"Sexy Pirates" at The Smutketeers

I'm a guest of The Smutketeers all this week talking about "Sexy Pirates" - and am also giving away a print copy of The Duke & The Pirate Queen. Stop by their blog to enter!

Also, keep an eye on this blog; in the next few weeks it's going to be moving to my website domain, with a new design and everything. I'll make sure to have pointers when it happens.

Rachel Kramer Bussel interview

Please welcome my guest, Rachel Kramer Bussel! Rachel and I met almost a decade back, when we were both reading our stories from Best Lesbian Erotica at Bluestockings in New York City. She graciously consented to answer some questions I had about the process of editing and her latest anthology, Passion: Erotic Romance for Women.

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How do you choose a focus for an anthology? How did you choose the focus of Passion?

I try to look at what readers might want to read, what I’m interested in, and what would be fun to work on. I like having a theme but it’s tricky because you don’t want the stories to be too similar to each other, so a theme like passion and erotic romance is wide enough that there’s room for plenty of variety.

I’ve done a lot of kinky anthologies and wanted to try something a little sweeter and more romantic, though there is definitely kink in it. I was surprised to find that it was a challenge to write my own story, “Five Senses,” but it also brought me to a range of new authors who work in the erotic romance field, something I’m looking forward to continuing with 2011’s Obsessed anthology, and another erotic romance book to follow.

How does your original idea for an anthology translate into the call for submissions, and into the stories you eventually choose?

Sometimes it’s a more exact match than others, and that process has gotten refined over time. I put out very detailed calls in terms of what they should look like but regarding content try to leave plenty of room to allow authors to come up with whatever strikes their fancy.

To me the beauty of editing an anthology is that so much of it is based on the writers’ creativity; they always come up with a cool take on my original idea that I never could have foreseen. One great example of that in Passion is Jacqueline Applebee’s story “My Dark Knight.” I know nothing about Renaissance Fair type of play but I didn’t need to to appreciate her story, which also touches on the uncertainty of new relationships, especially where you really like someone and aren’t sure exactly how they feel about you. I look for stories that have a real-life nuance to them, where even if the plot is outlandish, there’s relatable emotion between the characters.

What's the hardest part of choosing stories? The most fun?

The hardest part is rejecting stories. I hate that, and sometimes it makes me want to quit editing anthologies because it’s not fun at all, but I also know I’ll always be working on new anthologies so I can pass along those calls for submissions.

The most fun part is finding a story that just nails the theme perfectly and is so wonderful I want to read it to everyone I know. Those are the gems and make the very time-consuming process of reading submissions a joy.

How do you choose the order in which stories appear? What input does the publisher have into the final product?

I tend to select the first and last stories as ones that will, respectively, suck the reader in and leave the reader satisfied but maybe wanting a little more, and beyond that, I don’t have a highly scientific ordering process. I add stories as I go over a few months of editing, and at the end may move them around. I like to build up to the more intense stories, but a lot of it, for me, is actually pretty random.

Cleis Press rarely alters the order of the stories, though they do have final approval of manuscripts and sometimes stories get cut for space or if they aren’t quite a fit with the book. I appreciate this attention to detail and think it makes the books truly beautiful, inside and out. They find outstanding cover photographs and work hard to create quality, memorable books.

What was the first anthology you edited? How did that come about?

I co-edited the anthology Up All Night: True Lesbian Sex Stories, and was brought on board by co-editor Stacy Bias. She asked me to help and that book includes stories by Tristan Taormino and L. Elise Bland. That came out in 2004 and then soon after I started editing anthologies on my own, like Glamour Girls: Femme/Femme Erotica and Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z.

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Thanks, Rachel! I'm looking forward to the anthology!

Sale, Philcon, NINC guest post

Three things today:

1. I sold a short erotic story, "Vanilla," to Kristina Wright's anthology Dream Lover: Paranormal Tales of Erotic Romance for Cleis Press. It's already available for pre-order!

2. I am at Philcon this weekend, hanging out with a UK friend, an archivist who was one of my chief resources about male homosexuality during World War One for The Moonlight Mistress. If you're there, feel free to say hi!

3. And I'm a guest poster today at the Novelists, Inc. Blog on "Reading for the Writer." Please drop by and check it out!

Ella Drake - A Space Western World

Please welcome my guest, Ella Drake!

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A Space Western world


When I started to write Silver Bound, a space western releasing Nov 22nd from Carina Press, the elements of world-building excited me. What’s not to love about creating a world for a book with the tagline: “A dangerous journey across the galaxy”? During the course of the story, we visit five shuttle craft, two planets, two space stations, and two large spacecraft. Yet, the hero is Guy, a sheriff from a small town on a technologically limited planet. To create that space western feel, I created a world for Guy to make him the quintessential cowboy in a white hat. Only, he doesn’t wear a hat and he can fly a shuttle craft. And, his hat wouldn’t really be white-white. He has his flaws.

But as I worked through the science elements--including a slave collar which used implanted nanobots to control the slave, how a memory wipe might work and how it might look visually on a medical screen, stuff like that--the home world had a more historical feel juxtaposed against the futuristic. A seemingly small addition to his character, a lasso, became an intriguing element. Guy knows how to use his lasso, which is a crucial part of who he is and what he might do in the story. He’s a rancher. To add flavor, to show his skill at his job, it makes sense that he might take down a cow or a calf with his lasso. Maybe take down a criminal. But since I have never used a lasso, didn’t know what it was like to throw one, I did some research.

It turns out, roping cattle is a controversial practice. Thought it’s rare, it can cause neck and other injuries in the roped animal. A scene that I’d originally intended to be Guy roping a calf to inoculate it, turned into a scene of chase with his robot dog. He couldn’t hurt the robot by catching it with his lasso, but he still has the expert skills of using the lasso. But was this enough? If concerns over safety of roping cattle, or even a human, is contested, couldn’t a futuristic story find a solution? In this case, I decided to give Guy a lasso made of special material that wouldn’t constrict too tightly.

Within this same scene, striking a balance between the anachronistic and futuristic led me to considering the scene: how to set up the ranch. What kind of robot dog would a rancher/sheriff want or need? And, how does my research balance with the need to create a scene, get the reader into the hero’s head and world, and set the stage as a future set story? Just because my research led me down a path about lassos and rodeos, does the reader need that information?

This is what I came up with, the introduction of our hero:

The rope left his fingers and flew with precision to its target. With a practiced yank, Guy tightened the lasso around his robo-shepherd’s legs. Max tumbled to the dry ground with a woof.

Guy strode forward to stroke Max’s soft, synthetically furred head and removed the lasso. “Good boy. You put up a good chase this time, but I took you down.”

The mottled-brown Max appeared to grin, tongue slurping along the cuts on his hands—the dog’s saliva carried first-aid anesthetic. Its tail thumped on the ground and sent dust flying in a cloud. Guy chuckled and signaled to Max with a wave and a low-key whistle. The knee-height robo-dog took off, leaving a rolling wave of air-thrown dirt in its wake as it circled Trident Ranch’s smallest corral.

