Major congrats to everybody!! Email me your snail mail address at lori@loridevoti.com. Deidre, make sure to include some “wishes” in your email. In case of two people having the same name (since some are first names only) I have the email addresses.

And thanks to everybody for hanging out with us for the last month. I hope you have a fangtastic holiday season!!

And for one last chance, post here five vampire books you have read and loved, and five more if you were to win the grand prize you would most want included in the mix.

I look forward to reading everybody’s recs and wants. :)

Finally, this went so well, I am thinking of doing it again. Probably in April when my next Nocturne comes out. Shape-shifters of some sort to celebrate my hellhounds and garm (wolf-shifters). And maybe in June/July when my urban fantasy releases. It features Amazons though…probably can’t do 30 days of Amazons, maybe just U.F. or kick ass women. Suggestions welcome here too!

I’ll post the winners in a couple of days–so check back and good luck to all!

Lori

By Michelle Rowen

When my first vampire book, Bitten & Smitten, was published I was surprised at some of the comments I read in reviews, such as how I got the vampire myths “wrong” and should have done a bit more research if I want to write in that genre. I’m paraphrasing, of course.

The thing is, I love vampires. I adore them. I have been a hardcore fanpire (isn’t that a great word?) since…well, the beginning. The Count was my favorite Sesame Street character. Frank Langella freaked me out (as well as made me feel strangely tingly) in the 70’s version of Dracula. And when Gary Oldman told Winona Ryder that he’d crossed oceans of time to find her… Zing. I was sold.

Love vamps. The myths? They’re just myths. I saw an HBO special the other day about vampires (it was promoting the fantastic show True Blood) and they went down the list of myths asking writers and directors about them. The funniest thing was that every last one was disputed. Except the wooden stake thing. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

1. Vampires are killed by sunlight

This was the biggest one for me, and the one that garnered the most “she’s wrong!” comments. The vampires in my Immortality Bites series can go out in the sunshine just fine and dandy without the risk of bursting into flame. I do state that they feel a bit weaker than at night, and they must wear dark sunglasses to protect from the glare of the sun. Am I wrong for doing this? No, I’m not. Really. Dracula himself was a daywalker. The idea that sunlight can kill vamps is a recent thing. I read an interview with Joss Whedon once that said he had vamps turn into dust from sunlight or staking specifically so Buffy and the gang wouldn’t have to worry about cleaning up corpses. Because that would be very inconvenient.

2. Vampires have no reflections

Since my main character cherished her reflection I made sure that my vamps lost their ability to see themselves in mirrors. However, this didn’t happen right away. It was a gradual process. A fledgling vamp would be able to see their reflection for a while before it faded away. Since I’m not a completely mean writer, I did invent a special mirror called a “shard” for vampires to see themselves in. Unfortunately that sort of mirror costs a lot of money. Isn’t that always the way?

3. Vampires are immortal/stay young forever

This one is just too much fun to mess with. To be hundreds of years old and still look good? I know some people have issues with Edward Cullen being over 100 and falling in love with a seventeen year old. If you can’t get over that element of vampires, then you probably don’t read about them. I don’t see Edward as an old, lecherous man in a young body. I see him as an eternal 17-year-old. (Robert Pattinson – call me!)

4. Vampires must drink blood to survive

Well, of course they do. This is the one myth I think can’t be messed with. Sure there are psychic vampires who feed on the energy of the living, but come on. Vampires need to drink blood. Some theorize that the sinking of the fangs in the innocent neck is always a metaphor for sex. I disagree. My vamps don’t usually get their blood from the source, per se. In my world there are blood delivery services and it’s delivered in kegs. But when it is from the source itself, and the vampire is old, the bite hurts. I can’t imagine how having somebody sink their sharp teeth into your neck could be remotely pleasurable. Different strokes for different folks, though.

5. Vampires can turn into bats

Nope. But that would be kind of cool.

6. A vamp can be killed by plunging a wooden stake through the heart

I think this would kill just about anything, really. But yes, I kept this one. Decapitation will also work. Not too many things can exist without a head.

7. Vampires are evil

Nope. At least not all of them. I went with the thought that however you are as a human would be the exact same as a vampire. If you’re nice in real life you’d be a nice vampire. If you were a devious, greedy, murderous villain, then that is what you’d be as a vampire. Only with extra strength, immortality, and a thirst for blood.

8. Crosses and garlic repel vampires

I decided that since my vampires aren’t necessarily evil, they wouldn’t be affected by crosses. Garlic however, I had a bit of fun with. I made it so that it knocks a vampire unconscious, therefore my vampires hunters (the real bad guys in my books) use garlic darts as tranquilizers. Because that’s evil and delicious at the same time.

So…after establishing all of my myths in the first three books, I decided to mix it up a bit in the last two books in my Immortality Bites series (Stakes & Stilettos in April ’09 and Tall, Dark & Fangsome in September ‘09). Just as my vampire heroine is getting used to being a vampire, I give her a curse to be a “nightwalker.” To me, a nightwalker is an “dark vampire” and would exhibit all of the mythical symptoms of vampirism that gave the nice vampires the reputation they have to deal with. She can’t go out in the daylight, she is now completely repelled by crosses, and she might be feeling just a little bit…evil. But she’s trying very hard to break the curse before it’s too late. She’s also not too happy with me as her writer for putting her through so much stress. I’m sleeping with one eye open and worried about the safety of my neck.

9. Vampires are fictional creatures

I hope so. I really do. ;)

So what are your favorite vampire myths? What are your favorite movies, TV, books, that break those myths? Leave a comment and have the chance to win a signed ARC of Stakes & Stilettos! Contest ends at Midnight tonight–prize can be shipped to U.S. and Canada addresses.

Visit Michelle at www.michellerowen.com to find out more about the Immortality Bites series as well as her other fantastical fictional offerings.

Order Michelle’s books:
Bitten & Smitten
Fanged & Fabulous
Lady & the Vamp
Stakes & Stilettos

Today Jennifer Rardin author of the Jaz Parks series joins us! I have heard all kinds of buz over Jennifer’s series and am really excited to get the scoop on her and her books!

Author of: The Jaz Parks Series…Once Bitten, Twice Shy; Another One Bites the Dust; Biting the Bullet; Bitten to Death; One More Bite (coming January 5, 2009)
Favorite Candy: Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups
Favorite Cartoon Character: Scooby-Doo
Super Power Most Covets: You know the one that makes your boobs so springy they try to leap out of every outfit you wear? Yeah, that one.
Favorite Vampire: Vayl (who is winning a squeaker over Angel even as we speak)

Q.) First can you tell us about your Jaz Parks series?

J.R.) Jasmine Parks is an assistant assassin. Didn’t know they had those, didja? Well, there’s a lot the CIA doesn’t share with the general public. Minor facts like the existence of the tiny department Jaz works for. Or their hero-worship of her boss, Vayl, who (as mentioned above) also happens to be a bloodsucker. It helps that he’s Edna-put-your-knickers-back-on! gorgeous. And trying really hard to behave.

Jaz and Vayl spend the majority of their time chasing down evil pricks who’ve convinced themselves that mass murder is the only way to bring the U.S. around to their way of thinking. In their spare time our heroes like to crochet afghans for homeless orphans and volunteer at the nearest food pantry. Naw, that wouldn’t even work as a cover story. Free time either means that they’re circling each other like a couple of suspicious dogs, trying to decide if assassin romance would cause some sort of implosion at the earth’s core. Or they’re trying to straighten out their pretzular (yup, that’s a word—try it next time you play Scrabble) family lives.

Q.) What about your take on vampires, do you stick with tradition or tweak it a bit?

J.R.) I like to honor the masters while adding my own flare. So, while my vamps still rise at night, sizzle in the sun, and avoid holy sites like junior high boys shun the dance floor, they each come with their own unique abilities called cantrantia that jack up the badass in an oh-crap-run-for-the-hills sort of way.

Q.) Why vampires? Didn’t people warn you it had been “done?”

J.R.) People didn’t have to warn me. Oh baby, I knew. Which was why I never intended to dip my toe into such muddy water. But my husband gave me a nice, gentle shove. Lucky for me there was room for one more!

Q.) What would you do if you met a “real” vampire? Would you be a vamp groupie or would you dash for the nearest stake?

J.R.) I’d definitely be on the hunt for sharpened edges. Which leads me to a rather hilarious train of thought. In our uber-safety-conscious world, how hard would it really be to find an item so patently dangerous just lying around? After all, it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. So here you are, running for your life, the bad vamp’s breath practically steaming up the backs of your eyeballs, and you can’t find a broken fence slat or a jagged shovel handle to save your life. Literally! If vamps came into this world, I’m afraid they’d have us beat for sheer lack of handy weaponry!

Q.) Who makes the best hero—slayer or vamp? Why?

