Necon Panel on July 22

On Saturday, July 22, at 9:00 AM, I'll be participating in a panel at Necon in Portsmouth, RI.

With two exceptions, I’ve been attending Necon since 2000. It’s a different type of convention; only one track mostly horror, but well-worth attending. They cap attendance at 200 (with the addition of some walk-ins), which makes it nice and cozy. You begin to feel like you're part of the family. I've heard that they have some slots open, so if you're interested, register ASAP. The full registration fee includes meals, and parking is free. For details on the types of registrations available, see the Necon registration page.

The panel I'm on this year is Fresh Fangs: Making Traditional Tropes Breathe Again with Janet Joyce Holden, David Demchuk, James Chambers (M), Gary Frank, and Tom Deady.


9:00 a.m.        Fresh Fangs: Making Traditional Tropes Breathe Again

Morven Westfield, Janet Joyce Holden, David Demchuk, James Chambers (M), Gary Frank, Tom Deady

The classics never die, but they sure can get played out if overused by less-than-skillful artists. What’s the secret to keeping a trope fresh? How does one not reinvent the wheel, yet also not lean too heavily on the traditions that precede their work?

Full Moons and Vampires

Most of us are familiar with the effect that full moons have on werewolves, but what about the effect on vampires? Unlike their furry friends, vampires don't turn into a deadly creature only at the full of the moon. A vampire is active any night. Why, then, do we associate the full moon with vampires?

One association has to do with the way a vampire is made. It was believed that even without another vampire's involvement, a human could be turned into a vampire through a witch's curse or through improper burial. If a cat jumped over the corpse or the full moon shone upon it through a window before it was buried, the person would return from the grave as a vampire.

The full moon could also restore a wounded vampire to undead health. The vampire's body would be spread out where it could be bathed in the light of the full moon and left to revive. In Polidori’s “The Vampyre,” Lord Ruthven is shot by bandits and asks that his body be laid out where the first rays of moonlight will strike it. The body disappears. Lord Ruthven has been restored.

Inanna Arthen, author of the New England Vampire series (Mortal Touch, The Longer the Fall, All the Shadows of the Rainbow) and owner of the small press By Light Unseen Media, reminds us of another example in vampire literature. "In the penny-dreadful Varney the Vampyre, Lord Varney is unkillable because moonlight will revive him every time he’s killed. He finally flings himself into an erupting volcano to end it all."

There's even an example of a vampire needing moonlight to survive, in “When It was Moonlight,” by Manly Wade Wellman. Arthen tells me that in this 1940 short story, "Edgar Allen Poe meets a vampire who is animated entirely by the moonlight; he defeats her by locking her into a dark windowless cellar where she’s cut off from the light."

Two examples where, in literature -- not folklore, but literature -- vampires appear in full moonlight are Dracula and the legend of the Vampire of Croglin Grange. Again, Arthen, a veritable font of vampire knowledge, tells me, "In Dracula, Jonathan Harker first sees the three vampire women standing in moonlight, and they appear able to almost dissolve into the moonlight and travel along with it. In the allegedly true 'Vampire of Croglin Grange' story reported by August Derleth, the vampire first appears on a brilliant moonlit night."

Probably the strongest reason that we associate the full moon with vampires, though, has nothing to do with these legends. It has everything to do with visual arts. F.W. Murnau, who gave us Nosferatu, the first film adaptation of Dracula, also gave us the idea that vampires are destroyed by sunlight. Vampires in European folklore had no such vulnerability.

But after Nosferatu, the idea of vampires being destroyed by sunlight caught on and became canon. This presented a problem. If your movie scenes can't be set in daylight (because your vampires can't survive in daylight), you need some light to film in, and that light must therefore be moonlight.

In my two vampire novels, Darksome Thirst and The Old Power Returns, the full moon makes an appearance for a different reason. It's the late 1970s and a new coven of trainees has formed. They're taught that psychic power is stronger at the full moon and use that time to practice divination and other magical techniques. Soon they begin to sense something, an evil something.

Using each full moon to strengthen their powers to battle against the evil presence, the coven eventually finds the source.

Yes, the source of the evil is a vampire. Or two.

