This week's featured contributor is author, screenwriter, and prolific short film producer, Jenifer B. Stockdale, who wrote RED FEVER in "The Stories of She."
What is RED FEVER about?
A young woman, living in a post-apocalyptic survivors’ camp discovers that her world is not what she thought it was, and the truth is much more nefarious than what she believed.
What inspired you to write this story?
Mariana believes the world is one way. It is entirely different than what she thought. I have recently realized that this same thing is the core of everything I write. Growing up on Martha’s Vineyard, I had no idea what “the world” was…when I went away to college, it was like I had dropped on Earth from a different planet.
How did you come up with the concept/characters for your story? Every one of my stories has some component of “the world is different than what my characters thought or believed to be true” (often because they were being lied to). I thought, what if someone lived in a camp, surrounded by a fence and were told there were Zombies on the other side of the fence? Then I came up with the reason why people would want to keep those people inside a fence, and then I made it worse for them.
What inspired the names of the characters in the story?
The father, Carlos, was named after my husband’s childhood friend who passed away when I was working on the concept. The other names sort of fell into place as common Hispanic names when the fence became symbolic for something that actually happens in this country.
How did you come up with the title?
One of my marketing group friends came up with it. It has a double meaning. The disease the alleged zombies have is Red Fever. There is another meaning to what Red Fever is, but that’s for the full story…
What do you hope readers will connect with in your story?
We all lived on an “island” – our own families led us to believe what ever it was we believed within the confines of our own homes…is it what the world really is, or not? Is the world what we believe it is? Or are we in an alien’s terrarium?
Have you written any other books or scripts, published or unpublished?
I have written several scripts. I have two books on Amazon – both about foster care, one fiction and one non-fiction.
If your story had a candle, what scent would it be? Blood…heehee
Is there a writer whose brain you’d love to pick for advice?
Stephen King, that should be obvious.
Fun fact:
I was in Jaws. I had an audition for a major role in Jaws II but my mother guilted me into not going.
JENIFER B. STOCKDALE - is an author and screenwriter who recently produced Red Fever, a dark sci-fi thriller adapted from her short story of the same name. Her company, Cyclops Snowman Productions, LLC, has just wrapped principal photography on the film. A producer and writer on multiple short films, Jenifer is also known for Grammar Girl (2018), The Sky is Falling (2020) and Maybe Tomorrow (2019). Her YA novel, This Was My House First, reached the second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Author Contest. She is a Special Education teacher and was a foster parent for ten years. Jenifer is a founding board member of Salter Network Press and is based in central Massachusetts.
https://www.facebook.com/jeniferstockdaleauthor
https://www.facebook.com/cyclopssnowmanproductions
https://imdb.com/name/nm9372281/