J.R.) It’s gotta be the slayer. Because deep inside we all want to be heroes. And my guess is that it’s easier for us to identify with slayers than vamps.

Q.) Ultimate fighting challenge, you have a choice of a vampire, a werewolf or a witch as an opponent, who do you pick and why?

J.R.) The witch. Physically a vamp or a werewolf is going to kick my ass every time. But a witch? I just might be able to punch her lights out before she can get a spell off. Plus spells are tricky beasts (pardon the pun). If I pull out the bob-and-weave, she might be laughing so hard at my Mohammed Ali impression that she totally botches her attack. Again, I win. Yup, I’d definitely prefer to face the magic.

Q.) Are you a plotter or a panster? Character-driven or plot driven? Ever try to be the opposite? Do you have a set method you use when starting a book?

J.R.) I’m character-driven. Big-time. Which forces me to work very hard on my plots, because the last thing I want is for my readers to say, “Ho-hum,” and put the book down.

I have come to the point where I’ve got a little routine going on start-up. First I take about three days just to think. This is a semi-crazed time during which I do general household chores while talking to myself. Occasionally I’ll say, “Yeah, that’s it!” and dash upstairs to record my latest bright idea on the laptop.

The second step is a detailed outline that might take me through the first fifteen chapters, or about halfway. I know at that point I’ll want to go back to the beginning and replot anyhow, so there’s no real point in plotting anything after that. I do have a vague idea of how it all ends, but usually nothing specific until I’ve written those first fifteen and completed the outline. Even then, even after I’ve written the ending, I know I’ll probably change it at least twice before I’m happy with it. So I don’t cuddle with the first draft. We kinda nod to each other respectfully, like strangers in an airport, realizing we’ll never see each other again. And then I go back and do the fun writing. The part where spit and polish finally begins to make the jewel shine.

Q.) What is the smartest thing you’ve done so far as advancing either your writing or your writing career? What is something you wish you had done differently?

J.R.) Smartest thing for my career? Marrying my husband. I’m not kidding. I would not be writing today if not for him.

As for making a change . . . I wish I hadn’t let most of my English professors get inside my head so much. They really had me believing for a while that if I couldn’t write like Shakespeare I shouldn’t bother. I nearly lost my Voice because of that, and it took me a long time to regain it.

Q.) Can you describe three things in your writing area that tell us something about you?

J.R.) I’m sending a picture that includes a windup robot who I call Delilah.2. She dances before all my writing sessions. Sometimes I’ll turn the knob and say, “How’s it going to go today, Deliliah.2?” Then she boogies, and I know it’s going to rock. Good fun! The funky silver and black card file contains all the pertinent information I need related to the Jaz Parks series. And the light-up tiara is for those special occasions, when I want to slip into domestic goddess mode and prance around the house announcing, “We are a hungry author! Feed us, dammit!” After which I get my own grub because, ya know, domestic goddesses gotta watch what they eat or they will get diabetes and go blind.

Q.) Any new projects on the horizon? What would you like to try next?

J.R.) I am prepared to start a new series after I’ve finished book eight of Jaz’s adventures, so I’m hoping that’s what happens next, although you can never tell in this business! I’m also working on a YA book called Shadowstruck. Since it’s been relegated to my back-back burner, it’s hard to say when I’ll be done, but fingers crossed that my agent reads the final result and then does a little Delilah.2 dance around her living room!

Order Jennifer’s Books:
Once Bitten, Twice Shy
Another One Bites the Dust
Biting the Bullet
Bitten to Death
One More Bite

Basic Facts: Gerry Bartlett, author of REAL VAMPIRES DON’T DIET, book 4 in the Glory St. Clair series, Berkley Trade Paperback, January, 2009
Favorite Candy: anything chocolate as long as it doesn’t have peanut butter in it. Not a fan of peanut butter.
Favorite Cartoon Character: Snoopy because he’s a fellow writer.
Super Power Most Covets: I’d like to have the vampire’s ability to never age. Hate the way gravity gets to you. Never gaining weight is cool too.
Favorite Vampire: Charlaine Harris’s Eric—he’s the bad boy we all crave. Don’t know why the good guys never seem to do it for me.

Q.) First can you tell us about your Glory St. Clair series?

G.B.) About my series: Gloriana (Glory) St. Clair was turned vampire on a day when she was bloating. Now she’s been stuck for over four hundred years with an hour glass figure that runs more like ninety minutes, if you know what I mean. She’s in an on again, off again relationship with her maker, a hunky Scot, and runs her own vintage clothing store in Austin, Texas. She’s big on independence and tries to stay safe by blending with humans. She has a dog/shape-shifter named Valdez who is by her side twenty-four/seven, lots of interesting friends and enough enemies to keep her hopping in her four inch stilettos.

Q.) What about your take on vampires, do you stick with tradition or tweak it a bit?

G.B.) My vampires are fairly traditional. They can’t go out in sunlight, sleep the day away, and drink blood to stay alive, though there are synthetics available. They are independent—no fancy hierarchy, government or special species. They live off the grid, blending with humans, and are immortal, so they have to stay moving to keep their cover and live peacefully. Like any group of people, there are good guys and bad guys. The bad ones are pretty evil and like to rip out throats and cause problems for the peace-loving vamps like Glory. They can read minds and control them too. This is handy when they use mortals as their source for nourishment. They wipe the memory and move on, no harm, no foul. Some humans do know about the vamps and are “pets”, but this isn’t a common thing and Glory usually just hangs around with fellow vampires.

Q.) Why vampires? And more specifically why a full-figured vampire? Where did you get that idea?

G.B.) I decided to write about vampires because my critique partner Nina Bangs nagged me into trying it. She’s been very successful with her vamp books and thought I could be too. I decided I had to do it my way and I had read some other vamp books I liked, including Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris and Maggie Shayne. I wanted to make mine funny and my friend and other critique partner Kimberly Raye actually suggested the full-figured aspect. Kim’s a genius, because that was the spark I needed to get excited about the story. I began writing it first person and Glory just seemed to speak to me. Since I’ve had figure issues myself, it was really easy for me to get inside her head.

Q.) What would you do if you met a “real” vampire? Would you be a vamp groupie or would you dash for the nearest stake?

G.B.) If I met a “real” vampire, I’d run. The paranormal actually scares me. Let’s keep it fictional. Please.

Q.) If you were given the option, would you be turned?

G.B.) If I were given the option, I wouldn’t want to be turned vampire. No way. Not unless everyone I know and loved would live forever too. I can’t imagine watching them die while I lived on. There could be nothing worse. And I’m with Glory and the whole liquid diet thing. I love my food too much to give it up. What fun is it to live forever without steak and a baked potato? Not to mention chocolate pie. I have to have crunch in my diet, just like my heroine.

Q.) Matchmaker dilemma, you have a choice of a vampire, a werewolf or a witch/wizard as a date for your sister’s wedding, who do you take?

G.B.) I’d rather date a wizard, I think, than a vamp or a werewolf. Not into the furry thing at all and not interested in being a blood donor, though the dark and dangerous male is a real turn-on in my fantasy life. A wizard could do some cool things, though. Like turn some people who have been not-so-nice into frogs for me.

Q.) Are you a plotter or a pantser? Character-driven or plot driven? Ever try to be the opposite? Do you have a set method you use when starting a book?

G.B.) I’m definitely a pantser. I always have a starting point, a beginning of an idea and the characters I want to write about, but that’s about it. With a series, it’s really fun because I know Glory and her friends so well. The challenge is that I know fans want to see how some of their favorites are doing but the landscape can get pretty cluttered, especially now that I’m on book five. I always try to balance the humor, mystery and the love story, so that’s the juggling act I’m constantly involved in. When I start a book, I do a lot of brainstorming with my critique group and think about how I can use the cast of characters to help Glory with whatever problem is going to crop up. I do a lot of rewriting, but I don’t mind it. I’d much rather edit than face a blank page.

Q.) What is the smartest thing you’ve done so far as advancing either your writing or your writing career? What is something you wish you had done differently?

G.B.) The smartest thing I ever did to advance my writing career was join Romance Writers of America. I attended a local chapter meeting and got up my nerve to go one Sunday when there was an invitation to form a critique group. That group was the beginning for me getting serious about writing. It’s been many, many years and only Nina, Kim and I are left of the original gang, but the three of us, who all started really raw and unpublished, have sold nearly eighty books now. Kim’s sold the most at almost sixty and has hit the USA Today list. Nina’s hit that one and the NYTimes bestseller list. I’m the slowest to get going, but still have made the Barnes and Nobles and Borders bestseller lists. It wasn’t easy, with lots of tough criticism and tears along the way, but we’re living proof that perseverance pays. The only thing I wish I had done differently is not wasted so much time writing something that wasn’t marketable. Nina is very market savvy. It has paid off for her in a big way. That’s not to say that she doesn’t love what she writes, but that she always makes sure there is going to be a place to sell what she produces. I foundered around with a historical for too many years when they were dead in the water. The vampire thing was my reality check. When I finally tried my hand at it, I got my first agent and a quick sale after a long dry spell. Now that historicals are heating up again, I may try a vamp historical.