Special thanks go to Inanna Arthen for her generous sharing of knowledge for this post. If you love vampires, please visit her site at www.bylightunseenmedia.com.
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Inanna Arthen's "Beyond Twilight" Presentation

I had the good fortune to listen to Inanna Arthen's talk "Beyond Twilight" this past April at Books and Boos in Colchester, CT.  In this lively talk, Inanna Arthen traces the history of vampires in fiction and debunks some of the common mistakes and misinformation about the genre.

Starting with folklore and literature that pre-dates Bram Stoker's Dracula, Arthen fascinates us with the story of vampires in folklore, literature, movies, and television series. She graciously allowed me to share her presentation. I've cut her 90-plus minute talk into three sections. You can listen to the first part here: Part 1 of “Beyond Twilight: The Infinite Variety of Vampire Fiction,” with Inanna Arthen.

Inanna Arthen is an author, designer, and vampire expert who has been studying vampire folklore, media, and culture for 45 years. She runs By Light Unseen Media, a small press dedicated to fiction and non-fiction with a vampire theme. She is also the author of the Vampires of New England Series of novels, which includes Mortal Touch, The Longer the Fall, and, coming soon, All the Shadows of the Rainbow.

Thanks go to Books and Boos for hosting the event. They have started an Indiegogo campaign to raise money to help them move to a larger store. If you appreciate independent bookstores and how they serve the reader, check out their Indiegogo campaign here. The campaign will run until 11:59 pm Pacific Time on October 13, 2013.

Another Interview Podcast: Gordon Linzner

In this episode, I interview writer Gordon Linzner, who currently lives in New York, where he sometimes functions as a tour guide.

For many years the editor and publisher of Space and Time magazine, he also found the time to write short stories and four novels: The Spy Who Drank Blood (1984), The Oni (1986), The Troupe (1988), and The Hounds of Hell (2008, with Ron Fortier).

You can listen to the podcast directly at www.vampireswitchesandgeeks.com or download it from iTunes.

This episode concludes the series of short interviews conducted at Necon 2012, where I asked established writers about their vampire fiction. Many of them had written vampire fiction that I hadn't heard about because I was busy with work, night school, or life at the time of publication.

Previous interviewees in this series are writer F. Paul Wilson, who has been writing bestsellers for over thirty years; Heather Graham, guest of honor, New York Times bestselling author of over 150 novels and novellas; Jeff Strand, also guest of honor, who exquisitely mixes comedy and terror, Hal Bodner, witty writer and bon vivant; and Scott Goudsward.

Guest Blogger: Hal Bodner

For a pleasant change, I'm pleased to host a guest blogger, writer and bon vivant Hal Bodner. This is my first time hosting a guest blogger, and I may be doing it more in the future.

Hal is participating in the "Next Big Thing" blogging meme where an author answers ten set interview questions.

1. What is the working title of your next book?

Which one? I’m almost always working on more than one book at a time.

Currently I’m doing a massive re-write on the third installment in the Chris and Troy series. It’s called Mummy Dearest and is the sequel to Bite Club and The Trouble with Hairy. I was never satisfied with the way the villains came out in Mummy Dearest. I started with one distinct idea in mind and the characters kept trying to move in a different direction. I tried forcing them to do what I wanted – which is always a mistake – and the result was a disaster.

I’m also working on the third installment – this is my years for writing the sequels to sequels, I guess – of my gay superhero series, featuring Alex Archer a.k.a. The Whirlwind. It’s called A Study in Spandex.

And finally, I’ve gone BACK to working on a space opera that’s been giving me so much trouble for the past couple of years.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

Since Fabulous in Tights, the first Whirlwind book, is probably going to come out before any of the others, I guess that’s the one to talk about.

I had been toying with an idea for a mystery novel where the “detective” was a male prostitute. However, I very rapidly discovered that I completely lack the skill for intricate plotting that a good mystery requires. Nevertheless, there was something about the prostitute character that intrigued me. I had read both Perry Moore’s Hero and Austin Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible, both of which are super hero books, and I realized that a lot of the elements that I wanted to tackle in a mystery novel could also be dealt with effectively in an adventure/fantasy book. Even better, l could spare myself the difficulties of plotting as I am definitely NOT Agatha Christie!

