify the treatment of fellow Americans as less than human. We also experience the fight for justice, survival and the indomitability of the human spirit through our plucky heroine. And it’s all a heck of a good time. This novel manages to blend the serious and the silly to create a story that at once elucidates and entertains. The zombies are what make the tale. Just when the racism and systematic oppression want to make you scream, they enter the story. Not to say they are funny. They aren’t. But the juxtaposition of our very real horrific history on race issues and the unreality of undead zombies gives the reader a chance to step back from the story while still learning what it is trying to teach.

  Jane is everything a YA dystopian heroine should be. Resourceful, resilient, strong, clever, caring, compassionate and wise beyond her years. Her mother, a remarkable woman, taught her many lessons, and Jane learned them all well. She’s not perfect and she’ll tell you that herself. But she is wonderful nonetheless.

  The writing here is sublime, the plotting excellent, and because of the first-person narration of Jane the story is incredibly impactful. Pieces of the tale are doled out at exactly the right moment, so that by the time we reach the big personal history reveal at the end of the novel we know the narrative fits our character to a tee.

  The secondary characters, from the teachers at the school to Jane’s frenemy Kate, and several other interesting people are well drawn. Another advantage to the first person narration is that they all remain a bit mysterious, since we can only know what Jane knows about them, but again, that’s part of the fun. Another great thing about Jane is that she’s a (mostly) good judge of character so seeing folks through her eyes is not a disadvantage at all.

  Dread Nation leaves the reader with a lot to think about and a lot more to look forward to. Jane and her friends are left in a tenuous situation that simply cries out for a sequel, and although I am thoroughly tired of series, I am happy to have discovered this one. My only regret is that I likely have a year or more to wait to see what happens. Don’t let that put you off, though. You are going to want to get started on this novel as soon as possible, and whatever comes next will be made better for a little (or a lot of ) anticipation.
  Buy it at: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/iBooks/Kobo

• YA Books Central
  http://www.yabookscentral.com/yafiction/22523-dread-nation-dread-nation-1
  Word count: 1777

  Books Young Adult Fiction Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)
  Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)

  4.0

  0.0 (0)
  315 0
  Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)
  Author(s)
  Justina Ireland
  Publisher
  Balzer + Bray
  Genre(s)

  Young Adult
  Horror
  Historical Fiction

  Age Range
  12+
  Release Date
  April 03, 2018
  ISBN
  978-0062570604
  Buy This Book

  At once provocative, terrifying, and darkly subversive, Dread Nation is Justina Ireland's stunning vision of an America both foreign and familiar—a country on the brink, at the explosive crossroads where race, humanity, and survival meet.

  Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.

  In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.

  But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It's a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.

  But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.

  But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.

  And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.
  Editor reviews
  1 reviews
  Overall rating

  4.0
  Plot

  3.0 (1)
  Characters

  5.0 (1)
  Writing Style

  4.0 (1)
  March 27, 2018
  Jazmen Greene, Staff Reviewer Jazmen Greene, Staff Reviewer
  Top 100 Reviewer
  View all my reviews (37)
  Overall rating

  4.0
  Plot

  3.0
  Characters

  5.0
  Writing Style

  4.0
  Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)

  What a read. This book grabs you in a choke hold, and does not let go until the very last page.

  Reminiscent of Alice in Zombieland, Dread Nation is the Walking Dead, immediately post slavery.

  Jane McKeene, is a black girl during the most difficult of times. Although slavery has been abolished, the negro is no more accepted than they were before.

  Educated in the art of killing the dead, Jane is a force to be reckoned with. With sass, that is unmatched--Jane quickly became one of my favorite characters.

  I admired her zest, and her unwavering bravery. Despite the circumstance, Jane stood up for what she believed in, and fought to the very end for both herself, but every other person that was mistreated before and after her.

  Although this reads like a historical fiction, the tone--and the feelings the novel incites is very timely, and very now.

