Cornelius novel H10N1 story of a super flu

July 7, 2011

H10N1' tells story of new super flu by Nick Burgess

Author M.R. Cornelius has written a novel about survivors of a massive flu

pandemic. July 06, 2011

MILTON, Ga. — A local Milton elementary school lunch lady is making a name for

herself with her up-and-coming new novel, " H10N1. "

Her book, the title of which is a play on the recent " H1N1 " flu scare, focuses

on the lives of two characters who are trying to find refuge after a deadly,

worldwide flu pandemic broke out, leaving billions dead and very few uninfected

survivors.

M.R. Cornelius wanted to write a book about the decisions a person would make if

they were left virtually alone for the rest of their lives.

" Nobody wanted to seem to write a story like this without zombies or aliens, "

Cornelius said. " I wanted to see what would happen if you were on your own.

Nothing to run from except the looters and marauders. Where would you go? What

would you do? "

Cornelius is an Indiana native, but moved to the Cherokee/North Fulton area in

1993. She is the mother of two sons, now both in college. She moved to metro

Atlanta to find advertising jobs after graduating from Indiana University.

Failing to find work, she became an elementary school lunch lady at New Prospect

Elementary School and Lake Windward Elementary School, before transferring to

Spalding Drive and Hertz Ferry, then to Summit Hill...

A majority of her time was spent researching viruses, how they travel and how

vaccines work. She even created her own vaccine in the novel, called Nexinol.

" I did lots of Googling for pharmaceuticals, but nothing came up for Nexinol, so

I decided to go with it, " said Cornelius.

Research also went into the geography of the book, as it is an escape novel that

spans the U.S. The book begins in New York, but the characters travel to San

Francisco, so much research needed to be done involving cities.

One such interesting place is the bio-dome in Arizona.

" It is a giant, self-contained unit that can be placed on the Moon, or even

Mars. It has its own oxygen, a rainforest that gives the inhabitants drinking

water, and the residents eat whatever they can grow in the soil. In the real

world, two people lived in this thing for about two years, " she said.

writes-book-about-the-apocalypse.html

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