Editor’s Note: Since March, PJ Lifestyle has been highlighting some of the most innovative fiction writers at the recently-launched new media publishing platform Liberty Island, featuring interviews and story excerpts. Click here to see our collection of 24 so far. To learn more check out this interview Sarah Hoyt conducted with CEO Adam Bellow: “It also has a unique mission: to serve as the platform and gathering-place for the new right-of-center counterculture.” Also see COO David S. Bernstein’s recent essay here in which he defines Liberty Island as, “an imaginative playground where brilliant and creative people can test their ideas without being harassed or threatened by the new breed of ‘community activists’ who police thought and speech in the media.” Also see Bellow’s recent cover story at National Review: “Let Your Right Brain Run Free.” 

Bio:

Karina Fabian is a mild-mannered writer for Top Ten Reviews and mother of four. But in her other lives, she’s a snarky dragon detective, a nun doing dangerous rescue missions beyond Mars, a psychic driven insane by his abilities, a zombie exterminator… Her rich fantasy life has compelled her to become a writer, and she has written 9 science fiction, fantasy or horror novels and has stories in dozens of anthologies and magazines. She’s won multiple awards for her fiction, but the best reward is when an editor of fan asks her to write some more.

Because her imagination suffers from “squirrel!” syndrome even worse than the dogs in UP, she alternates her writing efforts among multiple universes. She recently submitted the last novel in the Mind Over Trilogy and wrote a novella to marry off two of the main characters. Her serial novella coming out in Liberty Island in November features zombie Exterminators Neeta Lyffe and Ted Hacker as they take on skiing zombies on the slopes of Utah. Neeta Lyffe’s first book, Neeta Lyffe: Zombie Exterminator, is now out in audiobook as well. She has two science fiction novels with publishers for consideration and is working on the next DragonEye, and maybe… SQUIRREL!

Karina also writes about the lives of the saints for a Catholic service called SaintConnection, plus homilies for FAITH Catholic. And, of course, her new full-time job is writing reviews of small-medium business services like eCommerce and social media monitoring software. In addition to writing, Karina has taught online classes on aspects of writing and marketing from worldbuilding to time management and even housekeeping for writers.

Interview:

Wrinkle in Time is still my favorite book, and if the director from Frozen messes it up in the movie, I’ll be furious. Galaxy Quest is my favorite movie. Jim Butcher, Larry Correia, Mercedes Lackey and Terry Pratchett are my favorite authors, though I enjoy an eclectic mix of small press authors who (like me) most people have never heard of. (Frank Creed, Ann Lewis, Jane Lebak, Kirk Outerbridge to name a few). Intellectual influences? I think you’re expecting too much from me here. I was a great student. I’m an excellent author and a funny satirist, but I’m no scholar.

Optimistic, faithfully Catholic, generally conservative, heavy on rational thinking and common sense – and sick to death of people who overreact to things on both sides of the spectrum. Ironically, it was all the liberal diatribe on FB and other sources that made me join some Conservative/Libertarian groups, thinking I’d find more level-headed people there. In general, I have, but there are still a few folks who make me cringe. The world ain’t going to Hell, folks – liberal or otherwise!

Robert Fabian is a sensible guy with extreme common sense and the amazing ability to look at the pieces and see the big picture. It’s one of the reasons why I married him, and why I usually bounce things off him, whether political and social issues or what awful yet entertaining situation I can subject my protagonist to in my next book. After that, I enjoy Thomas Sowell, though I don’t read him faithfully. Of course, the great Catholic saints and thinkers, like St. Augustine, St. Hildegard von Bingen, St. Thomas Aquinas, or GK Chesterton are worth reading. I tend to be a dabbler, though, rather than a student of any particular one. (The great part of my writing for SaintConnection is I get exposed to the writings of a new saint every month.) Larry Correia is fun to read, but he can get a little over-the-top in his fisking for me. Not that he’s wrong, mind you. And let’s not forget Dave Barry, Berke Breathed, Douglas Adams and other great humorists who showed me a great way to address an issue is to poke fun at it.

My aspiration is to make enough money writing full-time fiction that I can quit my day job – or go part time. I actually love my day job. I took on a full-time writing position in November 2013 writing reviews of small and medium business services for http://toptenreviews.com. I had no idea I’d enjoy working at an office away from my house, but the people (who run the gamut of political and social beliefs) are kind, friendly and want to have fun. We have a hiking group and a D&D group. It’s been kind of a relief after having been so exposed to the polarized world of social media to find that in one-on-one contact, people do disagree and get along just fine. But to spend my days writing saint stories and homilies and two or three novels a year? That actually paid my mortgage? That would be the dream.