Q.) Can you describe three things in your writing area that tell us something about you?

G.B.) My writing area is a work in progress. I just put in new flooring and still haven’t rescued all of my “stuff” from the garage. I do have a sign from my late father’s desk that says “A cluttered desk is a sign of genius.” I take that as a challenge. Daddy encouraged me to write and bought me my first computer. I have a picture of the two of us together when I was about a year old next to my desk too. I’m obviously a Daddy’s girl. I also have a poster from “Gone With the Wind.” It was the first romance I ever read and I still think Scarlett and Rhett ended up happy together somehow. Naturally, I’d have written the ending differently. Finally, my husband John passed away last year and I have one of the better pictures of us together next to my computer. We were both fairly skinny and look happy at one of his high school reunions. He was my hero and I learned that love at first sight is real and can last. Have to admit, though, that it’s getting tough to write those hot love scenes lately. So if you have a hunky vamp or wizard who needs a date, hook me up. ;)

Q.) Any new projects on the horizon? What would you like to try next?

G.B.) As for new projects, I hope to keep the Glory St. Clair series going for a while. And I’d like to try my hand at a funny vamp historical series. I’ve always loved the Regency period and am convinced I lived there in a previous life. For now, I’m busy trying to recover from Hurricane Ike. My home and family are fine, but my antique business in Galveston was basically wiped out. So I’ve been busy shopping and cleaning and assessing what needs to be done to get things going again down there before Christmas. If you’re ever in Galveston, come to the Strand at 20th to Somewhere in Time where I have a booth and say hi. I usually keep a few of my own books on the shelf there. One of the worst losses when we got ten feet of water during the hurricane, was that all of my collectible books were ruined. Argh. Including my 1936 copy of “Gone With the Wind.”

You can read Glory’s blog at myspace.com/gerrybartlett or check out gerrybartlett.com for a complete list of the Real Vampires series and an excerpt from REAL VAMPIRES DON’T DIET coming from Berkley Publishing on January 3, 2009.

Order Gerry’s books:
Real Vampires Have Curves
Real Vampires Live Large
Real Vampires Get Lucky
Real Vampires Don’t Diet

By Jenna Reynolds

Alone on the couch in your living room, a bowl of your favorite snack within reach, you pick up the remote and turn on the television.

As you listen to the pulsing theme music and watch the opening credits of your favorite television show, you feel a cool breeze tickle the back of your neck and with it you also pick up the muddy scent of freshly turned earth and what smells like….blood.

The hairs rise on the back of your arm. You shake your head and tell yourself you’re imagining things. You settle back comfortably on the couch, your eyes glued to the television screen.

Suddenly, you sense something behind you. Before you can react or cry out, strong hands grip your shoulders. Cold lips brush against your exposed neck and then…you feel it. Fangs sinking into your throat.

And, as you stare, paralyzed, hypnotized, at the latest episode of CSI-New York, the vampire begins to feed.

Okay, so that’s not quite what happens when a vampire enters your living room through the medium of television, but the history of vampires on television has been an interesting one. One of the reasons it has proven so interesting is due to the very nature of television.

Consider some statistics:

o Percentage of U.S. households that have a television: 99%
o Number of televisions in the average U.S. household: 2.4
o Percentage of homes with three or more televisions: 66%
o Number of hours per day that television is on: 6.5 hours
o Number of hours of television watched annually: 250 billion
o Value of that time assuming a wage of $5/hour – $1.25 trillion

Television is not only an integral part of American households, it’s an intimate part. As John Fiske and John Hartley noted in their book Reading Television, “TV functions as a social ritual…in which our culture engages in order to communicate with its collective self…”

However, before we begin to explore the vampire on television, let’s take a brief trip back in time.

A Short History of Television

Electronic television was first successfully demonstrated in San Francisco in 1927 by a 21 year old by the name of Philo Taylor Farnsworth who had lived in a house without electricity until he was 14.

However, it wasn’t until 1947 that full-scale commercial television began broadcasting in the United States. And, as the years marched on, the number of televisions rose from 6,000 in 1946 to 12 million by 1951. No new invention entered American homes faster than the television.

During the 1950s, 60s and into the early 70s, American households were limited to watching pretty much what appeared on the three major networks: CBS, NBC, and ABC. Programming on each of these networks was designed to grab a mass audience and consisted primarily of variety shows, half-hour situation comedies, and hour-long dramas, which usually featured detectives, doctors, lawyers or, in the 50s and 60s, cowboys. And the characters pretty much reflected the way America saw itself at the time. White, Anglo-Saxon, Heterosexual and Protestant.

In 1961, Newton Minow, chairman of the FCC, described television as a “vast wasteland.”

And where were the vampires through all of this?

Well, they weren’t just sleeping away in their coffins. Vampires, of course, were on the silver screen, in films such as Nosferatu (1922), Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi (1931), Dracula’s Daughter (1936) and Horror of Dracula, featuring Christopher Lee (1958).

These and hundreds of other movies made about vampires attested to the fact that this blood-sucking creature of the night remained popular even when he wasn’t yet appearing in the living rooms of American households.

In her book, The Lure of the Vampire; Gender, Fiction and Fandom from Bram Stoker to Buffy, author Milly Williamson offers some explanations as to the enduring appeal of the vampire. The vampire, according to her, possesses “….a painful awareness of outsiderdom, a recognition of inhabiting an unwelcome self, a life at least partly lived at the edges.”

Margaret Carter in her essay “The Vampire as Alien in Contemporary Fiction” from the book Blood Read: The Vampire in Contemporary Culture, agrees. She sees the vampire “as rebellious outsider, as persecuted minority, as endangered species, and as a member of a different “race” that legend portrays as sexually omnicompetent” and, Carter goes on to say, it is these very attributes that make “the vampire….a fitting hero for late twentieth-century popular fiction.”

And, as we shall see, for popular media as well.

However, in order for the vampire to make his way into people’s living rooms, he needed to undergo a very important transformation. And not one that involved turning into a bat or a wolf.

The vampire needed to become more human.

As Milly Williamson notes in The Lure of the Vampire: “Dracula no longer holds centre stage in the world of vampires. The twentieth century produced a new generation of morally ambiguous, sympathetic vampires who lure audiences with the pathos of their predicament and their painful awareness of the outsiderdom.” She goes on to say that “….we conjure the vampires that we want or need for the cultural and historical times that we find ourselves in.”

It wasn’t until the 1960s that vampires began to make their first sortie into television, and consequently, into American homes. And I don’t believe it is mere coincidence that the 1960s was also the decade when many marginalized groups such as minorities, women, and gays began to demand the same treatment and respect accorded to whites, men and heterosexuals.

And what better representative of a misunderstood and marginalized individual than the vampire, who, firstly, is often made a creature of the night through no choice of his own and, secondly, sometimes feels guilty when he’s forced to feed from humans.

As Williamson further notes: “reluctance and the refusal to ‘feed’ has become an important development in the conventions of the sympathetic sub-genre of vampire fiction….” She goes on to say that: “the reluctant vampire embodies [the] melodramatic impulse as fully as any fictional figure. Its unwanted vampirism is the violation it has suffered, it is expelled from humanity, is misrecognized as evil by a world to which it does not belong…”

So, as minorities, women and gays, who were often depicted as sub-human, animalistic, and in some cases, downright evil, cried out for justice and freedom in the 60s, the vampire could honestly say he (or she) knew exactly where they were coming from.

As noted before it wasn’t until the turbulent decade of the 1960s that vampires made their first appearance as a semi-regular staple on American television. However, you may be surprised to learn just who was the first vampire to appear on a regular TV series.

And, nope, it wasn’t Barnabas Collins.

Here then, decade by decade, is a look at the vampire in your living room. And, just to give you some perspective as to what television was like at the time, I first list some of the popular shows of that decade.

The 1960s – Wagon Train, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, The Fugitive, Gilligan’s Island, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Green Acres

The Addams Family (1964-1966). The Adams Family marks the first appearance of a vampiric-like character as a regular on a television show. Based on the characters in Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons, The Adams Family was a 30-minute show shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons on ABC.

The Addams family consisted of Gomez Adams, his wife, Morticia, their children Wednesday and Pugsley, Grandmama, who was a witch; Uncle Fester, who could turn on a light bulb by sticking it in his mouth; their tall, ghoulish butler, Lurch; Thing, a disembodied hand and Gomez’s best friend, and a rather hairy cousin named, aptly enough, Cousin Itt.