3. What genre does your book fall under?

It’s definitely a fantasy with a lot of action/adventure thrown in. I had a blast going over-the-top with my villains again. There’s also a fair amount of satire (which is a dirty word in publishing!) thrown in. Though on the surface, my stuff is just good clean campy fun, I tend to write sub-textually and thematically, though many people don’t realize that.

And, of course, being a gay author whose work deals with a lot of elements of LGBT culture, I often get labeled by that alone – which is a shame. I don’t write merely “gay fiction” any more than Bram Stoker wrote “Irish” fiction. An author’s background colors his or her work, but it shouldn’t limit it.

Finally, I think I’m best known as a comedy writer in spite of the fact that most of my work has been in the horror and fantasy genres. I have no idea why that is. Perhaps I’m funny?

4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

If it were up to me as the writer – which it would NOT be in the movie industry as writers are considered the lowest of the low – I can think of a couple of actors I’d love to work with. Ryan Reynolds, Zac Efron, Taylor Lautner, Chris Evans or any of the guys from “The Avengers” movie.

In all honesty, they might very well be completely wrong for the role but, as long as I could write lots of scenes where they run around with their shirts off and be on-set when they shoot them, who cares?

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

An male ex-prostitute becomes a super hero and battles his arch nemesis to a surprising and heart-breaking finish… with lots of laughs and zany situations along the way.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’ve never had much luck with agents, frankly. I did one book as a self-published work and it didn’t sell as well as anything I’ve published with even the smaller publishers. So, the Whirlwind series will definitely be coming out from a “real” publisher.

Self-publishing is all very well and good but it takes a huge amount of time to do the P.R. that even the lousiest of publisher’s marketing departments can do.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I can’t remember exactly but, generally, it takes me between two and four months to do a first draft IF I’m writing full time. Since the economy went south, and since the advent of self-publishing and e-books, publishers have stopped paying the kinds of large advances that some of us used to get. So it’s even more difficult to make a living writing full time. I own a small business and, for the past year or so, I’ve been actively working in it to save money rather than hiring people. It takes up a lot of time.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I don’t know that there ARE any comparisons! I tend to do things that are innovative. Bite Club was the first gay vampire comedy. For Love of the Dead was the first erotic zombie paranormal romance. And Fabulous in Tights is pretty much unique. It’s comedic, for one thing. Neither Moore’s book nor Grossman’s book was written to be funny even though both are within the super hero genre (if there even is such a thing).

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

It’s nothing that “meaningful” that inspires me. I generally get an idea and think, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” or “Maybe it would be fun to take a whack at…” I jot it down somewhere and think about it for a bit. If the idea still resonates with me a few months later when I’m pawing through my desk drawer and I re-discover the slip of paper I wrote it on, I’ll generally start writing it.

Often, of course, I AM inspired by something specific but that’s rare. I wrote In Flesh and Stone because I had agreed to do a paranormal romance for an editor I knew. But the inspiration was having recently finished Katherine Kurtz’s St. Patrick’s Gargoyle. I enjoyed it but found it to be a trifle too political and church-y for my taste. Nevertheless, the gargoyle was a monster I hadn’t yet explored and which interested me. I set out to combine the romance I was committed to writing with the gargoyle concept and, as often happens, the result was something completely different than anything I’d intended! But that’s the way it works sometimes.

10. What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

It’s funny as hell. My main character is a really sweet guy in street clothes. But when he’s forced to don the costume and becomes the super hero, he kind of resents the heck out of having to save people from what too often ends up being their own stupidity. He’s also got the MOST caustic tongue of any character I’ve ever written and he has no compunction about slinging a couple of very cutting zingers at people he’s trying to save.

There’s also a pretty damned touching and tragic love story that runs throughout Fabulous in Tights which may also appeal to people. I know that almost every time I have to re-read it for editing purposes (you probably do that about a dozen times with every book you write), I end getting all weepy at the end even though I’m the one who wrote it!

You can find out more about Hal at his website, http://www.wehovampire.com.