And there we are. A balance of today and tomorrow. After hours of researching lassos, holding rope, feeling its texture, tying knots, and generally spending more time with the concept of roping than figuring out what powered the spacecraft in the story, I’m reduced to the few lines above. I think it was worth it.

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Thanks, Ella, for sharing some of your process!

Stacey Kennedy on Wolves & Weres

The winner of the signed print copy of The Duke & The Pirate Queen, per Random.org, is Crystal Jordan. Congratulations, Crystal! I'll email you to obtain your mailing address.

Now, please welcome my guest, Stacey Kennedy!

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What do we know about wolves? They live in a social hierarchy which is lead by an Alpha. They mate for life and will defend that mate to their death. They’re loving, yet deathly lethal when the situation calls them to be. Needless to say, it’s not a surprise that readers are taken by such a beautiful animal when portrayed as a werewolf.

When I created my werewolves in An Everlasting Bite, I followed many of the same rules wolves adhere too. Alphas lead over lower ranking wolves. Their hearts are destined to only one mate. They’re territorial and vicious when provoked. But of course, I changed a few rules too. My wolves are immortal and can shift to a human on command. Not that it hurts any, more just a shift in senses when the magic brings on the change.

As I created the characters, Briggs and Rynn, it really gave me a chance to step outside of myself. To imagine what turning into a werewolf would be like. How every sound would be crisper, how paws would feel when dug into the dirt, and how the wind would feel across your fur. The experience was quite a ride. I suppose by feeling so connected to the wolf while I wrote this story it made me want to understand them more. Through research, I discovered just how playful they are with their pack. And it was this character trait that inspired one of my favourite scenes in An Everlasting Bite. Below I’ve included an excerpt that shows you the sweeter side to a werewolf:

Briggs howled loudly to the moon. When he lowered his head, his eyes shone of rightness, protection, and happiness. But more than that, they showed playfulness. He nudged her side with his nose, nodded toward the forest.

She immediately caught his meaning. She jumped to her feet, returned the look of play and pounced forward. As she ran, she glanced back to see Briggs hitting the ground with his paws in anticipation and wagging his tail. She focused in front of her and ran as if her life depended on it.

His howl came loud, but far away. He let her have a head start, but as she rushed through the trees, she could hear him fast approaching.

She lunged faster, continued to run harder. Her paws barely touched the ground as her speed increased. Her ears twitched back and he began to close the distance. Briggs’ wolf was three times the size of her as a wolf. Needless to say, it didn’t take him long to catch up.

She had an advantage, though, her small size made her slightly quicker. She could weave through trees with impeccable speed while he had to go around them. He couldn’t catch her. He ran to her right, but she never looked back. She didn’t have to. His presence was there, and she could feel his playful banter coursing through her. For wolves, she suspected this was about as fun as it came, and she felt silly right along with him.

Suddenly, he moved faster--lengthened his stride.

Oh crap! He was only humoring her that she could out run him. Before she knew it, he was behind her and gave her backside a little nibble. She skidded to a halt and glanced behind her. He rested, head down and rump in the air, tail wagging.

The wolf within her knew exactly what to do. She lunged toward him. He jumped out of the way to rest in the same position and waited for her attack. Even in his wolf form, his eyes were so amused. He enjoyed this and so did she.

He growled, the sound rumbled through the air as he called her forward. She pounced again, but this time she ended up right on her butt as he maneuvered away from her.
Determined, she crouched down in the position he displayed--the declaration of an attack. She lunged forward. This time he let her. When she collided with him, they rolled around within the leaves and dirt, nibbling at each other.

After a final tumble, she jumped away. When she met his gaze, his eyes were smiling. She couldn’t deny how fun this was. As wolves, this was happiness. She’d needed this. Just silly fun. No danger, only them.

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Thank you, Victoria, for letting me stop by and share my werewolves with you! Now I ask all of you, what side do you like most to the wolf―the sweet side or their ferocious protective nature?


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Thanks, Stacey!

Novelists, Inc. Guest Post

I'm a guest poster today at the Novelists, Inc. Blog on "For Love or Money?"

Please drop by and check it out!

Janet Mullany - Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, Janet Mullany!

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IMMORTAL JANE

He released her hands and stood. “Consider, Jane. You’ll marry some bore of a country gentleman who’ll kill you in childbed and who won’t want a bookish wife anyway. Perhaps you’ll stay a spinster and lose your bloom and die young of some disease they’ll find an easy cure for in a hundred years or so. Or you’ll see your sister die first.”

“Now you’re cruel.”

“No, it is the truth. But let us paint a happier picture for Miss Jane Austen. You write a few books that entertain your family and you win a little fame, perhaps even some money, while you live. And after, what then? Your books languish forgotten on dusty bookshelves and you are but a name on a binding that disappears with decay and time. You think your books offer you a chance at immortality?”

--Jane and the Damned

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Jane and the Damned isn’t a romance so it doesn’t have a traditional happy ending. It’s a historical urban fantasy with romance elements, part alternative historical with a bit of this, that, and the other, and some “spot the Austen novel” moments. But I think a characteristic of the HEA is that hero and heroine exist in a bubble of passion, which is why vampire romances are so hot (and, oh yeah, the physical perfection and great sex and all that stuff)—the eternal is now. Never mind that she’ll be looking at hip replacements while he is still a gorgeous 28-year-old sex god. Or, they’ll both be forever young and gorgeous vampires, the HEA distilled into eternity, the passage of time halted.

It’s a great fantasy.

But Jane Austen as a vampire? Neither of these endings would work and I had to create a scenario where her immortality would come with her books, even if at the age of 21 (the book is set in 1797) she was not at all sure she would ever be published. But I was following a trend, even though I hadn’t read a lot of vampire books, and I certainly hadn’t read any of the vampire classics, but I had watched hours of True Blood on HBO before getting tired of all those ripped perfect bodies and all that blood.

All those ripped perfect bodies and all that blood are what I define as Vampires Type A in popular culture. Vampires Type O are the evil ones. The ones mortals must fight to save the world, yadda yadda. And then there’s all this stuff about garlic and holy water and crosses (anyone remember that Roman Polanski movie with the Jewish vampire?—“Oy, lady, did you ever get the wrong vampire…”), not being able to cross running water, go out in daylight, use public transport (I’m making that up), and so on.

I had to come up with a vampire scenario that fit into my depiction of Georgian England, the age of reason and of both social and industrial revolution; the world that produced Jane Austen. I chose very selectively from vampire lore, although essentially the Damned are Type A—hot, desirable, and very fashionable. They’re the ton. Everyone wants to have sex with them or provide them with a dining experience. (These vampires do not feed—that is so vulgar. They dine.) The Prince of Wales (later the Prince Regent) loves to hang out with them and the newspapers are full of their scandalous behavior.

To tie the vampire elements to what we know of Austen’s life, I used another established literary trope, that Austen became what she was because of some lifechanging event: frequently a passionate love affair, a secret destroyed in the letters her sister Cassandra burned after her death. The family secret as I interpreted it was that Jane Austen was once a vampire and it influenced everything she wrote.