Although it was never openly stated that Morticia was a vampire, it was hard not to see her as one with her pale skin, long black hair, and black gothic dress. Morticia never failed to drive her husband, Gomez, into an erotic frenzy by speaking French. She was also fond of cutting the blossoming buds off roses and leaving only the thorny stems.

In response to The Adams Family, CBS came up with its own family of monsters. Or, in this case, munsters.

The Munsters (1964-1966) The Munsters was a lampoon of both monster movies and family shows such as Father Knows Best. It ran during the same 64-66 televisions season as The Addams Family.

Although the Addams Family came across as more well-heeled, the Munsters were a working-class family. Herman Munster, who was a caricature of the Frankenstein’s Monster, even had a job. He worked at a funeral home called Gateman, Goodbury and Graves.

Herman’s wife, Lilly Munster, (née Dracula) is the daughter of the “real” Count Dracula, who is usually referred to as Grandpa. He lives with Lilly and Herman, along with their son, Eddie, who’s a werewolf, and Marilyn Munster, Lilly’s niece. Marilyn is a stunningly beautiful blonde who is pitied by the rest of the Munster clan for her “unattractive” appearance.

Lily is a vampire, but she’s never seen feeding upon anyone. Lily’s father, “Sam” Dracula dresses like Bela Lugosi in the 1930s version of Dracula. He spends a lot of time in the basement in his lab, creating concoctions that usually function as a deus ex machina for whatever absurd situation Herman manages to get himself entangled in.

Morticia Adams, Lily Munster and Sam Dracula were blatantly comedic characters and certainly not meant to be taken seriously.It wasn’t until 1966 that television gave viewers its first non-comedic portrayal of a vampire.

Dark Shadows (1966-1971) Dark Shadows, which debuted in 1966, aired weekdays on ABC television.

Categorized as a gothic soap opera, the show was created by Dan Curtis, who reported that he had a dream in which a girl took a long train ride to visit a mansion. During its run of 1,225 episodes, the show featured nearly every key gothic, horror and fantasy plot element. Initially, however, the show was faced with low ratings and was close to cancellation. The character of the tormented vampire Barnabas Collins was introduced in the hope of boosting ratings.

It worked.

Barnabas Collins was made a vampire in the sixteenth century by a spurned lover who used witchcraft to transform him. Unlike most portrayals of vampires at the time, Barnabas becomes less of a killer. You could say he became the forerunner of the morally tormented vampire, which we will see more of on television as the decades progress.

In 1991 NBC attempted to breathe new life into Barnabas Collins by presenting a new version of Dark Shadow with Ben Cross as Barnabas. It failed to capture an audience and was on television for only part of a season.

In 2003, the WB Network considered reviving Dark Shadows, but rejected the pilot.
The 1970s – Good Times, Happy Days, Wonder Woman, All in the Family, Marcus Welby, M.D., Laverne & Shirley, The Waltons, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Starsky & Hutch, Charlie’s Angels

After the cancellation of Dark Shadows in 1971, most of the vampires who appeared on television in the 1970s were chiefly featured in television movies or mini-series. Except for one mathematically obsessed vampire.

Kolchak – The Night Stalker (1972) – In 1972, one of the highest rated television movies ever aired. Carl Kolchak, played by Darren McGavin, was a hard-nosed Chicago reporter who found himself on the trail of a vampire named Janos Skorzeny, played by Barry Atwater. The television movie was so successful it engendered a sequel and two short-lived television shows.

Sesame Street (1972) – One of Sesame Street’s most enduring and endearing Muppet characters is the Count Van Count. He first appeared on Sesame Street in 1972. He’s modeled after Bela Legosi’s portrayal of Dracula. The Count educates children on basic mathematical concepts by obsessively counting any and everything.

One of the legends surrounding vampires is that they have a fixation with counting small objects, such as seeds. One can, therefore, distract a vampire by tossing seeds or salt in front of them. Supposedly they will stop to count the seeds or grains of salt, allowing you time to escape. (This was actually featured in a very funny episode of X-Files called “Bad Blood” when Scully and Mulder investigate what appear to be a series of vampire attacks.)

Others, however, believe that the Count’s obsessive counting is more a pun on his aristocratic title, the Count, than anything.

‘Salem’s Lot (1979) – Based on the 1975 novel by Stephen King, the mini-series ‘Salem’s Lot aired on ABC in 1979. It starred David Soul (of Starsky and Hutch fame) as Ben Mears, James Mason as Richard Straker, and Reggie Nalder as Mr. Barlow. Another television version aired in 2004, starring Rob Lowe as Ben Mears, Donald Sutherland as Richard Straker and Rutger Hauer as Mr. Barlow.

The Curse of Dracula (1979) – In 1979, NBC debuted a television series called Cliffhangers. In an attempt to revitalize the serial format, each hour-long episode was divided into three 20 minute segments featuring three different storylines.

One of those serials was titled The Curse of Dracula. Michael Nouri played Count Dracula who lives undercover in 1979 San Francisco as a college teacher and teaches evening classes in European history. On his trail is Kurt Von Helsing, the grandson of Dracula’s old nemesis, Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

Cliffhangers was cancelled after only 10 episodes of the three serials aired. It proved too expensive to produce and it also happened to air opposite Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, two of the most popular shows at the time.

The 1980s – Dallas, Little House on the Prairie, Love Boat, Falcon Crest, Different Strokes, Three’s Company, The A-Team, Cagney and Lacey, The Cosby Show

The 1980s saw an even more pronounced scarcity of vampires on television. But a TV movie that aired on CBS in the last year of the decade may have been responsible for the emergence of other vampires on television in the years to follow.

Count Duckula (1988) Count Duckula was a British animated television series. Set in Transylvania, Duckula lived in a spooky castle known as Castle Duckula, along with his butler Igor.
Nick Knight (1989) – In 1989, CBS aired a television movie titled Nick Knight. It stared the actor and 1980s pop artist Rick Springfield in the title role. Nick Knight was a Los Angeles homicide detective who worked the nightshift, drove a ’59 Cadillac, was a brooding loner, and had a secret.

Yep, you guessed it. He was a vampire, tormented by his need for blood and searching for a way to regain his mortality. What’s significant about this movie is that it became the basis for the 1992 television series, Forever Knight.

The 1990s – Home Improvement, Murphy Brown, Cheers, E.R, Seinfeld, Friends, Caroline in the City, Frasier, Touched by an Angel, NYPD Blue, Northern Exposure, Designing Women, The Simpsons

The 1990s would prove to be the decade when vampires, although still in the minority when it came to being featured on television, would begin to move from made-for-TV movies and mini-series into actual television shows.

However, it wouldn’t be until the twilight of that decade and the dawn of a new century, that television viewers would get their first look at a blonde vampire slayer and another brooding, longing-to-be mortal vampire.

Forever Knight (1992-1996) – Forever Knight was a television series about Nick Knight, a vampire working as a detective in modern day Toronto. Based on the made-for-television-movie Nick Knight, which starred Rick Springfield, the 1989 movie did not garner enough ratings for a spin-off television series. However, in 1992, CBS tried again by revamping (no pun intended) the movie into a two-hour series pilot.

Geraint Wyn Davies replaced Rick Springfield and the pilot launched the series that same year. In the series, Knight seeks to regain his humanity with the help of the police department’s pathologist, Natalie Lambert, played by Catherine Disher. The master vampire Lucien LaCroix, however, wants nothing more than for Nick to remain a vampire.

CBS cancelled the show but TriStar revived it in syndication and the show resumed in 1993. However, the show only lasted three seasons. The show has a devoted fan base and was voted number 23 in TV Guide’s Top 25 Cult TV Shows of All Time.

Kindred: The Embraced (1996) – Kindred: The Embraced was a 1996 Fox television series/vampire soap opera. It was loosely based on the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade.

The plot revolves around San Francisco police detective Frank Kohanek, played by C. Thomas Howell. He becomes involved in the Masquerade while investigating an alleged mobster, Julian Luna, played by Mark Frankel. Luna is actually the Ventrue Prince of the Kindred who live in the city.

The series draws upon some of the vampire clans featured in the role-playing game with a few alterations. The clans featured in the series include the Ventrue, who are the vampire aristocrats; the Grangrel, who are portrayed as rebels, sneer at conventional society and are also descendants of Gypsies; the Brujah, who are the least civilized of the clans and, in the series, were The Sopranos of the vampire world; the Nosferatu, intriguingly mysterious creatures who are the most vampire-like in appearance, but who also possess magical and mystical abilities, and, finally, the Toreador, who are flamboyant, passionate, and gorgeous.

Showtime was in the process of renewing the show for a second season. However, Frankel, who played the vampire Julian, died at the age of 34 in a motorcycle accident not long after the final episode aired. With his death, plans to continue the series were put aside.