And now for the Next Big Thing bloggers that Hal chose:

Michaelbrent Collings is a bestselling novelist, produced screenwriter and WGA member, martial artist, and has a killer backhand on the badminton court ('cause he's macho like that). He has written numerous bestselling novels, including Apparition, The Haunted, Billy: Messenger of Powers, RUN, The Loon, and Rising Fears. In addition, he has also written dozens of non-fiction articles which have appeared in periodicals on several continents. His blog is at http://michaelbrentcollings.com/blog2.html

Ray Garton is the author of over 60 books and scores of short stories. He is a passionate lover of movies and books, and along with his wife Dawn, he is owned by several cats. Sometimes he has the urge to write but really don't have anything to say, so he blogs at http://preposteroustwaddlecock.blogspot.com/

Karen E. Taylor is a horror/paranormal author, with eight published novels to date and an eclectic assortment of short fiction which ranges from vampires to ghosts to telepathic, romantic dinosaurs. I'm working on a few new projects, but I'm superstitious enough to not want to talk about them yet. Her web site is at http://www.karenetaylor.com

New York Times best-selling author Cherry Adair, always an adventurer in life as well as writing, moved halfway across the globe from Cape Town, South Africa to the United States in her early years to become a interior designer. Now a resident of the Pacific Northwest she shares the award- winning adventures of her fictional T-FLAC counter terrorism operatives with her readers. Her blog is at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/55474.Cherry_Adair/blog

Ryan Field is the author of over 100 published works of LGBT fiction, the best selling Virgin Billionaire series, a PG rated hetero romance that was featured on The Home Shopping Network titled, "Loving Daylight," and a few more works of full length fiction with a pen name. He's worked in publishing for twenty years as a writer, editor, and associate editor. His work has been in Lambda Award winning anthologies and he's self-published a few novels with Ryan Field Press. His blog is at http://ryan-field.blogspot.com

Appearing at Heritage Craft Fair in Framingham

On Saturday, March 24, 2012, I'll be at the New England Horror Writers' table at the 39th Heritage Craft Fair in Framingham, MA. Along with me will be other NEHW writers including Stacey Longo, David Price, Kristi Petersen Schoonover, Rob Watts, and K. Allen Wood.

This is pretty exciting for me. I know where it is (no GPS needed this time!) and I know where it is because not only did I grow up in Framingham, but the town, which I renamed Danforth, figures highly in both my novels.

The first novel, Darksome Thirst, starts in Framingham when a lone second-shift computer operator, Alicia Anderson, meets a vampire in the computer room. Yes, the witches who sense the vampire at the same time are in Bristleton (Brighton) and some later are in Fenmore (Boston), but the heart and soul of both Darksome Thirst and the standalone sequel, The Old Power Returns, is in Framingham.

Stop by if you can. It's a fundraiser for the Heritage Chorale, admission is cheap, there will be food for sale, and parking is free.

Saturday, March 24, 2012
10 AM to 4 PM

Keefe Technical School
750 Winter Street
Framingham, MA
Admission:  
   Adults $3.00
   Seniors $2.50
   Under 12 free

Other links for this Saturday's event:

http://www.heritagefair.org/


http://nehwnews.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/the-nehw-will-be-at-the-39th-heritage-craft-fair-this-saturday/

Didn't get a Kindle for Christmas? Have I got a tip for you!

I read a post recently where someone was expressing dismay at not being able to read a book because it was available only in Kindle format.

I knew that there are free Kindle apps available for the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Android because I use one on my iPod Touch. I didn't know if she had any of those devices, but I thought it was worth a shot. Being a good netizen, I looked up the web address so I could tell her where to find them.

Surprise! There are also free programs available for the Windows PC and Mac! Check it out:

Free Kindle Reading Apps


Oh, and if you're looking for a good read for your new Kindle application, both of my books are available :-D


Darksome Thirst

The Old Power Returns

Enjoy!

Morven

Book Review: Dracula the Undead, by Dacre Stoker

Dracula the Un-Dead by Dacre Stoker


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I've been a Dracula fan since the early Hammer films. I've also read Bram Stoker's book, so it's not just that I'm in love with the film presentations.