Do you agree with my vampire-HEA assessment? And what do you think of the current Austen-paranormal trend?

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Thanks, Janet! It was great to have you visit!

Novelists, Inc. Guest Post - The Art of Letting Go

I'm a guest poster today at the Novelists, Inc. Blog on "The Art of Letting Go."

Please drop by and check it out!

And a Public Service Message:

"Call for Manuscripts - Journal of American Culture Special Issue:
Love and Romance in American Culture

Ideas of romantic love suffuse our lives and guide our emotional experiences and behaviors. Romance comes in various forms of romantic entertainment--books, films, music--which affect and form our socially constructed notions of love, gender and courtship. These constructs of love guide public and private behavior, create judgments of values in relationships and control rules of openness or closure in expression. There is a variety of ways that American culture has understood and practiced love and romance. This special issue of the Journal of American Culture will present a conversation about romantic love and its representations which explores love and romance as a theme in art, life and culture.

We are seeking manuscripts which discuss contemporary and historical representations of love and romance, consider ways of showing love and affection and explore socially constructed notions of love, gender and courtship. We are particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches and analyses (literary, sociological, psychological, historical, anthropological, etc) involving any variety of topics (race, gender, class, homosexuality and queer studies, place, region, structure) which consider emotional values, attitudes and behaviors considered appropriate to love and romance

Submissions are welcome on topics which might include, but are not restricted to, issues and themes such as:

* romantic relationship events, rituals and ceremonies (weddings, holidays, festivals)
* dating and courtship rites (speed dating, personal ads)
* popular music and love songs
* depictions in the media and popular culture (e.g., film, television, literature, comics)
* romantic love in advertising, marketing, consumerism
* internet and cyberspace (blogs, texting, social networking)
* literature and fiction (genre romance, poetry, animé)
* amatory writings, love letters, courtship and self-help manuals
* types of relationships (marriage, gay and lesbian)
* feelings and emotions (intimacy, attachment, eroticism)
* types of love: platonic, philosophical, divine and spiritual romance
* neurobiology of love and biological attraction
* historical practices and traditions of and in romance
* regional and geographic pressures and influences (southern, Caribbean)
* material culture (valentines, foods, fashions)
* folklore and mythologies
* jokes and humor
* romantic love in political discourse (capitalism)
* psychological approaches toward romantic attraction
* emotional and sexual desire
* subcultures: age (seniors, adolescents), multi-ethnic, inter-racial

We suggest manuscript submissions of 4000-6000 words in length, double-spaced, in current MLA style. Send an e-mail attachment, in Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format. Due to virus and security concerns, we do not accept zipped or compressed files.

Manuscript deadline: 30 November 2011
Publication date: March 2013

Address inquiries to: JAC.Romance [at] gmail [dot] com

Maryan Wherry
Sarah S.G. Frantz
Darcy J. Martin"

The Nerd Heroine - Louisa Edwards Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, Louisa Edwards!

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When I sat down to write Just One Taste, I had only one thought in mind: I want to write about a nerd. And not a nerdy hero, either--I wanted my heroine to be a first class, grade A+++, Wookie-loving, Magic card-carrying friend of Buffy. If you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Oh, I had justifications. I wanted to play with themes of emotional intelligence (the ability to read people and respond to their emotions) vs. book smarts, and I wanted to explore the hard science of food chemistry in relation to the more mysterious realm of culinary aphrodisiacs.

But mostly? I wanted to write a heroine who, while certainly better at chemistry than I'll ever be, loves the same things I do. I wanted to write a woman who is smarter than everyone else in any given room, and doesn't try to hide it. And I wanted to pair her with that most romantic creature of all--a hero who adores her exactly the way she is.

Dr. Rosemary Wilkins has a wide ranging interest in science fiction shows and books, from Battlestar Galactica to Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. I admit it, I needed zero special research to know what an authentic nerd would enjoy! All of her references come straight out of my everyday vocabulary--and I only wish I had her awesome t-shirt collection.

So here is my list of Top Five Nerd Essentials (and I hope by now it’s obvious that I use the term "nerd" with a deep, abiding affection and pride):

1. Star Wars--the original episodes 4, 5, 6. Accept no substitutes! These were the first sci-fi movies I ever saw (my mother actually recorded the historic moment of my exposure to The Empire Strikes Back in my baby book), and they left an indelible mark on my young psyche.

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer—-the TV show. I had never before been so obsessed with anything as I was with that series. The dialogue, the wit, the--omg, characters! I mean, Spike, alone. . .I think I’ve watched the entire series, all seven seasons, straight through at least 10 times. Even writing this blog post is making me want to watch it again. Don’t judge me. And while we’re on Joss Whedon--Firefly. Nathan Fillion in tight pants. ‘Nuff said.

3. The Lord of the Rings--books and movies. My mother read The Hobbit out loud to me when I was about 8, and I couldn’t wait to read the rest of the books. No world has ever captured my imagination as completely.

4. Terminator--the first one. Okay, I like them all, but the first one remains one of the best romances on film. I’m serious! Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese are a couple for the ages.

5. Battlestar Galactica--the new TV series. Talk about obsessed! It’s utterly engrossing, fabulously complex, the characters are crazy flawed and fascinating, and I have the biggest girl crush ever on Starbuck.

So that’s my list! Who’s on your list? Comment for a chance to win a signed copy of Just One Taste and some signature Recipe for Love swag.

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Thanks, Louisa! Ummm...so, who would win if Spike and Darth Vader and a Terminator and Gandalf all had a fight? Me, I think Wolverine would show up and beat them all. Because of his healing ability and general meanness, you see.

Novelists, Inc. Guest Post

I'm a guest poster today at the Novelists, Inc. Blog on "I Like Being Reviewed. Really."

Please drop by and check it out!

I'm a Naughty Guest Today

I'm a guest today at The Naughty Girls Next Door, with my thoughts on "Selling the Unusual Setting."

Drop by and say hello! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Readercon Linkgasm

For those who are interested, I've been collecting some links to reports on Readercon, which took place July 8-11, 2010. These are in no particular order, but grouped by topic. There are lots more than this. I recommend checking out Icerocket's Blog Search if you want more and have a few days to read.

General Reports and Comments

First, My summary report.

Rose Fox's report. Gwynne Garfinkle on her first Readerson; and reports from Barbara Krasnoff and Inanna Arthen and K.A. Laity and Matthew Kressel.

Greer Gilman on some joys of Readercon, and Michael Swanwick shares the coolest thing he saw at Readercon.

The best panel quotes from Readercon, and more quotes, collected by Caitlín R. Kiernan. Beth Bernobich offers possibly the best quote of the con when she reports on "The Closet Door Dilated" panel.

Reports on Specific Panels and Talks

Andrea Hairston on "Sexuality and Gender in Contemporary F&SF."

Kate Nepveu reports on "Fanfic as Criticism".

