The 5,000-ish word “St. John of the Throwdown” is set in the zombie-infested world of my debut novel The Panama Laugh, and is available only as an audio download — free! — with Violet Blue reading, on Violet’s podcast Open Source Sex. In it, a homeless teen sleeping on the beach in San Francisco wakes up having to face a crowd of frat boys — and maybe get sent up for murder.
I wrote “St. John of the Throwdown” specifically for Violet to read at a promotional event for The Panama Laugh this month. She was the very first reader of the novel and gave me some incredibly helpful feedback that basically helped me put the whole latter half of the book together. I based the viewpoint character on what I know of her as a teen, drawing on some of her experiences being young and homeless on the streets of San Francisco.
After generously (and brilliantly) reading “St. John” at Z-Day 2011, Violet even more generously agreed to read and release it for free on Open Source Sex. Check it out on Violet’s Libsyn feed here, go to the direct download link here, or if you use iTunes, access open source sex here. Here’s what Violet says about it, incidentally:
Open Source Sex 88: (Non-sex) The Panama Laugh – St. John of the Throwdown
Sep 14, 2011Tonight’s podcast is a non-sex short story about zombies – and me. Author of the (awesome) new zombie novel The Panama Laugh wrote a short story based on his novel’s universe where a young female street punk in San Francisco goes up against a pack of zombie frat boys. The author Thomas Roche based the story on my very real life as a homeless teen here in SF. If you like action, horror and zombies (and you like me), you’ll love it. If you don’t like those things, tune in for the next podcast which I promise will be delightfully naughty and fun.
http://violetblue.libsyn.com/open-source-sex-88-non-sex-the-panama-laugh-st-john-of-the-throwdown
Thomas Roche 