But a goal is not a goal unless it’s measurable and achievable by your own efforts. That’s why “being a best seller” can’t be a goal: too much else, from publisher to the reading public, influence the outcome. So my goals are to keep meeting deadlines and producing quality content for Top Ten Reviews, Saint Connection, and FAITH Catholic, and write a novel a year, with some short stories tossed in for good measure. That’s write, not necessarily publish. Within those goals:

–          Build up my DragonEye series. My next novel is the origin story of Vern, a dragon who emigrates from Faerie to our world and sets up shop as a detective and all-around problem solver when magic and technology collide. With that, I hope to reboot the series with a combination of novels and story collections. It’ll be as eclectic as Vern’s tastes: a little comedy, a little noir; novels, novellas and flash fiction.

–          Write the third Neeta Lyffe novel: Neeta Lyffe and the One Armed Bandit. Neeta and Ted go to Reno for a vacation, but people die during a slot machine tournament yet come back as zombies because they refuse to stop playing. Yep, another working vacation – what were the odds?

–          I’d also like to take a complete detour and try my hand at chick-lit/romantic comedy about a woman and a gay man who fall in love, or a more serious piece about a widower who is falling in love again but must first deal with his grief over his unfaithful wife and the tangle that was their marriage.

http://fabianspace.com That’s another goal for the year: update that site’s look. Anyone know a good web designer?

Most people think this is crazy, but I love moving. I enjoy clearing out a house, culling our stuff, and taking it somewhere new. I get the same excitement from an empty home that I do from a blank page waiting for me to put my stamp on it. I love figuring out where everything goes, trying new places, puzzling over how to make a kitchen work efficiently for me. I just have fun with this. Of course, after 25 years of moving, we just bought our dream home, so we’re actually hoping we can stay here a good long time if not forever.

Don’t know if this is a crazy hobby, but I play D&D. We started a family campaign when my husband was in Iraq (back before ISIS, when the worst issue was Internet connectivity). It kept the family together. Now, we play that on Saturdays, and my husband and I play with  my work group on Wednesdays. At work, I am Purch, a half-orc fighter with impulse control issues. (I tried to take on a three-headed demigod with my bare hands…as a level 3 fighter…you can guess it did not go well). At home, I’m a thief who picks my sons’ pockets when they get uppity in game.

Here’s an Excerpt from “Josie’s Last Straw” by Karina Fabian:

The moon fought to shine through the clouds, casting the dilapidated trailer in a patchwork of light and shadow. In the darkness, a tall, crooked man shambled toward it. He navigated the trip-traps of rusting car parts and garden gnomes, avoided the pitfalls dug by dogs with the ease of familiarity until his foot caught on a newly dug hole. He staggered into a plaster deer, spotted from birdshot. With an unintelligible roar, he smashed the fawn with both fists before continuing on. He paused at the steps, actually walking into them a few times, before the right foot lifted, then the left, and he ascended the rotting wood. He hardly noticed as he crashed through the screen door, leaving it hanging off one hinge.

Inside, the television blared reruns of South Park to no one. He sat down on the Lay-Z-Boy to watch.

*

Josie woke up from yet another nightmare of Jebediah having one of his “fits.” She always felt so guilty after a dream like that. Poor man, two days buried, and she had to think about him this way?

Not that the past few years had been kind, she reminded herself as she schlepped into the bathroom, one arm in her robe, only habit making her wash up and get ready to face another day as Widow Gump. She sighed. No, not easy years at all. After that Conroy had shot him in the calf trying to kill that badger, Jeb hadn’t been able to work much. He’d go out for the day, come home without a job, but always with something he’d killed for dinner. She didn’t believe those people who said he was drinking in front of the Gaslight Inn. Then she took that job–

We were going to lose the house, part of her said, and she knew it was true, but she knew that was the last straw for him.

“No woman of mine is going to work! Your job is to stay home, cook my dinner and have my babies!” he’d declare. It was so cute when they were dating, how manly he’d act. ‘Course, she’d failed him there, too.

She looked into the mirror at a face dripping with water. “You’re getting fat and ugly,” he’d warned her, more than once, sometimes with a pull on her frizzy hair or a pinch of her stomach to prove his point. “Don’t be thinking about leaving me now. There’n’t a man in the world gonna take you!”