Andrew Liptak on "New England, At Home to the Unheimlich” panel.

Cecilia Tan's report on Alternatives to the Pay Per Copy System of Author Compensation.

Nora Jemisin on Brainstorming Immersive Inclusive Worlds.

Kestrell Verlager posted her talk on "What Writers Still Get Wrong About Blindness" in three parts as well as some panel notes.

Critic Graham Sleight's talk on And so.... "... it's remarkable that, in certain contexts, we put discrete entities like shots in a movie together into narrative. I think it's even more interesting when you consider sentences in a prose narrative."

Stacey Mason on the Non-Western Fantasy panel.

DXMachina reports on a number of panels.

Report on the Shirley Jackson Awards for horror.

Photographs

Ellen Datlow's photographs and Scott Edelman's photographs and Tempest Bradford's photos of attendees making sad faces.

I'm a guest later this week at the Novelists, Inc. blog. I'll have a direct link on Friday the 23rd, the date of the post.

Voirey Linger - Guest Post

I'm elsewhere today! You can find me talking about my top five favorite Marriage of Convenience novels at Monkey Bear Reviews.

Read a 100-word story I wrote here.

I'm also a guest poster today at the Novelists, Inc. Blog on "Real Writers Have Business Cards?" Please drop by and check it out!

Now please welcome my guest, Voirey Linger, as she chats about the paranormal element of her new novella, Risking Eternity.

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Information for an erotic romance can come from funny places. Sometimes you find exactly the little bit you need in a place you never expect.

My world building is usually pretty basic. I like to set things in a contemporary setting, a city that can be just about anywhere. I set up the characters in a world I already know. When writing angels, this took me back to my roots as a pastor's kid.

I grew up in a home that was an odd balance of Christian Fundamentalist and Liberal Christianity. Creation and science were balanced on a fine edge and there was a constant pull between staying rooted in Biblical beliefs and living in a modern world.

When the idea of the angel books came to me, it made perfect sense to throw that same tug-of-war between the conservative values and modern life into the mix.

As part of this balance, I needed to cement the world of an angel, make it as simple and natural as the human world. I dug up all kinds of internet information and read multiple books on secular Angelology, but nothing seemed to fit the natural order of how things worked in my head.

When researching paranormal elements, there are many myths, legends and traditions to draw on for world building. The information I found on angels was vast, varied and often contradictory. On one hand it left me very confused in terms of what was 'right' but on the other it gave me the freedom to simply create what I wanted without worrying about being correct.

So I went back to my roots, where I first learned about angels. I went to Christian tradition and the Bible.

Yes, the Bible as research for an erotic romance.

There are areas where I wander a bit, filled in my own imaginings, other places I had to choose between Bible scholars deductions and some of the old traditional beliefs, but that's to be expected in writing fiction.

In the end I simply chose information fit my storyline as long as I could find something in the Jewish-Christian tradition that supported it. This tradition is wide-spread and at least partially familiar in much of the English-speaking world today. With Risking Eternity, I tried to tap into these deep-seated roots.

My hope is that the result is easy for a reader to assimilate and accept. I want to push a but, suspend disbelief, and never hit a point where the reader has to stop and choose to accept a detail.

Did I succeed? I don't know. That's up to the reader to determine.


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Thanks, Voirey!

"On the Female Vampire," Evie Byrne Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, Evie Byrne!

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On the Female Vampire

A monster is monstrous because it violates accepted boundaries. Often these boundaries are physical. Creatures of the twilight world like minotaurs, werewolves, insectoid aliens, selkies, sirens and mermaids cause fascination and discomfort because they are cross the reassuring threshold that separates human from animal. Vampires are generally human-formed, but still they manage to be more transgressive than any other monster. They violate boundaries right and left. They’re neither dead nor alive. They occasionally shift form. They live on blood--which makes them cannibals, which, needless to say, is a big boundary--or perhaps it makes them parasites, which aligns them with the insect world--or maybe it makes them demons, which aligns them with the spirit world. And when they’re not invading your body, they’re invading your mind. When you submit to them, you submit body, mind and soul. They own you. They’re slavers. They break all of our laws, conventions and beliefs--and tempt us to break them too.

For a vampire, feeding is sex. It’s a penetrative act of possession. One so powerful that used to eclipse intercourse. Dracula ruins Lucy far more completely than any determined rake. Anne Rice’s vampires, as I recall, don’t have sex. Having experienced the ultimate act of penetration and surrender, they loll around in sensual, bisexual languor. But those are old school vampires. Something has shifted in the perception of vampires of late. Vampires in popular literature and entertainment have become more sexual, more heterosexual and almost exclusively male.

The vampires of today’s romances are masculine, desirable heroes, relieved of both sexual ambiguity and the stench of the grave. This new breed of male vampire is generally isolated and sympathetic in his misery: Mr. Rochester with fangs. He’s an alpha male of an extreme sort, coldly handsome, immortal, preternaturally strong, supernaturally persuasive, and fitted with penetrative equipment both upstairs and downstairs, all the better to claim you--if you’re the one and only woman for him. This makeover strips much of the shivery terror from the mythos, but the trade off is that it makes room for hot fantasy.

But what of the vampire heroine? Female vampires are scarce on the ground, any sort of female vampire, much less a romantic heroine. They occasionally appear as slutty minions in vampire gangs, or as a minor antagonist. And of course, in some romantic vampire tales the hero vampire will elevate his love to immortality by turning her, but that is the end of the tale, not the beginning.

My take on this--and please do feel free to argue otherwise--is that while we’ve normalized male vampires enough to make them romantic heroes, female vampires remain too trangressive to be heroines.

Let’s take a step back. In the 19th century, when all vampires were monsters, female vampires were perhaps even more vile than their male counterparts. Being the weaker sex, they could not hunt fairly. They fed either through sexual guile or by preying on children--making them lower than low. Painters and poets of that age were enraptured with idea of the female vampire as a seductress. Victoria posted a Baudelaire poem about a female vampire on this blog just a couple of weeks ago, and if you didn’t see it, it’s well worth a read. [http://victoriajanssen.blogspot.com/2010/05/metamorphoses-of-vampire-charles.html]

For these sensitive 19th century poet types, the female vampire was the embodiment of feminine devourer who, if left unchecked, sucked dry the masculine life force. She was definitely an erotic figure, but that eroticism was laced with repugnance and the fear of emasculation. One minute she’s slinking up to you, cleavage bared, and next thing you know, you’re not hanging around the Montmartre cafes with your friends anymore. You’re working as a clerk and helping out with the housework.

But I digress.

The sexual power of the female vampire threatens social norms. Earlier I spoke of the penetrative aspect of feeding. It’s inherently a sexual act. Yet while the male vampire may feed on men, he seduces women. (That is, unless you’re reading specialized erotic fiction.) The female vampire tends to be more openly bisexual, so voracious in her appetites that she cannot be constrained by gender. This perception is strong, and continues from the earliest female vampires to today. Miriam Blaylock, as portrayed by Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger (1983), is a sleek, glamorous, ruthless bisexual hunter. She takes both Susan Sarandon and David Bowie as lovers--and eats a child in the bargain as well. To me, she has always been the modern archetype of the female vampire.