The entire eight-episode series is available on DVD, and the Sci-Fi Channel, which has the broadcast rights, occasionally shows the entire season on one of its weekday series marathons.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) – Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired on March 10, 1997 and remained on the air until May 20, 2003. The series was created by writer-director Joss Whedon, and was based on his 1992 film, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which starred Kristy Swanson as Buffy, Rutger Hauer as her nemesis, the vampire Lothos, Donald Sutherland as Merrick, Buffy’s mentor, and Paul Rubens (of Pee-Wee Herman fame) as Amilyn, another vampire. Luke Perry also starred in the movie and, if you don’t blink, you’ll also see Ben Affleck, Hilary Swank and David Arquette.

Whedon felt that the movie had not done near enough justice to what he had hoped to accomplish regarding his idea of a Southern California girl who winds up slaying things that go bump in the night. With the television show Whedon had more freedom to explore the concept and the rest, as they say, is history.

The series followed the adventures of Buffy Summers, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who is the latest in a long line of young women known as Slayers. Slayers battle vampires, demons, and other forces of darkness. Giles, her Watcher, played by Anthony Stewart Head, guided and trained her. Buffy was accompanied on her missions to rid the world of evil by her friends, who were known as the “Scooby Gang”.

To adequately discuss the phenomenon known as the Buffyverse goes far beyond the scope of this blog post. Needless to say, Buffy proved to be a success for the WB Television Network. Buffy’s ratings always fluctuated between 4 and 6 million viewers which, on the larger networks, would have led, unfortunately, to instant cancellation.

However, for the fledging WB network Buffy was a huge success. Reviews for the show were generally positive, and it ranked # 41 on the list of TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. It was also voted #3 on TV Guide’s Top 25 Cult TV Shows of all Time.

Angel (1999-2003) – A spin-off from Buffy, Angel deals with the trials and tribulations of the vampire Angel, also known as Angelus, and Buffy’s former squeeze. For over a century, Angelus the vampire tortured and murdered human beings without conscience or remorse.

However, Angel’s human soul is restored to him by Gypsies as a punishment for the murder of one of their own. As a result, he is tormented with guilt for all the pain and suffering he caused. He seeks to make amends by working as a private detective in Los Angeles where he and his associates, which includes the character Cordelia from Buffy, struggle to “help the helpless.”

Again, to adequately discuss Angel would require another blog post unto itself and would, of course, have to include an analysis of the impact of the vampire character Spike on the portrayal of vampires in television.

But, I think it’s fair to say that both Buffy and Angel were responsible, in no small degree, to what happened in the early years of the 21st century when it came to vampires on television.
Ultraviolet (1998) A British television show which featured a modern retelling of the vampire myth. As a result of humanity’s apparently reckless and headlong march towards making itself extinct, the vampires, fearing the loss of their food supply, conspire to find a means to control humans.

Ultraviolet, as a result, revolved around Jack Davenport, a former police detective-sergeant, played by Michael Colefield, who is recruited into CIB, a government-funded paramilitary police unit fighting a secret war against the worldwide vampire conspiracy. He’s joined by a squad of covert government investigators led by an ex-soldier, a former priest and a scientist.

In Ultraviolet the word “vampire” was never used. The term Code V was used in reference to vampires, as was the slang term “leech.” Ultraviolet also offered more scientific explanations for both vampires and the means used to detect and fight them.
The 21st Century

The early years of the new century saw a handful of shows about vampires debut on TV. Unfortunately, most of these shows proved short-lived.

However, the debut this year on HBO of a television series featuring a telepathic waitress and a red concoction called TruBlood, may reverse the current trend as it relates to vampires on television.

Supernatural (2005) – Supernatural premiered on the WB Network in September, 2005. It’s now currently part of The CW’s lineup. The series details the adventures of two brothers; Dean Winchester, played by Jensen Ackles, and his younger brother, Sam, played by Jared Padalecki. The two travel across the country investigating and battling supernatural forces.

Although neither of the brothers is a vampire, or has teamed up with a vampire, the show does deal with all sorts of supernatural creatures, including vampires. The show is currently in its fourth season, has a devoted fan base and averages between 3 to 4 million viewers.

Blade: The Series (2006) – Blade: The Series was based on the Marvel Comics character and the film series, which starred Wesley Snipes as Blade. The series premiered on Spike TV in June, 2006. Kirk “Sticky Fingaz” Jones was cast in the title role.

In the series, the vampires of the House of Chthon are developing a serum that will cure vampires of their weaknesses. Blade must, of course, stop them and is joined by Krista Starr, played by Jill Wagner, a former soldier and a vampire-in-the-making.

The series premiere had 2.5 million viewers and was the most-watched original series premiere in Spike’s history. However, by September of that year the show had been cancelled.

Blood Ties (2007) – Blood Ties is a Canadian television series based on the Blood Books by Tanya Huff. The show premiered on the Lifetime network in March, 2007. The series centered on Vicki Nelson, played by Christina Cox, a former cop who becomes a private investigator as a result of slowly losing her eyesight.

She teams up with the 480-year-old vampire Henry Fitzroy, who is the illegitimate son of Henry VIII, to solve crimes of a decidedly supernatural nature. The show has yet to air any new episodes. (And if anyone knows if this show has officially been cancelled, please let us know.)

Moonlight (2007) Moonlight premiered on CBS in September, 2007. The series featured private investigator Mick St. John, played by Alex O’Loughlin. In the 1950s St. John was turned into a vampire by his bride on the couple’s wedding night.

In the present day, he deals with his growing attraction to a mortal woman, Beth Turner, played by Sophia Myles, his friendship with Josef Kostan, another vampire, played with deliciously, devilish aplomb by Jason Dohring, and his connections with the other vampires who reside in Los Angeles.
Moonlight attracted a devoted and fiercely loyal fan base. Fans even worked with the American Red Cross for a series of charity blood drives, and Alex O’Loughlin made a public announcement spot (which you can find on YouTube) imploring people to denote blood.

However, in spite of the show’s devoted fans, and the nearly 8 million viewers who tuned in to watch Moonlight on Friday nights, CBS cancelled it in 2008.

TrueBlood (2008) – TrueBlood was created by Alan Ball, creator of HBO’s Six Feet Under. The series is based on the Sookie Stackhouse book series by Charlaine Harris. The show is broadcast on HBO and premiered on September 7, 2008.

TrueBlood revolves around Sookie Stackhouse, played by Anna Paquin (of X-Men fame). Sookie is a telepathic bar waitress who falls in love with a vampire, Bill Compton, played by the British actor Stephen Moyer. Sookie lives in Bon Temps, a fictional Louisiana town, where Bill has come to settle on the old family homestead.

Bill was making his way back to his wife and children after the end of the Civil War, but was turned into a vampire by a woman he thought was just a lonely widow. Because he had politely rebuffed her sexual advances, due to the fact he wanted to return to his wife unsullied, the vampire decided not to kill him when she drank his blood but to turn him into a vampire instead.

The series puts forth the idea that vampires are a victimized minority who struggle for basic civil rights, such as the right to marry, and who seek passage of a Vampire Rights Amendment, among other tings. With the invention of TruBlood, a synthetic substitute for real blood, some—but not all—vampires are now seeking, as Bill Compton tells Sookie, to “mainstream.”

Due to the fact that TrueBlood is on HBO, it is able to graphically depict what other vampire television shows could only hint at. Sex, nudity, profanity and blood. Buckets and buckets of blood.

The series has been renewed for a second season, has grown steadily in the ratings (over 6 millions viewers so far) and Anna Paquin has, apparently, signed on to do seven seasons of the series. That’s not to say there will be seven seasons of TrueBlood. Just that Paquin is willing to do them.

So, now, as we come to the end of this post, we’ve progressed through over four decades of television broadcasting as it relates to vampires. We started out with the comic campiness of Morticia Adams and Lily Munster and ended up with the moody pathos of Vampire Bill Compton.
So, why is it that vampires continue to find their way onto our television screens? Part of it, of course, is the inherent appeal of the vampire.

In her book, The Lure of the Vampire, Milly Williamson says that “….the Western vampire is an ambiguous figure; it is a rebel and aristocrat, bohemian and nobility, it looks to the past and the future.” Richard Dryer in his essay “Dracula and Desire” from Sight and Sound, January 8-15, 1993 also notes that “If the vampire is an Other, he or she was always a figure in whom one could find one’s self…the despicable as well as the defiant, the shameful as well as the unashamed, the loathing of oddness as well as pride in it.”

Finally, Williamson states that “…the vampire….is the expression of the outcast and this helps to explain its enormous popularity and the existence of a large vampire fan culture.”

There could be some truth to that. For who among us has not felt at some time in our lives outcast, different, and out of place with the others around us? And who is a better representative of that outsider state than a vampire?

So, although most vampires have had, despite their inherent immortality, relatively brief life spans on TV, they have also managed to make significant inroads into the landscape of popular culture, television programming and, consequently, into our very living rooms.