  The characters are easy to root for, and so very easy to follow along with. The plot itself is intriguing--but by the end, I felt like there was more to see--and I can see why this will be a series, and I have a feeling it's going to be an exciting series.

  For the romance lovers, there's not much in that department--but I do believe, there will be more of it in book two--and it's something to look forward to.

  All in all, the book reads well, is well-written, and is filled with gore and excitement. If you love the walking dead, a little bit of history--and a lot of sass, this book is for you!
  Was this review helpful to you?
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  User reviews

• Common Sense Media
  https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/dread-nation
  Word count: 1164

  Dread Nation
  Book review by Sandie Angulo Chen, Common Sense Media
  Dread Nation Book Poster Image
  Common Sense says
  age 13+
  Riveting alt-history post-Civil War zombie thriller.

  Justina Ireland Historical Fiction 2018

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  age 12+
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  A lot or a little?
  The parents' guide to what's in this book.
  Educational value
  Positive messages
  Positive role models & representations
  Violence
  Sex
  Language
  Consumerism
  Drinking, drugs & smoking
  What parents need to know

  Parents need to know that Dread Nation is an alternative-history zombie thriller that takes place after the U.S. Civil War ends not with the South's surrender but when the dead begin to rise up on the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville. Author Justina Ireland explores what would've happened had zombies (or shamblers, as they're called in the book) stopped the war in order for Americans to come together to battle the undead (or force black and indigenous folks to fight them). Like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the book features a good deal of violence, as is appropriate to a story about zombie slayers (lots of deaths either from the undead eating live humans, or from humans shooting, stabbing, decapitating the undead, or people beating, stabbing, and shooting one another). There are also some racial slurs of the era ("darkie," "colored," "pickaninny," "coon," etc.) in the story. Parents and teens who read the book together can discuss a host of socio-political and historical issues, from institutional racism and white supremacy to shadism, passing, educational segregation, well-intentioned but ineffective white benevolence, and more.
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  What's the story?

  DREAD NATION is a historical zombie thriller that takes place in an alternative universe in which the Civil War ended when the dead at Gettysburg began to rise up and consume soldiers from both armies. Protagonist Jane McKeene was born just two days before zombies -- aka shamblers -- emerged, and the fact that she's obviously biracial complicated life for her rich, white mother, the mistress of a powerful Kentucky plantation. In an effort to help fight the undead, the government enacts the Native and Negro Reeducation Act, which forces black and indigenous children to attend combat school, where they're basically taught to be zombie slayers to protect whites. Jane is nearly done with her training at a prestigious Baltimore combat school to become an Attendant (a bodyguard to wealthy whites), when she and her beautiful light-skinned classmate Katherine are taken away to serve as border patrol at a dangerous frontier outpost, Summerland. At Summerland, which is led by a racist religious fanatic and his lawman son, Jane manages to convince everyone that blue-eyed, golden-haired Katherine is white, and that she's the lady's Attendant. After Jane succeeds in installing Katherine among the white citizens, the two young women uncover a host of dangerous secrets -- about the town, the undead, and the future.
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  Is it any good?

  The action is so compelling in this fantastic alt-history zombie thriller that reimagines post-Civil War America, it's the kind of novel that's difficult to stop reading once you start. Dread Nation's main character Jane is everything you want in a protagonist: courageous, clever, funny, willful, and impulsive, but also vulnerable, generous, and selfless. She doesn't bother with humility -- she knows the damage she can do with her sickles and that table manners and upper-crust etiquette are trifling considerations. And although there's a tiny love triangle with two equally as viable suitors, the romance is way on the backburner while Jane (who's biracial but not fair enough to pass) and her perfectly put together classmate Katherine (who's looks are described as passing-for-white complexion, blue eyes, and golden hair) work together to defeat the nefarious plans of Summerland's vile father-and-son preacher and sheriff. Katherine enjoys the finer things but also resents how her beauty is also a burden and that she's underestimated (even by Jane, once in a while) because of her stunning face.