Stepping back to the present again, to this time when the male vampire has become a sympathetic hero, the gulf between the female vampire and the male vampire has widened even further. He has special needs. She’s a monster.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I’m just saying the terrain has changed. I can’t address all vampires in all genres, only the vampire tales written today by (mostly) female authors for a (mostly) female audience under the banner of romance. In this genre, the prospect of being devoured by your lover is eroticized, as it was for those 19th century gentlemen, but now it is not framed as repugnant. Instead, it is the ultimate form of acceptance and bonding.

That sexual dynamic only works one way, however. It’s hot when an alpha vamp claims his mate through blood and sex, but that power relationship cannot be flipped. When a female vampire penetrates her human lover, it somehow makes him less of a man. Her claiming of him might make for good horror, but it doesn’t add up to satisfying romantic fiction.

The double standard goes on. The intense predatory drive that makes a male vampire sexy doesn’t translate in the same way for a female vampire. That same drive makes her a dangerous, unbalanced stalker. Similarly, a male vampire is usually portrayed as handsome and aware of his magnetic attraction, but he’s not vilified for it--in fact, it’s part of his appeal. Whereas when a female vampire uses her seductive powers, its trickery. Doing so breaks the unwritten commandment that a romantic heroine be modest: either she doesn’t know she’s ravishing, or doesn’t care. Only wicked women use their looks like a blade.

It’s all about reader identification. The best part of reading a romantic fantasy is imagining what it would be like if you--ordinary, human you--found yourself face to face with a creature of the otherworld. How would you react? Could you love such a being? We enjoy experiencing a romance through the eyes of a woman whom we can relate to--an ordinary woman who finds herself in extraordinary circumstances. It is much harder to relate to a heroine who is a powerful, ruthless, bloodthirsty, and possibly immortal.

And that’s not because we don’t appreciate a powerful female, but rather because being unable to identify with her takes some of the fun out of this particular kind of reading experience. One of the oldest and most compelling storylines is the one in which an ordinary person tests herself against powers and mysteries beyond her imagination--and earns love along the way. That kind of story always hits the spot. There’s good reason for its enduring popularity.

So as much as I like a lady vampire, I don’t expect to see them crowding romances as heroines any time soon. And having thought about this for a while, I’ll admit I’m okay with that. I like the idea that they can’t be domesticated into do-gooder heroines who settle down into a happily-ever-after. Like their progenitor, Lilith, they embody the darker side of female power, and that stuff is too powerful to be bottled.

Love and Pain by Edvard Munch, 1894

Evie Byrne is the author of three hot vampire romances: Called by Blood, Bound by Blood and Damned by Blood. Link. In the spirit of full disclosure, she admits that while two of her heroines are down-to-earth, regular humans, her third heroine is a vampire who is as wicked as the day is long.


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Thanks so much for the great post, Evie!

Anyone have any comments on female vampire characters?

Writer, Know Yourself - Emily Ryan-Davis Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, Emily Ryan-Davis!

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Writer, Know Yourself

Good morning, faithful Victoria fans. I’m a fan, too (she’s a lovely person and her characters fascinate me) so I’m pleased to be able to say you and I already have something in common.

I’m here today because Victoria generously volunteered a little of her cyberspace for my promotional efforts. Between the initial offer and now, however, I’ve decided not to do the promotion thing. I’d much rather talk about myself and my grasp of craft, and invite you to talk about yourself and your grasp of craft, than talk about my books. So. That’s what I’m going to do today. If you want to know what I can write or where to find it, Google will help you out.

So...I’ve been thinking about self-awareness a lot lately, in part because I’ve been observing beginner-author yearning for an experienced eye, for confidence in the decisions they make about what they’re writing or going to write, and for an end to the frustration of realizing they’ve made a self-uninformed decision. While writer self-awareness might not technically be a craft issue, I consider it as important as understanding of mood, theme, motif, story pacing and all that other stuff you can learn about from any number of books. And because my ego knows no bounds, since I decided self-awareness is as important as story structure, I’m going to treat it as a craft topic today.

About me: I don’t plot. Honestly, I care very little about plot, much to my critique partners’ dismay. Characters fascinate me. They could exist in a void for story purposes, their story progression taking place over the course of hours without any real-life sort of time allowance to lend realism, and I would be perfectly happy, both as a reader and as a writer.

Right alongside my plotfail, I also suffer from detail and logic problems. I just don’t care about the logic if it’s in the way of exploring my characters’ emotional transition from broken to...maybe a little less broken, ideally via an intensely sexual route. Again, my preference as a reader and as a writer. (If you’re an author reading this and you ever hear I skipped the middle of your book in order to read the end, please don’t take it personally; my habits are not necessarily commentary on the quality of your product.)

So I don’t plot and I have no head for details or logic. Or organization of details and logic. I do have a deep-seated penchant for whining and panicking when my characters dig in their heels and stop talking in an attempt to force me to give them some plot and details. I also have an immense appreciation for praise: go ahead. Love and adore me. It’s even OK if you criticize me as long as, underneath it all, you still love and adore me and are aware I’m going to resent your suggestion that I add some plot because it’s going to ruin the rhythm of my prose. I’m also bossy and not as generous with my praise as I expect others to be with theirs.

I’m not all flaws, though. There’s some awesomeness mixed in here. I’m a great speller. I barely stutter over query letters. I consider myself a master at nagging an editor without coming across as a nag. And I might be in love with the sound of my own prose, but I am totally not the only one.

Granted, the flaws outweigh the awesomeness. I’ve come to the conclusion the only reason I’ve managed to acquire and keep critique partners is honesty. Since I’ve figured out these things about my writer/reader self and have learned how to vocalize them, I’ve been better able to pinpoint my needs, explain my failings in advance, and warn people of what they’re getting as part of the package.

Self-awareness is working out pretty well for me. I find myself less frequently stalled in the middle of stories I think I want to write even though they’re not the kinds of stories I really want to write; sometimes people even come to me for advice or answers, despite my general lack of helpfulness.

How’s your self-awareness? Do you spend much time mulling over your high points and low points? Do you ever falter from what you know about yourself and decide you can change and be something different? (Boy, do I. Witness just about every one of my stories that try to wrestle with more than two characters and a miniscule plot.)

I'm inviting you to make use of Victoria's blog comments for the purpose of talking about yourself. Tell me all about your flaws and your awesomeness. Don't bother to check your ego at the door. I figure if you discover something about yourself today, you’ve learned something you’re not going to find in a how-to book. And maybe we’ll discover we have something in common besides mutual enjoyment of Victoria's awesomeness!

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Thanks, Emily! I'm looking forward to reading the comments on your post.

Adventures in Pronouns - Jessica Freely Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, Jessica Freely!

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Hi everybody and good morning! First of all, I want to thank Victoria for generously opening her blog to me -- again. I had a great time last time I was a guest here and I'm sure today will be just as much fun.