As to what the future holds for vampires on television, only time (and ratings) will tell.

So, the next time you think you smell a newly open grave or the coppery odor of fresh blood, don’t be surprised to find a vampire sitting next to you on your couch.

Okay, it’s your turn.

Who are your favorite television vamps?

If you were head of programming at a major television network, what kind of vampire series would you line up for next year’s season?

What book series about a vampire would you like to see on television?

Most of the vampires who have appeared on TV have either been private eyes, police detectives or teamed up with one. What other occupations would you like to see vampires have on television? Lawyer? Doctor? Restaurant critic?

Items of Possible Interest

• The Top 70 Vampire Movies of All Time
• The Modern Vampire: Bloodthirsty, But Chivalrous
• Kane, Tim. The Changing Vampire of Film and Television: A Critical Study of the Growth of a Genre. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co, 2006. (Unfortunately, I was unable to get my hands on a copy of this book in time for this blog post.)
• Williamson, Milly. The Lure of the Vampire: Gender, Fiction and Fandom from Bram Stoker to Buffy. London & New York: Wallflower Press, 2005

From the moment she saw her first vampire movie, which featured none other than Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, Jenna Reynolds has always been fascinated with vampires, werewolves and things that go bump in the night. An avid reader of both non-fiction and fiction, she especially enjoys lurid tales of the fantastic.

Please feel free to stop by her website www.jennareynolds.com or blog http://jenna-reynolds.blogspot.com/

Buy Jenna’s book:
The Emissary

by Margaret L. Carter

Margaret is also giving away a PDF of SEALED IN BLOOD, one of the vampire novels in her “Vanishing Breed” universe. Contest open until Midnight, December 11, 2008. Leave a comment on this post to be entered.

I’ve been a lifelong fan of “good guy” vampires, even back when they were almost impossible to find except in a few short stories. The classic vampire, a supernatural undead creature, was traditionally assumed to be animated by the Devil and therefore intrinsically evil.

Personally, I always disliked the premise that a character instantly lost individual personality and free will upon transformation into one of the undead. This assumption was gradually subverted in the 1960s and 70s by supernatural vampires who struggled against their curse (e.g., Barnabas in DARK SHADOWS) or weren’t diabolical to begin with (e.g., Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Count Saint-Germain). For an especially fruitful approach to the ethical vampire, however, consider him or her as a member of another humanoid species.

If this creature has evolved as a part of nature, he or she can’t be innately evil, any more than a human character would be. The natural, morally neutral vampire can make ethical choices on the same basis as any other sapient being. Vampires as “aliens,” in the sense of another20 species, whether terrestrial or extraterrestrial, have existed in fiction throughout the twentieth century and even a bit earlier. (I discuss a plethora of them in my book DIFFERENT BLOOD: THE VAMPIRE AS ALIEN from Amber Quill Press, www.amberquill.com.) My first book, an anthology called CURSE OF THE UNDEAD (1970), included a vampire-as-extraterrestrial story written by my husband, “Vanishing Breed,” on which my vampire series was ultimately based. Novel-length examples of the subgenre, however, began to flourish after the late 1970s.

Suzy McKee Charnas’s award-winning THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY, starring solitary predator Weyland, sole survivor of his kind, stands forth as the classic portrayal of a vampire as a product of evolution existing at the top of the food chain. Whitley Strieber’s THE HUNGER portrays a female vampire in a similar position of isolation. Elaine Bergstrom (SHATTERED GLASS and its companion novels) and George R. R. Martin (FEVRE DREAM) present communities of alternate-species vampires.

Extraterrestrial vampires live secretly among us in Jacqueline Lichtenberg’s THOSE OF MY BLOOD. Shortly before her death, science fiction writer Octavia Butler published FLEDGLING, about an orphaned child from a race of vampires. Christine Feehan’s Carpathians, in her paranormal romance series, seek human soul mates. Susan Sizemore also features other-species vampires as romantic heroes in her “Primal” series. These examples represent only a few of20the many variations on the “natural vampire” motif.

The traditional vampire invites exploration of themes such as the boundaries between life and death, the loneliness of immortality, the erotic charge of sharing (or ravishing) lifeblood, and the ethics of feeding off other people. Critics frequently apply words such as “transgressive” and “liminal” to vampires, terms that take on different shading when the vampire is not a former human being with vestigial memories of a “normal” life, but something wholly Other. Fiction about naturally evolved vampires raises numerous additional issues. The allure and threat of the Other, for example, complicate sexual attraction when the Other literally belongs to a different species.

Inter-species relationships in vampire novels can function as metaphors for interracial relationships, and such vampires are often portrayed as victims of prejudice and persecution. Would an immortal predator desire a human mate, for that matter, and if so, why? Human characters relating to vampires have to face the same kinds of problems raised by any type of aliens who possess superhuman powers. Conversely, the issue of dealing with lesser animal species arises in this fiction except that in this case we are the lesser species. We are to vampires as other animals are to us. Weyland, Charnas’s solitary vampire, for example, regards human beings as prey or livestock, but over the course of the novel he has to acknowledge that the situation is a bit more complicated than that. Unlike (as far as we know) the animals we use for food, Weyland’s “livestock” have intelligence and self-awareness.

Does a vampire, as a superior being, have any moral duty toward us?

The predator among us also faces the difficulty of passing for human, a problem of varying degree depending on what limitations and vulnerabilities the author decides to impose on his or her vampire species. That this “alien” masquerades so thoroughly as one of us gives the vampire, for me, an appeal similar to that of Spock in STAR TREK, a being who provides a skewed perspective on human existence and whose allure includes an aloofness that can be overcome only by a very special mate. Like a traditional vampire, the alternate-species vampire who loves a human mate faces loss of the beloved to age and death. The natural vampire, however, usually can’t transform the beloved into one of his or her own kind (the tragedy of THE HUNGER arises from the vampire heroine’s inability to perform this transformation, despite repeated experiments). I find this situation interesting because the lovers remain Other and must continue to work at bridging their differences, rather than erasing those differences.

For the traits of my vampires in the “Vanishing Breed” series, beginning with DARK CHANGELING from Hard Shell Word Factory (www.hardshell.com), I had fun trying to explain as many standard vampiric characteristics as possible in more or less plausible biological terms that is, if one is willing to accept psi powers as at least borderline scientific. My vampires (like the classic nineteenth-century undead, including Count Dracula) can function in daylight, but they’re sensitive to the sun, which weakens them and causes discomfort. They get bulk nourishment from animal blood but also feed on emotions, so they have to drink from human prey regularly to remain healthy. While they can interbreed with human mates, hybridization doesn’t happen often, because female vampires go into heat infrequently, and a male vampire becomes fertile and capable of genital sex only in the presence of a female in heat. So their principal erotic outlet consists of feeding on human donors (or victims, depending on the individual vampire’s attitude). They have limited shapeshifting ability, but most of the powers they appear to possess along that line are illusions created by their psychic powers.

In that connection, they can hypnotize people what fun would it be if they couldn’t? Speaking pragmatically, I figured that ability would logically evolve because they can feed with minimal danger to themselves if the prey doesn’t fight back and even enjoys the experience (before forgetting it altogether in most cases). For the same reason, to minimize risk, a sensible vampire never kills his or her human prey. Most of them do consider us beneath them, food sources or at best pets. The vampire heroes of my novels, of course, fall into the category of exceptions to that attitude.

Find Margaret on the web at Carter’s Crypt, or subscribe to her newsletter at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/margaretlcartersnewsfromthecrypt

Order Margaret’s books:
Different Blood: The Vampire As Alien
Transformations
Child of Twilight

Today author Lynda Hilburn is joining us to celebrate 30 Days of Vampires. She’s giving away a copy of her book, Dark Harvest, and the winner’s choice of one of her guided hypnotherapy CDs (can be seen on her non-writing website: www.lyndahilburn.com)
To be entered…Describe the vampire you’d like to see floating outside your window in the comments section of this post. Contest ends December 11 at midnight. Ships to U.S. and Canada addresses only.

Author of: The Vampire Shrink and Dark Harvest, books 1 and 2 of the Kismet Knight, Vampire Psychologist series
Favorite Candy: Anything chocolate! (I’m sure I emotionally scarred my son for life by biting the heads off his chocolate bunnies every Easter!)
Favorite Cartoon Character: Count Duckula! A vampire duck – what’s not to love?
Super Power Most Covets: It’s a toss-up between mind reading, being invisible and being able to fly.
Favorite Vampires: I can’t choose one, so I added an “s” to the end of vampire. Bela Lugosi is a fave for filling my childhood with fangs, Frank Langella’s 1980 version of Dracula introduced me to the notion of an overtly sensual vampire. And, of course, my own vampire character — Devereux – 800 years of gorgeous undead maleness.

Q.) First can you tell us about your Kismet Knight series?

