At Zombie Media, we like to shine a light on the creators behind the work. Every book has a voice, but it also has a person, someone with experiences, influences, and a story of their own. In this installment, we’re featuring Curtis Josh Rogers, author of Whispers From the Mountain. This short Q&A gives readers a closer look at the writer behind the project and the path that brought his work to life.
Q & A
ZMP: What first inspired you to write this book, and what kept you motivated through the process?
What kept me motivated the most was knowing that these stories deserved to be told. They deserved to be written down. Even on the hard days, I felt a pull to finish what I started. I wanted to create something my family could be proud of and something that represents the culture and history I come from.
ZMP: When readers finish your book, what’s the one thing you hope stays with them?
Curtis: I hope they leave with a deeper respect for Appalachian culture and the stories that come from it. These tales aren’t just meant to scare you; they’re meant to show how folklore grows out of real experiences, real fears, and real communities. They’re everlasting echoes of real lives, real places, and real history.
I want readers to feel the weight of that and carry a little piece of Appalachia with them when they close the book. If they walk away feeling connected to me, my family, and the people behind the stories, then I’ve done what I set out to do.
ZMP: What advice would you give new writers who want to publish their first book?
Curtis: Start by accepting that nobody feels ready for their first book — they just start anyway. Don’t wait for the “perfect moment” or the “perfect idea.” I’ve been wanting to write since I was a kid, and here I am starting at almost 50 years old. If I had begun earlier, I’m sure I’d have more stories. Always write what won’t leave you alone. Write the story that keeps tapping you on the shoulder, running around your head at night when you’re trying to sleep.
Don’t be afraid of the messy parts. First drafts are supposed to be ugly. What matters is finishing. Once you have it on the page, you can shape it, fix it, and turn it into something real. It usually takes me three or four read‑throughs and edits before I’m happy with it.
Find a support system, whether it’s a writing group, your spouse, a few trusted friends, or an editor who understands your vision. Publishing is a long process, but having people in your corner makes it easier.
But most of all, don’t let fear talk you out of your own voice. Your story deserves to exist, even if you’re the only one who believes in it at first. Your voice matters. The world doesn’t need another version of someone else’s story — it needs yours.
ZMP: What part of the writing process do you enjoy the most, and which part challenges you the most?
Curtis: The part I enjoy most is the moment when a story finally “clicks”, when a scene I’m writing matches my memory perfectly, or when a piece of folklore suddenly lines up with the emotional truth I’ve been trying to reach. It feels like uncovering something that was always there, just buried under too many thoughts and scrambled memories. That moment of discovery is what keeps me wanting to write more and more.
Sometimes I can write ten to twenty chapters in a night, and then a thought or memory will hit me, and I’ll go off and write five or ten chapters of a different book. Right now, I’m working on four books at once.
The hardest part is pushing through the doubt that shows up between those moments. The middle of the process, when the excitement fades, and the work gets jumbled and messy, is where I struggle the most. That’s when the words feel tangled, the pacing feels off, and I start questioning everything. But that’s also where the story starts to take shape, so I’ve learned to sit with the discomfort and keep going, knowing I can edit and fix it later.
All in all, I think I enjoy the drafting stage the most, the part where ideas flow freely, and I get to explore the atmosphere, the characters, and the blend of truth and folklore without any limitations. That’s where the heart of the story forms.
ZMP: What are you working on next, or what can readers expect from you in the future?
Curtis: Right now, I’m finishing the rough draft of a novel called Every Twenty‑Five Years. It follows a Granny Woman named Hester, what we’d call a midwife today. She’s lived deep in the hollers of Fourmile, Bell County, Kentucky, her whole life. She’s a woman who has spent her life delivering other people’s children while never having any of her own.
After years of watching families lose child after child to sickness, poverty, and neglect, and after years of being unable to bear a child herself, something inside her finally breaks. She begins taking baby girls, hoping to raise six daughters of her own. She only gets to five before the coal camp discovers the truth and hangs her from a tree in the center of the camp.
With her last breath, she curses the surrounding counties: Every single year that follows my death, you shall suffer as these babies have suffered. You shall have sickness and death become of every family I’ve helped. Every twenty‑five years, five daughters will be taken. The five daughters she took will carry out the curse.
Beyond that, I’m expanding one of the true‑life inspired stories from Whispers From the Mountain — The Children on the Last Train — into a full folklore‑fiction series. I drew from the real orphan train history and built a three‑book arc around it.
The first book explores the origins of the company behind the orphan train and the children who were swept into it and forgotten.
The second book follows the mountain itself as it begins to awaken, absorbing the pain and horrors it witnesses and becoming something alive, maybe even ancient, and protective of the children.
The third book brings the story full circle when I encounter the children later in life. They reveal everything that happened from the beginning, to them and to the other lost children. I even learned my true connection to all of it. They task me with telling the truth that the company tried to bury.
I’m excited to have opened up this world, to pass my stories along to everyone, and ensure they will live on forever.
Readers can expect more Appalachian folklore, more generational hauntings, and more stories rooted in the real history and real people of these mountains.
-End-
Curtis Josh Rogers brings a rare blend of lived experience, cultural memory, and Appalachian truth to every story he writes. His work preserves the voices, fears, and histories of the mountains while shaping them into something new for modern readers. We’re proud to share his journey and his stories with you, and we look forward to the powerful work he continues to create. Stay tuned, there’s much more to come from Curtis and the world he’s building.
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