In a second I'm going to tell you a bit about my new release, Amaranth & Ash, and one particular challenge I faced in writing it. Before I do, I want to make a couple of announcements. We're running a contest today, right here on Victoria's blog. Leave a comment and you'll be entered to win a free copy of Amaranth & Ash. That's easy, isn't it? Secondly, a free short story featuring some of the major characters from Amaranth & Ash is up in the files section of my newsletter group. It's called Amaranth & Grail and it's available exclusively to newsletter members, so if you'd like to join, here's the link.

Okay, on to the matter at hand. Amaranth & Ash is an erotic male/transmale fantasy romance set on a highly stratified colonized world. Amaranth is a vasai, born with both male and female characteristics and forbidden from sexual relations with any but the ruling class. Ash is a chel, a member of the underclass. Their unlawful passion ignites a rebellion and transforms their world.

In my other life I'm a science fiction and fantasy author and with Amaranth & Ash I decided to create a full-blown world with all the bells and whistles. I created a society, a religion, an economy, and a geography, and I had a blast doing it. Harken's Landing, the setting of the story, is a city founded by colonists from earth who came to their new world to escape oppression back home. As these things sometimes go, no sooner had they landed than they began oppressing one another. The society is strictly segregated by caste, and each caste has its own distinctive physical characteristics.

When it came to the vasai, who are intersex, I had some decisions to make regarding pronouns. I realized I had an opportunity here to play with gender neutral pronouns. But before I'd even finished writing the book, I had people telling me I couldn't do that. Reasons given were that it's distracting to the reader and that gender-neutral pronouns "just sound silly."

I'm not real big on being told I can't do something, especially when the evidence summoned to support the sanction is subjective. Isn't speculative fiction supposed to be about imagining worlds and people radically different from our own? How far can we really get if we must constantly adhere to a gender binary system? I felt locked into a male-female dichotomy that I don't happen to think represents contemporary humans very accurately, let alone the people of Harken's Landing. Worst of all was the expectation that I was supposed to accept that as "just the way it is."

So, predictably, I started fooling around with all kinds of pronoun systems. A great resource I found is Regender.com. With this handy web tool, you can read any internet web page a variety of ways: with gender pronouns switched, with gender neutral pronouns, or with pronouns based on race instead of gender. It's a fascinating way to shake up your preconceptions and I recommend it.

I had a wealth of ideas to play with. My personal favorite was a caste-based pronoun system I devised. It made sense! After all, in Harken's Landing the most important thing that everyone needs to know about you, before anything else, is your caste. So it stands to reason that their language conventions would enshrine caste divisions instead of reproductive roles. To keep it simple, I created pronouns for each caste based off of the name of the caste. It looked like this:

Male - He smiled. - I kissed him. - His hands shake. - That is his.
Female - She smiled. - I kissed her. - Her hands shake. - That is hers.
Elai - Ei smiled. - I kissed Eir. - Eir hands shake. - That is Eirs.
Vasai - Va smiled. - I kissed var. - Var hands shake. - That is vars.
Pel - Pe smiled. - I kissed per. - Per hands shake. - That is pers.
Chel - Che laughed - I kissed chem. - Ches hands shake. - That is ches.

See? Simple!

Here is a section of Amaranth & Ash and how it would have read if I had gone with this idea:

Evanscar inclined var head. Even with var soul packed up tight as a fist, Amaranth could feel the vasai’s eyes boring though var back as va made var way to the refreshments. Va handed var empty glass to Build, the pel attendant. "Thank you," pe said.

Then, Parnal appeared. Amaranth went to Eir immediately, took Eir hands, and bowed over them. "Can you forgive me?”

Parnal was a middle-aged Elai of solid proportions, a hair shorter than Amaranth but wider and thicker. Ei was balding, and the hair that remained was dark with flecks of gray and trimmed short. Eir eyes were pale blue, Eir face rectangular and stolid. “I wondered if perhaps I had done something to put you off,” Ei said.

Hmm. Interesting? Perhaps. But readable? Well... even I had to admit that the pronoun business was distracting.

I had a decision to make. Was I going to market Amaranth and Ash as a romance, or as experimental science fiction? Call me mercenary if you like, but I had a pretty good idea of the respective markets for each. I knew I was choosing between getting Amaranth and Ash in front of a decent sized audience within the year, or in front of a tiny audience in two to three years, maybe. Since Amaranth and Ash began as a love story, I decided to do what I had to in order to keep the romance front and center for my readers. That meant scaling back on my adventures in pronouns quite a bit.

But I didn't want to abandon the idea entirely. I decided to compromise by having individual vasai adopt a pronoun of choice that can be male, female, or gender neutral. While Amaranth identifies as male, Grail, a third major character in the book, identifies as gender neutral.

Now the question became what gender neutral pronouns to adopt. I have a wonderful editor at Loose Id, and she worked with the copyediting staff and me on this issue. We considered keeping the va, var, vars pronouns, but finally decided to go with sie and hir. Next to the colloquial use of the singular they, sie and hir are the most common gender neutral pronouns currently in use in English. They look more like what we expect to see as pronouns too, making them less distracting. Hopefully my approach serves to introduce the concept of gender neutral identity without turning the story into a vocabulary exercise.

In the end, I'm highly satisfied with the way Amaranth & Ash turned out. The story is one of love across social boundaries and the backdrop of Ash and Amaranth's love affair is the breakdown of a rigid hierarchy based on class and race. Gender identity is actually a minor part of the story, but it's the part I struggled the most with because our own culture and language place so much emphasis on he and she as absolute and exclusive to one another.

You can buy Amaranth and Ash here.

I wonder what other kinds of ideas the conventions of our language make it difficult for us to have? What do you think?

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Thanks, Jessica!

Roll Your Own - Anna Katherine Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, Anna Katherine!

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Roll Your Own

One of the biggest issues with writing any paranormal beastie is the need to bring something new to the table. With everybody writing about vampires these days, why should someone want to read about yours? Let's say you want to make your vampires stand out from the pack by being different from your everyday Count Dracula stereotype. Where do you start?

Well, there are lots of cultures out there with their own versions of vampires (one of my favorites is the Bulgarian vamp, which has only one nostril). You can add a lot of originality to your work by just exploring new (to you) folklore.

But what if you don't want to go the Western vamp route or the "borrowing from elsewhere" route? What if you want to make something all your own?

So let's say you want to make up something new and shiny. Problem number one with that is: If you make up something that has nothing in common with a vampire, what makes it a vampire? Why isn't it called a Thubmert?

(The secret answer to this is, there is no reason why you can't call something a vampire. "Vampire" is just a word we made up. Maybe in other universes, "vampires" are what people call post-it notes. You're an author; you can use whatever words you like. But authors don't write in a vacuum, and eventually you're going to have to do a major bit of hand-waving to get your reading audience to follow along with those sorts of shenanigans.)