L.H.) I’d love to! Kismet Knight is a Denver psychologist who has become a little bored with her life. She yearns for excitement – for professional fame and fortune. When a new client comes to her office claiming to be part of a hidden vampire underworld, Kismet thinks she’s found a new, trendy diagnosis, as well as the key to an Oprah appearance! Vampire wannabes! Of course, she doesn’t believe the story for a minute. Everyone knows vampires don’t exist. Or, do they? When gorgeous, 800-year-old Devereux shows up in her waiting room, she finds herself falling through the Looking Glass into an alternate reality. He says she’s his long-awaited mate. She thinks he’s mentally ill. And then there’s the bad vampire leaving a trail of blood-drained bodies and the handsome FBI profiler . . .

Q.) What about your take on vampires, do you stick with tradition or tweak it a bit?

L.H.) Like most authors, I use what I like and leave the rest. My vampires are nocturnal creatures who love drinking blood. Most of them don’t feel guilty or shameful about their need for the crimson elixir. They don’t have to kill humans to feed, although – like humans – there are “good” vampires and “bad” ones. The bad ones often kill just for the enjoyment of it. My bloodsuckers aren’t affected by religious symbols/places or garlic, and they can use mirrors. (In fact, they’re rather vain!) In my world, the vampires can move through thought. They can travel through space and time, and the main vampire character, Devereux, spends a lot of his days literally living in the past (which accounts for his odd speech patterns and European accent). They can be killed by fire, by walking into the sun, or by having their heads chopped off. Vampires are always so remarkably creative about destroying each other!

Q.) If you were given the option, would you be turned?

L.H.) It would really depend on the situation I found myself in. If I could be like many of the vampires in my fantasy world, and could spend the centuries learning, acquiring knowledge and becoming wise, I’d definitely consider it. Of course, I would have had to be young, built and gorgeous in order to make the most of the opportunity. But if I had to spend my existence struggling to survive: hiding in graveyards or constantly stalking humans for blood, smelling bad, I think I’d prefer to die. I like reading about the monster variety of vampires sometimes, but I wouldn’t want to be that! But if I could hang out with Devereux for a few centuries . . .

Q.) What would you do if you met a “real” vampire? Would you be a vamp groupie or would you dash for the nearest stake?

L.H.) I’m too much like my heroine to make either one of those choices. I’d want to understand him or her. Explore the species – analyze the differences. Write up case notes. Get the bloodsucker on my therapy couch! Unless, of course, the vampire was of the primitive variety, then I’d grab the stake!

Q.) Who makes the best hero–slayer or vamp? Why?

L.H.) I don’t really have a lot of knowledge about this. The hero of my series is a fascinating vamp. There is a slayer in the second book, but he’s a vampire, too! I will be adding in a human slayer character in one of the upcoming books, but this person will be part of the humorous aspect of the story – a less-than-successful vampire killer who can’t quite seem to get the job done. My main female character did take out a vamp in the first book, but she managed to do it by instinct, in spite of herself.

Q.) So, why is a vampire more in need of counseling than say a werewolf or a witch/wizard, or are they? Which do you think would be the best adjusted in real life—have the easiest time “passing” as human?

L.H.) I guess werewolves and witches/wizards are in just as much need of counseling than vampires, but that’s a different series!! LOL. It would probably be easier for a werewolf or witch/wizard to pass as human because that’s how they look. The werewolf only has to worry about his furry appearance occasionally. Being dead, vampires usually have features that stand out as unusual: pale skin, unique dentistry, non-human reactions, and eyeballs that tend to mesmerize. And, since most of them can only come out at night, their “passing” opportunities are limited. While I haven’t personally met any “real” vampires or werewolves yet (but I have lots of unusual clients in my therapy practice and a vampire or werewolf could show up any day!), I do know a few well-adjusted witches!

Q.) Are you a plotter or a pantser? Character-driven or plot driven? Ever try to be the opposite? Do you have a set method you use when starting a book?

L.H.) Things would be a lot easier for me if I plotted, but I’m a pantser. I never know what’s happening in a story until my fingers start to move on the keyboard. Sometimes I laugh out loud at what I see on the screen. (I know – I need to get a life.) I haven’t tried plotting yet, but I think often about writing an intricate synopsis. Yes. I think about it, but I don’t do it. Maybe tomorrow, grin. I’m definitely character-driven. It is possible I could write a plot-driven story, but I suspect I’d have a hard time. What I like to write – and to read – are stories about people. About their feelings, thoughts, choices, influences, and psychological patterns. “Inner action” as well as outer action. I just tend to lose interest in a story if I’m not given the opportunity to explore the interpersonal aspects. I don’t really have a set method. Mostly I nag myself until I sit in front of the computer and start writing. I seem to resist beginning, but after that, I can become obsessive. In fact, if I have a deadline and I’m excited about a project, I’m a typing fiend.

Q.) What is the smartest thing you’ve done so far as advancing either your writing or your writing career? What is something you wish you had done differently?

L.H.) The smartest thing I’ve done was to join Colorado Romance Writers, my local RWA chapter. I had no idea such an extensive romance network existed or that there were so many great resources available to me. Romance writers are the most generous and creative writers I know. As for doing something differently, I wish I would have understood more about the business of writing before I started subbing. I probably would have saved myself some pain and made less mistakes. But then, every writer has to pay her/his dues, I guess.

Q.) Can you describe three things in your writing area that tell us something about you?

L.H.) The first thing people notice about my writing area is that it’s messy. Papers, books, files, manuscripts, supplies, promo materials everywhere! Sticky notes abound. And, along with my writing materials, there are all the books, files, papers, etc. for my psychotherapy business. It looks like a tornado touched down. I think my space is a perfect symbol of my inner world: chaos!

Q.) Any new projects on the horizon? What would you like to try next?

L.H.) I’m working on the third Kismet book and thinking about ideas for an additional series about a psychic who lives here in Boulder, CO. I’m a paranormal fan, so I’ll probably focus predominantly on that genre, but I’d also like to explore some other areas of psychological fiction – maybe a thriller or mystery. I look forward to the release of The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance, which contains my story, “Blood Song.” I was going to submit a story in Kismet’s world for the anthology, but this other idea – involving sound healing and vampires – just wouldn’t leave me alone. I hope I get the opportunity to participate in more anthologies. It’s nice to write something short once in a while.
Thanks for interviewing me, Lori! It was fun.

Order Lynda’s books:
The Vampire Shrink
Dark Harvest

Eve Silver writes historical gothics and contemporary paranormals. Under the pseudonym Eve Kenin, she writes speculative romance. They are all excellent–you should check them out. Here she gives us a sample of her vampire novella, Kiss of the Vampire, that appeared in the anthology Nature of the Beast. Her newest release, Demon’s Hunger, is in stores NOW! And by leaving a comment or question below, you will be entered to win a free copy of Nature of the Beast autographed by Eve. All contests end on Dec. 11 at midnight.

Chapter One

London, November 3, 1839

Swirling fog and mizzling rain settled about Sarah Lowell like a shroud, clinging to her hair and skin and clothes, a faint damp sheen. Her boots rang on the wet cobbles, her steps sure and quick, her heart beating a rhythm in time to her pace as she ducked through the dim alleys and twisting lanes, past wretched houses and tenements, and rows of windows, patched and broken.

‘Twas a dangerous route, one that carried her through the edge of St. Giles, north of Seven Dials—a route made all the more distressing by the dying moments of darkness and shadow that fought to stave off the first creeping fingers of the dawn.

A part of her was attuned to the street before her, the gloomy, faintly sinister doorways, the courtyards that broke from the thoroughfare. And a part of her was ever aware of the road behind, dim and draped in fog and menace. Beneath her cloak, she closed her fist tight about her cudgel, a short, sturdy stick that saw her from point to point in the place she was forced to live. She never left her room in the lodging house in Coptic Street without it. With good reason.

This was not a place for a woman alone, but she had no choice but to be here. Her choice lay in protecting herself, and that she could do, though she had neither the means, nor the inclination, to own a pistol, and she had considered—and discarded—the possibility of defending herself with a knife.

So a cudgel would do, and she prayed she never found herself in a circumstance where she would be required to use it.

She suspected that surprise would be one thing in her favor should her prayers go unheeded. An attacker would have no expectation that she had strength in her small frame, but then, he would have no knowledge of the years she had spent by her father’s side, honing her muscles lifting and turning patients who could not do so for themselves. With her wide hazel eyes and her straight dark hair pulled back in a knot at her nape, she had a delicate appearance that was deceiving. Her father had always said she was sturdy in both body and spirit. She wished it had not taken his death and the desperate turn of her life to prove his assertions true.

