Just-For-Fun Giveaway: Zombie Cupcakes Book

Thanks to the generosity of the folks at Ryland Peters & Small, Connect the Pop has three copies of the gorgeously creative A Zombie Ate My Cupcake to give away in honor of Halloween. Please bear in mind of course that that “gorgeously creative” evaluation comes from someone who’s definitely not a foodie (let alone a cupcake fan), but more of a “horror guy.” That’s how satisfying this book is aesthetically.

Moreover, the just-for-fun characterization of this giveaway’s headline belies a deeper truth in terms of teaching-and-learning with pop culture fandom… namely, that an engaging and artful collection of recipes like this one strongly suggests the various ways that genre-related content can be leveraged to spur the reading–and writing!–of highly practical, how-to texts. The tendency is to group fictional treatments of pop culture archetypes such as zombies with similar texts of fiction, but actually non-fiction texts such as this one can be far more reflective of fandom-based literacies: zombie fans will always look for ways to bring their fan-object into real-world (i.e., non-fiction) contexts and share it with others.

Giveaway Rules

1. You must have a U.S. or Canadian mailing address to which the book can be shipped.
2. Leave a thoughtful comment on any post that is tagged with “horror” or “writing.”
3. “@” me on Twitter with the hashtags #Zombies and #ConnectThePop in the tweet to let me know you’ve done this, and the date of the post where you left the comment. (I’m @Peter_Gutierrez.)
4. Everyone who does these two things between now and 12:01 am ET on October 24 will be entered into the drawing.
5. If you don’t have a Twitter account, just have a friend or colleague tweet on your behalf, letting me know which date and comment is associated with the tweet—but of course since the book might be sent to him/her (see #6 below), you’ll have to work it out from there. (Or just start your own Twitter account in a couple of minutes, and close it when this giveaway is over.)
6. I’ll notify you on Twitter, not here, if you’ve won, and if you don’t respond within 48 hours, I’ll just draw another name. If you’re a winner, you’ll simply DM me your mailing address, which I will then pass along to the publisher, and we’ll be all set. Thanks!