Let's say that if you want to call something a vampire, you need some recognizable vampiric traits to build off on. Right off the top of my head, I can think of: Dead, drinks blood, pointy teeth, drive to create more vampires, can't go in sunlight, a stake through the heart kills them.

The next step is to twist these traits around -- make them mean different things, or take them a step further than tradition normally does. Some examples:

• This Dinosaur Comic makes an excellent example of the "taking extremes" method by categorizing most vampiric traits as just OCD, thereby letting people easily "deduce NEW vampire facts and weaknesses!"
  
  
• Stephanie Meyer's took the idea of "vampires can't go out in sunlight" and changed it from "because they burn!" to "because they sparkle and will reveal their true nature" -- while the sparkling thing is dopey, that's a pretty neat turn on the folklore. The basic fact stays the same, but the reason for it changes.
  
  
• Doctor Who's "Vampires in Venice" episode has vampires that don't really have pointy teeth, even though they appear to -- they're an illusion supplied by the human brain, to attempt to give some kind of warning of their being predators.
  
  
• Scott Westerfeld talks about the process of boiling down vampiric traits for his excellent vampire novel Peeps, taking on the sexual aspects as well as the unnerving reasons why vamps might want to create more vamps.
  
  
• And in my own book, Salt and Silver, vampires can suck blood... through their butterfly-like proboscis. When I first created these vamps, all the other demons in my world were insect-like, so I wanted to continue the theme. It wasn't until later that I discovered that Filipino folklore had butterfly-vampires. So I ran with it, and now, as I write the sequel (starring the vampires front-and-center), I'm trying to bring a little more juice to the creative processes. One of the driving principles of my worldbuilding is that to have a part of someone is to know them utterly. In the first book, true names were things to keep out of bad guys' hands -- but blood is just as much a part of someone as their name. So what does drinking blood do, if even a tiny sip can give you a world of knowledge?
  
  Ladies and gents: My vampires are academics.

Keeping vampires (or other mythological creatures) fresh -- but familiar -- is a tough row to hoe, but you'll be amazed by what you can come up with using a twist of thought and a little reductio ad absurdum logic. Have fun!

Note: I can't recommend enough the use of motif indexes for writing research (mine's the Stith Thompson Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, but others include Aarne's The Types of the Folktale and Uther's recent The Types of International Folktales). Vampires are tale type E251: "Vampire: Corpse which comes from grave at night and sucks blood", but there are a ton of little details and stories to follow up on in there.

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Thanks so much!

Suzy McKee Charnas - Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, one of my favorite writers ever, Suzy McKee Charnas!

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Delighted to be invited here -- since I'm just fresh off a new vampire story, and, er, "sparkling" with stuff to say! I'll be be on a panel at the local SF convention this August, Bubonicon, called "Bite Me: when did vampires get sparkly and romantic, and why?"

Here's a warm-up:

For me as a reader, the vampire has always been not just old (and therefore wise and sophisticated as well as, probably, decadent) but grown up (and male -- but that's another story). If he wasn't going to be just a well-barbered werewolf in a tux (or some other popular monster, prettied up), then he needed at least some of the qualities of his great popular prototype, Count Dracula. And there was always a strong sexual allure-- but it was edgy, not all warm and cuddly, because death -- and "worse than death" -- was always a strong possibility.

And that's the way I wrote my own first vampire, Dr. Edward (yes, Edward -- I got there first!) Lewis Weyland, in a "cult classic" (whatever that means): The Vampire Tapestry. He's brilliant, attractive, an occasional (and remorseless) killer, and NOT looking for a soulmate to come live with him forever (like that's something anybody sane would want -- ETERNITY, with someone who'll eventually be about as sexy to you as your college roommate).

But -- the possibility of the romantic angle was always there, too, as it is with all sexy monsters, for very good cultural and psychological reasons (some of you may know this essay). And lately, as sexual activity has become the norm earlier and earlier for modern kids, youth's romantic idealism ("my one and only true, perfect love") and sentimentalism ("my lovely puppy that bites, but only to protect his beloved me") has over-whelmed dangerous old vampire and coated him with fairy-dust. Presto: the sparkly vampires of what sometimes looks to me like our very own cultural Twilight. He's broody, handsome, not interested in anything or anyone but Me, and he's in High School.

So, there came along a challenge -- to write a vampire story for a collection to be called Teeth (YES, I hope they change the title!) aimed at the Young Adult market and due out next year. The idea is to catch the attention of young readers stuck on Twilight and show them that the greater world of written vampires is wider than Sparkleworld.

I bit. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, but it was definitely going to minus the fairy dust.

So I'm visiting a local antiques mall that a friend runs in her "retirement", and all of a sudden I get it -- my story's setting: my vampires were going to show up at the mall, avid seekers of collectibles among the "trash and treasures" typical of these places; and my late-adolescent hero, Josh, working there for the summer, will have to deal with them, up close and oh-so-personal.

And -- well, you'll have to read the story ("Late Bloomer") to find out, but I can tell you this much: I loved writing modern vamps who are obsessed not with "Ooohh, oh, me so lonely and angsty" but with a vigorous, fiercely competitive kind of Antiques Roadshow life (well, without the "life" part). The research for this story was wonderful to do -- hanging out at the antiques mall people-watching (plus the behind-the-scenes goodies). I also had a great excuse to interview my grandkids (both finishing high school) about music, so that I'd know who this boy would be listening to, and who he'd be desperate to be.

Which, thanks to my stepson giving me an iPod for my last (70th) birthday, has brought me into a whole new world of great music, to listen to while on the treadmill at the gym!

I love vamps; I never come away from writing about them with empty hands. Takers they are by nature, but they also keep on giving -- they can't seem to help themselves.

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Thanks, Suzy! I can't wait to read "Late Bloomer."

"Cold, Brooding and Dead" - Cate Hart - Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, Cate Hart, blogging on some of her favorite vampires in movies and books.

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Cold, Brooding and Dead: Vampires and Why We Love 'Em

I think I can pinpoint when my love of vampire stories began. I'd have to blame it on the movie Lost Boys. After that, I was obsessed. I think what made Lost Boys so popular was that the vampires were edgy, young and looked like rock n roll stars with motorcycles. And Jason Patrick and Kiefer Sutherland.

The first vampire novel I read, ironically, was Dracula by Bram Stoker. There's a reason the novel has become a classic. The love story is timeless, and Dracula is the original, misunderstood bad boy. Dracula wants what he cannot have, Mina and to live in London among society, craving for normalcy.

When I venture into a bookstore, I gravitate toward the paranormal stories, and generally, I walk out with one that has a vampire in it. I find myself comparing the author’s world or creature against the original, Dracula. He set the par – a member of the nobility, a remote castle, extremely rich, handsome, powerful...well, you get the picture. I love reading new twists on this, and sometimes, it’s just a modern update. For instance, Carlisle Cullen is handsome, rich, and member of an elite profession – doctor.

The Historian is one of my favorite books. It’s wonderful tale that reintroduces readers to Dracula but with the current trend, even on the History Channel, to take a well known story or event and bring scientific truth or historical accuracy to it. Though, The Historian isn’t a romance, it’s a great vampire read that solidifies Dracula as the reigning monster.