A muffled sound to her left made her spin and peer down the alley next to the darkened chandler’s shop. Her heart gave a terrible lurch in her breast, and her fingers closed tight about the cudgel as she dragged it free of her cloak. With a moan, a man stumbled toward her then veered away to lean, panting, against the wall. Muttering and cursing with a drunken slur, he fumbled at the flap of his breeches.

Turning away, Sarah paused but an instant to steady her nerves then walked on, willing her racing pulse to settle. Perhaps it was the cold that made her shiver, but she thought it was unease that did the deed. More nights than not she felt as though unseen eyes watched her from the gloom, footsteps dogging her every move.

Now, in the early moments before dawn, it was no different. The feeling of being watched, being stalked, oozed across her skin like a slug. She never saw anyone, though she took care to look over her shoulder often. But when she looked, there was only the empty street and hollowed doorways behind her.

She quickened her pace and hurried on.

“Almost there now,” she murmured, with yet another glance about. She dared not relax her attention, not even for a second.

Her destination was Portugal Street and the old St. Clement Danes workhouse that now housed King’s College Hospital. There was talk of a new building but, for now, there were some hundred and twenty beds split into several overcrowded wards that offered care to the sick poor.

No one of wealth and means would step foot in King’s College. By choice, the rich would be seen to in their own homes, and because of it, they were more likely to survive. But the poor could not afford that luxury, and so they came to King’s College, and often enough they died.

There were those who would argue that they would die regardless, and that the hospital offered some hope, however small. Sarah was inclined to favor that belief because, somehow, they did manage to save some.

Still, she found it a horrific irony that King’s College was situated squarely between a crumbling graveyard and the abattoirs of Butcher’s Row, and she had her own well-guarded opinion that some doctors and surgeons here might be better suited to work in the slaughterhouses.

At least there, death was the expected outcome.

As the cheerless building loomed before her, she paused, glanced about once more, and a shiver chased along her spine. There, near the graveyard, she swore she saw a black-cloaked figure, painted in shades of pewter and coal and ash, clinging to the shadows. Watching.

Genuine fear touched her, cold, slimy fingers that reached deep into her soul.

Each night, she felt the unnerving suspicion that she was being followed, but proof of her supposition was, for the most part, absent. This was only the second time that a form had actually materialized from the mist. Or had it? She stared hard at the spot, but could not be certain she saw anything more than a man-shaped shadow.

Regardless, she intended to exercise every caution.

She had come early for her shift this morn, determined to vary her schedule. Tomorrow, she would vary her route, as well.

Reaching the safety of the hospital, she hurried into the building and made her way first to the nurse’s cloakroom, where she divested herself of her damp over-garment, then through the dim hallways to the women’s sick ward. There was a patient here she wished to check on, a woman who was so ill she had not been able to eat or drink or even void for two days. It was as though her body refused to carry out the normal functions of life. Sarah hoped she had taken a turn for the better, though she knew in her heart that would not be the case.

She paused in the hallway near the ward. The only light was the eeking dawn that filtered through grimy windows to steal across the floor in pale slashes. The sounds of suffering carried through the place, eerie moans and louder cries, a sob, the creak of a bed as someone shifted, then shifted again.

Moving forward, Sarah stepped through the doorway. She dared not breathe too deeply. No matter how much limewash was slapped on the plaster, no matter how many scrubbings with yellow soap the floors took, the smell—the metallic bite of blood, the raw-onion stink of old sweat, the harsh ammonia of urine—never quite melted away. These small battles might beat back the wretched stench for a time but, in truth, the war was long lost. The sick ward was forever infused with the vestiges of human misery.

Her gaze slid over the beds. Each one was full. Some even had two patients crowded into a space meant to hold only one.

In the corner was the bed she sought. Little light inched that far into the gloom, and Sarah could see only the outline of pale sheets. She took a step forward, then froze with a gasp.

There was someone sitting on a stool at the far side of the bed, a man, garbed all in black, the pale ghosting of the patient’s partially upraised arm a stark contrast against the dark background offered by his coat.

He held the woman’s wrist. Sarah could see that now.

She must have made a sound that alerted him to her presence, for he raised his head. She saw only the faint highlight of his features, so deep was the gloom that surrounded him.

“Miss Lowell.” His voice reached across the space that separated them, low, pleasant, and though he was wreathed in darkness and she could see almost nothing of his face, she knew the speaker.

Killian Thayne.

Her pulse jolted at the realization.

“Mr. Thayne,” she acknowledged.

Neither said anything more, and Sarah remained where she was, frozen, strangely disturbed by the sight of the patient’s white forearm contrasted against the cloth of Mr. Thayne’s black-clad form.

A moan sounded from behind her, drawing her from her frozen state with a jolt. “Water,” came a woman’s plea. “I am so thirsty. Please, water.”

Sarah glanced about, and saw the night watch nurse curled in a corner by the fire, sleeping. She could not help but feel pity for her, a widow with three small children who, after working the day as a charwoman came to sit the night through for a shilling and her supper, leaving her little ones with a neighbor, and paying her in turn.

With a sigh, Sarah turned away to tend to the patient herself.

When she was done, she looked back to where she had seen the surgeon, Mr. Thayne, sitting in the darkness. University-trained physicians were addressed as Dr. apprentice trained surgeons as Mr., and there was a distinct barrier between them, not only at King’s College, but at any hospital throughout the city.

He was gone, the patient asleep, her head lolled to one side, her arm hanging across the far edge of the bed.

Another patient called to her. Sarah hesitated, a feeling of wariness sluicing through her. Stepping forward, she almost went to the patient Mr. Thayne had been tending. Then she wondered what she was thinking. What could she do for her that he had not? The woman was sleeping now. Best to leave her undisturbed.

Again, the patient behind her called out, becoming more insistent. Sarah moved to her side and offered a sip of water, and then noting the time, she made her way to the surgical ward.

Only hours later did she learn that the patient in the corner had died in the silvered moments when night turned to day, discovered by the night nurse when she roused from her slumber.

Only then did Sarah hear the whispers that the woman’s wrist had been torn open, with nary a drop of blood spilled to mark the sheets.

Mr. Simon, the head surgeon, determined that she had injured herself on a sharp edge of the bedstead, and in truth, they found a smear of blood there that offered some proof of the supposition.

But throughout that day and well into the night, Sarah could not dispel the memory of Killian Thayne, swathed in darkness, his head bowed, and the woman’s arm so white against the black of his coat.
Copyright © 2008. Eve Silver. All Rights Reserved.

Buy Eve’s books:
Demon’s Kiss
Demon’s Hunger
Nature of the Beast
His Wicked Sins
Dark Prince
Driven (SHOMI)
Hidden (Shomi)

By Michele Hauf
Are you addicted to vampire stories? I have been for years. It started with Anne Rice, and now that the romance genre has literally exploded with vampires, I feel my addiction will be nicely fed for years to come.

I also have a seriously weird need to make lists. So, about a dozen years ago, I started a humble list of vampire fiction, and put it up online. I call it The Ultimate VampList.

It had about a hundred titles when it first started in the mid-90s. Well, it’s grown to monstrous size (over 4000 titles listed) and I now have it categorized by genre with the vampire realm, such as: romance/erotica, mystery, horror, action/adventure, sci/fi, non-fiction, young adult, manga, and a few others. I didn’t set out to create a complex bibliography with exacting details. What I wanted was the most thorough list I could create of vampire titles. A list a person could refer to if they are looking for something new in their favorite vampire genre. A sort of shopping list, if you will. Print it up and start checking off all those titles you’ve read, and start hunting for those you have not. (I’ve linked most titles to Amazon, not because I want to sell them, but simply so readers can start there for further research on any specific title.)

So you think you’ve read a lot of vampire books? Go check the list. I bet there’s a lot you’ve missed.

The fourth story in my Bewitch the Dark series, which pits vampires against witches, is out in January! Romantic Times Magazine rated it as a Top Pick.

It is Ivan Drake’s story. Remember at the end of Kiss Me Deadly, the heroine and hero sorta, kinda, accidentally promised their first born to the devil Himself? Well, THE DEVIL TO PAY is that child’s story. Quite a lot to be born into this world with–knowing your soul belongs to the devil.
But Ivan is up for the challenge, with a little help from a mysterious witch who guards all spells ever cast.

Michele

And here’s Michele Hauf’s Bloody Fruit Salad

Melon
Blackberries
Cherries
Banana
Starfruit
Blood Orange/Pomengranate

Above is a list of the fruits I like to use, but gather whatever sorts you like and what is in season. Cut, cube and ball the fruit into a bowl (all except the blood orange or pomengranate). Then, slice blood orange in half and squeeze the (bloody) juice over all. If the orange is not in season, pomegranate seeds will work too. Crush them (and avoid the bloody spatter; wicked good fun!) and then pour over all.

Order Michele’s books:
The Devil To Pay
Winter Kissed: A Kiss Of Frost\Ice Bound
His Forgotten Forever
Dark Rapture
Midnight Cravings