In the epic battle between vampires, werewolves and zombies, some may debate the winner, but the answer is clear for author Carrie Ryan: Zombies.

“They're easy to dodge or kill in small numbers, but with over six billion people in the world they'd become overwhelming in numbers,” she said. “Vampires wouldn't be able to kill them fast enough and werewolves would just starve –who wants to eat zombie meat?”

Ryan is the author of “The Forest of Hands and Teeth,” a New York Times bestseller. The book – the first in a trilogy – tells the story of Mary, one of the survivors of a disaster that turned most humans into zombies centuries earlier. The zombies wander around the forest, trying to destroy the humans, like Mary, who live in the village ruled by the Sisterhood and the Guardians, a military. Mary’s ultimate goal is to get out of the village and reach the ocean, because everything she thought she knew in her society starts to fail her.

“My books are set about 100-200 years after the zombie apocalypse and involve memory, love and figuring out how to survive when the world as you know it is gone,” Ryan said. “I wanted to write a world where the apocalypse occurred a long time ago and the existence of zombies is commonplace, but I describe them as books that have zombies but aren't just about zombies.”

Today, Ryan took part in a Zombies vs. Vampires Smackdown at the Decatur Book Festival.

“I'm excited to be debating zombies vs. vampires with Alyxandra Harvey,” Ryan said. “It should be fun to take on such worthy advocate as we discuss the advantages and disadvantages to our respective creatures.  I'm definitely Team Zombie!”

The smackdown will cover, according to the DBF’s website, subjects like “Which would be better to take home to your parents?”

Ryan said she believes students who want to be readers need to make time for it, and the Festival can help students do that.

“There's such a great energy at the Decatur Book Festival,” she said. “I love being surrounded by readers, writers, booksellers and book lovers.  Growing up I was an avid reader, but once I went to college I noticed that I just didn't have – or make – time for fun reading. I was always reading for class or ‘too busy.’ 

“The same thing happened when I went to law school and that's when I realized that I'd always be rushed for time, and if I wanted to be a reader I'd have to actively make time for it,” she continued. “I think it's often too easy to put reading last and the Festival is a great way to remember to make reading for fun a part of life.”

And she enjoys reading even now that she’screating literature; Ryan said currently she’s favoring young adult novels.

“I feel like young adult authors are crossing and mixing genres and experimenting and coming up with fantastically inventive worlds and ideas.  My to-be-read pile is overwhelming,” she said.

She started writing “The Forest of Hands and Teeth” nearly four years ago and still remembers when the first line poppedinto her head coming out of work one night.

“Afraid of forgetting it on the drive home, I pulled out my Blackberry to e-mail it [to] myself, and when I got home the story just poured out,” she said. “It just seemed to come from nowhere,and I remember dancing around the house that night so excited.”

Ryan’s fascination with zombies stems from her first zombie movie experience, which occurred while she was in law school,courtesy of her husband.

“When we left the theater I couldn't stop thinking about it,” she said. “I wanted to know what would happen, how we'd survive, how the world would change.  Not just in the first weeks or months, but decades and generations; what would we remember and what would we forget?

“For years I was fascinated by the zombie apocalypse, but I never expected I'd end up writing about it.  One day I was complaining that I didn't know what to work on next and my husband said, ‘Write what you love.’  I laughed and said, ‘The zombie apocalypse?’  But he was right.”