I never had a chance to read Anne Rice’s vampire series--I was in college at the time. But I did see the movies Interview with the Vampire and Queen of the Damned. Anne Rice introduced us to the brooding vampire with a conflicted conscious. Before Louis, readers accepted that the vampire was the monster. Anne showed us that the monster might have a heart.

These days, a blog post about vampires cannot not mention the phenomenon known as Twilight.

Two years ago, I was sucked into reading the book. I didn't think I would like it, and it took several weeks after a friend recommended it for me to finally buy it. But once I started, I couldn’t read the series fast enough. Then of course Robert Pattinson happened, and the rest is history. But I still wonder what it was about Twilight that made the story so compelling. Many people, including myself, don’t like the way the heroine was written--appearing weak, infatuated, and easily controlled. But I think it’s the actual love story that has moved so many people. That and perhaps the unique spin on the actual vampires.

I just started reading PC and Kristen Cast's House of Night series. This YA series has such a unique take on the vampires. I really like the world they have created. Yet another spin on the traditional vampire lore. In the House of Night, the teenage vampires are fledgling and more human than vampire. But each student has some special ability, and the heroine has been chosen to be the next leader.

I also love the Vampire Diaries, written by LJ Smith about a decade before Twilight. I love the two brothers, Stefan who wants to be normal and doesn't feed on humans, and Damon who is deviant and does drink human blood. I also like that Smith used most of the traditional lore about vampires, like sunlight burning them, a stake through the heart, and compelling people to do their bidding. But Smith put a spin on the Salvatore brothers. They both have a ring that allows them to walk around in the daylight. I’m a Team Damon fan more than Stefan, perhaps, because Damon is the bad guy. But underneath that, Damon is proving to be just as good as Stefan when it comes to helping the heroine Elena. Both brothers are brooding, but Damon is certainly the bad boy.

Someone, an agent perhaps, mentioned what happened to the good ol' days when vampires were evil and must be destroyed? When did we start to want the bad guy to really be the good guy? I think the switch must have come somewhere around the time of Buffy and Angel, Stephan and Elena, and Louis's brooding. Before then, literature and film portrayed vampires as the monster, those horror story creatures out to upset the balance in humanity. But with Interview there was a different vampire, one with remorse for he was doing. So if vampires could have remorse, then maybe they had other feelings? And why not be able to want to love. Isn't that what we all want, to fall in love and be loved in return? Loved no matter what we are, or have become. For me that is the draw to vampires to see that inner struggle against “their true nature.” And to see the heroine grapple with what their hero truly is and still love them in return, vowing to be able to change their ways.

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Thanks, Cate!

Anyone have any favorites she didn't mention?

Gemma Files, "Everything Old is New Again" - Guest Post

Please welcome my guest, Gemma Files!

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Everything Old is New Again
By Gemma Files

Back when I was a kid, in much the same way that I would have been utterly startled to be told that even an incredibly mainstreamed version of Rap music would eventually occupy most slots on a computer-file equivalent of the Billboard Top 100, the idea that vampires would have become the go-to monster of the Milennium's turn would have amazed me beyond measure. And yet: Everywhere you look, these days, it’s a cornucopia of fangs--though usually coming firmly attached to a very specific type of vamp, ie the pale, sexy, mournful, conflicted kind so stringently popularized by books, movies and TV series like Twilight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and True Blood.

Oh, every once in a while you get a throwback to the pre-Anne Rice tropes—-Steve Niles' 30 Days of Night graphic novel springs to mind, along with the movie it inspired. But in my chosen genre, the vampire--once a Horror mainstay--has become so much of a joke that when guidelines routinely warn against submitting anything featuring the "classic" monsters, vampires are assumed to go right up the very top of that list. Vampires, like werewolves (and, increasingly, fairies), have been relegated to the ever-expanding Paranormal Romance sub-genre, with categorical emphasis falling extra-heavy on the latter part of that compound, rather than the former.

So the question becomes not "Can one still write vampires and succeed?", because obviously, one can...but rather "Can one still write vampires which startle, discomfit, surprise, let alone scare?" Can one possibly keep the vampire fresh as both a monster and as a character, even now it's become so amazingly ubiquitous?

My thesis is that the best way to break free from the Bram Stoker/Anne Rice/Stephanie Meyer paradigm is by re-examining the roots of the legend--a creature neither dead nor alive, which subsists on something stolen from human beings, possibly conjured to explain the effects of various natural occurences and diseases--and simultaneously opening yourself up to alternate visions of "the vampire" from around the world: The Gaki of Japan, the Strix of Ancient Rome and the Bruxsa of Portugal, the Lamia of Ancient Greece, the Jiang Shih of China, the Baital of India, the Ekimmu of Ancient Mesopotamia, the Langsoir, Pontiannak, Polong, Pelesit and Penanggalen of Malaysia, the Civatateo of Mexico, the Obayifo of Africa and the Loogaroo of the Caribbean, etc.

What is it they take from us, and how do they take it? Maybe blood is too easy a substance, too intimate, to actually scare us anymore. In the Philippines, for example, the Aswang is a shapeshifter that delights in sucking unborn children straight out of their mothers' wombs using a long proboscis; ironically, an Aswang is often the result of a botched attack by another Aswang, which only succeeds in robbing the foetus of its humanity. But what if the vampire in question robs you instead of memory, or time, or ability--like the Leannan-Sidhe of Ireland, which inspires poets to do their best work while simultaneously sucking their life-force from them? And how are their table manners? The Ekimmu tears its prey apart, arriving and leaving through solid walls, while the work of the Lamia, Jiang Shih, and even the Strix or Obayifo can easily be mistaken for that of simple wasting diseases, tropical or otherwise—the same impulse which once conflated tuberculosis, or "consumption," with vampirism.

One way or the other, there's no mistaking any one of these alternate forms of vampirism for the pseudo-civilized, almost "expected" tropes of Sookie Stackhouse’s universe. Even something as apparently simple as the Bruxsa, a vampire-witch hybrid which seals its transition from human to monster by killing its own children, then becomes a type of night-flying bird like an owl or raven--think about the horrific impact of a woman sitting at her kitchen table whose head suddenly swerves ninety degrees, so she can confront the person sneaking up on her. Or the Langsoir, who also often travels in an owl's shape, whose beautiful black hair parts to reveal a "feeding mouth" on the back of her neck; in order to defeat her, her nails must be cut and stuffed into this same orifice. Sort of beats a stake all to hell for originality, doesn't it?

Each of these "new" types of vampire is actually A) not new at all and B) fairly easy to research, especially in the age of Google. So look around, and go to town; no one ever lost points for originality, that I know of. And the norm was made to deviate from...as all good vampires certainly know.

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Thanks, Gemma!

Gemma Files is an award-winning horror author who’s published two collections of short fiction and two chapbooks of poetry. Her first novel, A Book of Tongues: Volume One in the Hexslinger Series, is available from ChiZine Publications.