  Jane and Katherine lead the charge, while the men in the story are all supporting characters, whether they're good, evil, or roguish. Red Jack, Jane's former beau, is desperate to find his little sister (who like Katherine can "pass"); Gideon is the genius forced to keep Summerland's electricity flowing; and Summerland's reigning father and son believe in the despicable white supremacy that keeps the frontier town's black Attendants in place. In flashbacks, readers will also get to know Jane's white, plantation-running Momma, as well as the various black aunties, particularly Aggie, who raised Jane at Rose Hill. There's also a layered quality to the story -- readers can read it for the surface layer of zombie-slaying or dig in further to uncover the sociopolitical and historical commentary. Readers of color may especially connect to the themes of oppression and systemic racism.
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  Talk to your kids about ...

  Families can talk about gender roles in Dread Nation. How are the young combat-trained women just as capable as men?

  What role does violence play in Dread Nation? Is it realistic? Why is violence important to the story?

  Despite the supernatural elements of the story, what aspects are rooted in historical event and truths, such as Indian boarding schools, "passing," segregation, and more? Why is it believable that had zombies appeared in 19th century America, black and brown people would've been forced to protect whites?

  Which characters are role models in the movie? How do they display courage, perseverance, and teamwork? Why are those important character strengths?

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  Book details

  Author: Justina Ireland
  Genre: Historical Fiction
  Topics: Friendship, History
  Book type: Fiction
  Publisher: Balzer + Bray
  Publication date: April 3, 2018
  Publisher's recommended age(s): 12 - 18
  Number of pages: 464
  Available on: Paperback, Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle

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• Fansided
  https://culturess.com/2018/04/05/dread-nation-review-justina-ireland-walking-dead/
  Word count: 547

  Dread Nation is perfect for fans and non-fans of The Walking Dead alike
  by Cheryl Wassenaar1 month agoFollow @haegorgeous
  Zombie fiction needs something to distinguish it from The Walking Dead these days, and Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation has that in spades.

  With the cultural giant that is The Walking Dead, even in these later years, any new zombie fiction has to have something special to help it stand out.

  For the previously mentioned Newsflesh series, it’s the fact that the apocalyptic event happened long enough ago for kids to grow up. For Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it’s putting zombies in the story of Pride and Prejudice.

  And for Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation, it’s setting Jane McKeene in the aftermath of the Civil War (and the rise of the undead, no big).

  Oh, and Jane is black, sent as a young teen to a school where she has learned to fight zombies. Native Americans do the same because Ireland says in her own author’s note that she based this aspect of her world on the actual boarding school system in real-world history.

  That’s how Dread Nation sets itself apart. It’s not just throwing zombies in to write a cool zombie historical fiction book. Like all the best zombie fiction, the zombies are just the backdrop to the actual point of the book: social commentary.

  And Jane makes her commentary in all kinds of ways — from sometimes playing to stereotypes to helping certain fellow students pass as white when they need to in order to have a shot at survival.

  Killing shamblers happens to be something she’s good at, but it is not the only thing she’s good at, and she’s not good at everything either. Jane’s realistic about her flaws, too — her skills at lying, her outspokenness’ tendency to pop up at some horrible times and her weakness for clever boys chief among them. And she doesn’t like everyone she meets, either.

  But the book doesn’t let that weakness get in the way of developing a friendship between Jane and Katherine, another student at the same school. They don’t like each other at first, but circumstances force them together, and they end up forging a friendship. Even that isn’t perfect. They still disagree on things and have different approaches to getting themselves out of the situation they find themselves in.

  If anything, Ireland could have done a bit more work in establishing the differences between the Egalitarians and the Survivalists, the two major factions in dealing with the zombie threat. The Survivalists end up dominating things just a touch too much. Perhaps that’ll change with the next book, as it appears that this is going to be a series.
  Next: 8 more books for fans of The Walking Dead

  So, if The Walking Dead just isn’t satisfying quite as much as it used to, or if you just need all the zombies you can possibly get, or if you like your paranormal fiction with some well-done social commentary, Dread Nation is the book for you.

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