I actually listened to the audio version, but I'm putting my review on a book version because my comments aren't on the audio. The audio (from Audible) is, as with all the Audible productions I've listened to so far, excellent. The voice talent is fantastic and the production is clear and professional. So, no problem there.

I had no problem with the story taking liberties with the plot lines (Mina actually was in love with Dracula). Some of the anachronisms of vampire lore jerked me out of the story for a second, but only a second. For example, modern vampire lore uses the adjective preternatural a lot, a term I don't remember hearing pre-Anne Rice. It might have been in Stoker's original and I just don't remember it, but when I hear that term, I think of post-Rice vampires. That sin can be forgiven, though; I myself use it in my novels, whose vampires are more Dark Shadows era than Rice era.

I had no problem with the tone of the book. It was deliciously old-fashioned, much like the original Stoker. That, I felt, was a strong point.

The plotting, though, had too many stretches. Dacre Stoker tied in Jack the Ripper and Elizabeth Bathory into the Dracula story, which could have worked, but I think there were just too many plot irons in the fire. When the time came to wrap them up at the end, it seemed a little rushed just because there was so much to wrap up.

Your experience reading it as opposed to listening to it might differ. When reading, one pauses and mulls things over more, I find. Yes, I can pause my iPod, but I find that I don't. I don't know why; certainly when reading a physical book, I will stop and look away from the page to savor a scene or to remember the foreshadowing of certain plots. For some reason, though, I don't do that when listening.

Still, I found it enjoyable, and worth a read for any Dracula afficianado.

Sunday, Wiscon 33, Part 1

Sunday May 24th, 2009 - Part 1

Did I really miss all the morning panels? Yes, and it wasn't because I slept late. I'm a member of Broad Universe and one of the things we do at many conventions is to have a dealer's table. We sell books by members, talk about the purpose of the organization, but also serve as a useful stopping point for other Broad Universe members. It's always nice sitting there behind the books, reading the names of the members who stop by to say hello. Broad Universe is an international organization with the primary goal of promoting science fiction, fantasy, and horror written by women. Some of the members who stop by are writers, educators, and publishers, but some are just curious readers.

So, on Sunday morning I spent some time volunteering at the table, then took off and had some lunch before hitting the panels.


"The Care and Feeding of Your Vampire"
Fred Schepartz (m), Alex Bledsoe, Suzy Charnas, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Jordan Castillo Price

Being a huge vampire fan, I was really eager to attend this one. The moderator was Fred Schepartz, author of Vampire Cabbie (set in Madison, no less!). Panelists included Alex Bledsoe (author of Blood Groove), Suzy Charnas (author of the highly regarded The Vampire Tapestries), Alaya Dawn Johnson (author of a forthcoming 1920s vampire novel), and Jordan Castillo Price (author of the PsyCop novels). [An editorial note here: All of these authors have other wrting credits, but I noted only the vampire ones because that's what the panel is about.]

I really liked this panel, maybe because it's the type of thing I'm trying to do with my podcast*: That is, to ask other writers about their vampires and vampire universes, what inspired them, and why they made the choices they did. Most of the time I just sat there enthralled (pun!), but I did manage to scratch out a few notes.

When Suzy Charnas wrote The Vampire Tapestries (published 1980/81), she was writing it against the erotic undertone in most vampire stories (I think this might have been around the time of Anne Rice -- I keep forgetting when Rice's books became popular, even though that subject came up in a recent podcast!) Her vampire Wayland is not actually human, but a different species. He has learned to act like humans to survive. Since then she's written other vamps, including comic vamps.

Fred Schepartz's vampire is 1000 years old and [relatively recently] lost all his money in a stock market crash, so now he's driving cab in Madison to earn a living. (Don't ya love it?)

Alex Bledsoe's vampire was staked in Wales in 1915, but is freed in Memphis. Was woken in the 70s.

Alaya Dawn Johnson's novel is really "an immigrant novel." (I think Stoker's was, too, wasn't it? Or at least the fear of "other" was a metaphor for the fear of foreigners, right?)

They talked about whether their vamps could change into things (like mist -- Fred's can), how the sun affects them (Alex's can go out in sunlight), and much more. I really enjoyed this panel.


*My vampire podcast is Vampires, Witches, and Geeks