Now, as the tired, faded and old face stared back at her, she saw just how right he was. That was going to be the hardest part, too, she knew it. Living alone. She left the TV on all night and slept with the dogs, but it weren’t no substitute for a man.

Their–her–retriever Buford and her poodle Pinkie scratched at the bedroom door. They nearly bowled her down as she opened it, dashing into the living room, barking furiously.

“What is it? Another coon?” She grabbed Jeb’s shotgun and made her way down the hall.

She recognized the back of the head she’d seen resting against that chair for twenty years. The shotgun slipped through her hands and crashed to the floor.

“Jebediah?”

Jebediah grunted and stuck out his arm in a way she recognized as well, and with shaking knees and trembling hands, she hurried to the kitchen and brought him his favorite beer.

It was him! It was a miracle!

*

“This is Dave Neilson, here with Josie Gump, whose husband, Jebediah, seems to be the first confirmed case of a zombie interacting safely with other humans.”

Josie gripped her elbows and watched the camera as if the big lens might swallow her. She still didn’t know if she’d done right by letting the reporter in, but she’d asked Jeb and he’d grunted that it was okay. At least she thought that’s what he meant. He really only grunted anymore. Guess being dead takes a lot out of a guy.

Besides, after his grave had been found dug open from the inside, everyone from Momma to her preacher to the Sheriff had come calling. He was a zombie–the murderous, shambling undead, they told her. She needed to take the dogs and get away fast, they told her.

They were worried about her, they told her.

They were always worried about her. Why couldn’t they be happy for her? So she let them get a peek of him, and once they saw him drinking his beer, they were satisfied he wasn’t some murderous shambling undead that was gonna rip her to shreds. She didn’t let them talk to him, though. He wasn’t ready. Besides, Jeb always hated visitors that weren’t his friends. Not that any of them had come round to check on her after he’d died, she thought bitterly.

Anyways, she needed to let folks know everything was okay, so they’d leave them alone to get on with life.

She was worried when the cameraman filmed him, even if he did so from the safety of the kitchen. Once upon a time, Jeb would have smashed the camera into his face or, at best, flipped him off. But he sat watching his game peacefully enough. Even the dogs were behaving, snuggled together on the couch, giving their master forlorn looks. She’d been worried about that, too; Pinkie always protected her and never got along with Jeb. Things were going well.

Reporter Dave had asked her a question.

“‘Changed’? Well, he don’t talk about it much. Jeb was always the private sort. But, yeah, I think he has changed. He’s a lot gentler now. Not that there’s been any…you know. I just mean that he’s a lot more content. He’s a better listener, too.” She blushed. Had she really just told the world about their…you know? Not that there’d been any. Even alive, she could count on one hand–

But that was my fault. I let myself go. I was so tired and angry all the time. Funny how anger made a person so tired. Still, he could have–

“So how does he feel, physically? Is he stiff?”

Her eyes widened. Why had she ever brought it up? “Well, I think that’s rather personal!”

Dave blushed. “I mean, like rigor mortis? Does he have a pulse? Is he warm? Does he feel alive?”

Actually, when she’d hugged him this morning, reaching around his back and squeezing into his arm, careful as usual to avoid getting in the way of the television, he’d felt kind of squishy under his skin. She forced a grin.

Dave continued, “And what about the smell?”

Suddenly she regretted ever having let this, this reporter into her home. “Now you listen here! I have been in mourning! And now my husband is back, and he has special needs! If I’ve let the housework slip–”

“No! Wait! I just meant–”

She didn’t care what he meant. This was a bad idea after all! She blinked back angry tears as she stormed for the door and flung it open. She called for the dogs and they rose from the couch, barking and snarling.

“Please! All I meant–”

“Buford! Pinkie! Sic!”

The reporter and cameraman ran past her. The cameraman remembered the quick turn and made it down the steps, Pinkie snapping at his heels, but Dave overshot and tumbled off the low railing, Buford jumped after him, teeth bared.

She slammed the door on their screams.

Jebediah grunted with more force than usual. Josie hurried to put a fresh beer in his hand.

“I’m sorry, Jeb! I’m so sorry. I won’t ever let anyone intrude on us again!”

Jeb gave another grunt and poured beer into his mouth. Some spilled on his shirt. She wiped it off with a dish towel, then got a tissue for her eyes.

Read the Rest at Liberty Island Here.