Guest Author: The Geek In Me by Elizabeth J.M. Walker

EJMWalker-This Night Sucks

Elizabeth JM WalkerI am excited to welcome author Elizabeth J.M. Walker, who is celebrating the release of her new novel, This Night Sucks.

Lana is a high school senior enrolled in Vampire Education – a class to teach students about the very real presence of vampires in the world. Lana and her classmates don’t really expect to meet up with any undead bloodsuckers. Vampires are a lot like other scary things that supposedly exist but you hope you’ll never come across: nudist colonies, mad cow disease, and your parents’ sex life.

What is part of Lana’s everyday reality is navigating through one last year of high school while desperately trying to be less nerdy. She still loves spaceships, fantasy novels, and cat stickers, but she also recently got her braces removed, grew boobs, and is working on the makeup thing. She never expected her crush-of-a-lifetime Pete to even notice her – let alone ask her out on a date.

The date is going great until Pete’s ex-girlfriend Katy shows up, all bloody and pissed off. Lana quickly realizes that Katy is not just her ordinary bitchy self – she has been turned into a vampire which, in turn, takes Lana and Pete’s date from a hot and steamy make-out session to an unexpected vampire-hunting expedition.

________________________________________________________

The Geek In Me

EJMWalker-This Night SucksOut of all the suggested questions I felt this was the most relevant one to answer for a post about This Night Sucks. The main character in the book, Lana, is very much a geek. While this is a work of fiction involving vampires and scoring dates with your crush, it wasn’t exactly hard for me to write about being a high school geek. Did I have braces in high school? Yep. Did I love books? Of course. Did I love books that had dragons on the cover? Even better!

The only thing worse than being a high school geek is being painfully aware of just how geeky you are. Thankfully, as you grow older, this tends to wear off. Not the being a geek part, but the caring part. I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never master eyeliner or understand high heels. But I’ve also come to the conclusion that I don’t care. Instead of learning how to apply makeup and walk in ridiculous shoes, I’ve spent time reading books.  And baking brownies. And learning how to knit. And making zines. And writing books – books about dragons and books about vampires, and hopefully there will continue to be more books. If being a geek means embracing the things I love and not caring about less important things, then I guess I am and forever will be a geek.

For this reason, I don’t really have a “geek side” – I am a full-fledged geek and I don’t care. My geeky personality is not something I try to hide. I may not play video games or read comic books, but obviously geeks come in all shapes and sizes and with all kinds of interests to be geeked out about.

I had a lot of fun writing This Night Sucks from Lana’s geeky point-of-view. Lana may be a geek like me, but she is much more snarky and gutsy than I am. She’s also way more self-confident than I ever was as a teenager. She was a very fun nerd-character to write, and I hope others will enjoy her story.
___________

Meet Elizabeth J.M. Walker!

EWalker-She Dreamed of DragonsElizabeth J. M. Walker lives in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. She has always loved books and writing. As a teen she discovered zines, which inspired her to publish her own litzine of odd fairy tales for over a decade. She Dreamed of Dragons is her first novel.

Contact Info: Website | Facebook | GoodReads

Want to purchase Elizabeth’s novels?
This Night Sucks
The Search for the Golden Feather
She Dreamed of Dragons

About Jackie 3282 Articles
I am a 30-something SAHM with two adorable boys and a supportive husband who is very tolerant of my reading addiction. I love to read and easily go through about a dozen books a month – well I did before I had kids. Now, not so much. After my first son was born, I began to take my hobby of reviewing a little more serious and started Literary Escapism to help with my sanity. I love to discuss the fabulous novels I’ve read and meeting all the wonderful people in the book blogging community has been amazing.

4 Comments

Comments are closed.