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The House on Blackstone Moor « 2011 Fantasy Reading Challenge « Challenge « Wakela's World

2011-07-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

The House on Blackstone Moor « 2011 Fantasy Reading Challenge « Challenge « Wakela's World

Laurie's Thoughts and Reviews: The House on Blackstone Moor by Carole Gill: Nurture Tour Stop

2011-07-05T02:25:00.000-07:00

Laurie's Thoughts and Reviews: The House on Blackstone Moor by Carole Gill: Nurture Tour Stop

Twitter #fridayflash Fiction or Vamplit Flashers

2011-07-02T16:37:00.000-07:00

Horror Blogger Alliance: July 2011 for the HBA MEMBERS

2011-07-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

Horror Blogger Alliance: July 2011 for the HBA MEMBERS

Vamplit and Blood Read are Being Revamped

2011-05-15T18:55:00.001-07:00

We are in the process of revamping vamplit.com, which includes Blood Read magazine. We'll be including new features, giveaways and bigger competitions. Look for further announcements at vamplit.com.

Birthright: Dhampir

2011-05-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

Birthright: Dhampir: "A dhampir is a being that is half-vampire and half-human, born from a vampire father and a human mother. In some beliefs, the vampire father..."

Collectors' Editions

2011-05-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

Finally finished with the proofreading and we have now released two more bestsellers to our paperback Collectors' Editions. The ups and downs of paperbacks have made this a slower process than I would have liked, but now we have it sorted out. Future releases shouldn't take as long and we are hoping to do one or two releases of two or three ebooks into paperback a year.

The End of Days or Is It

2011-03-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

I don't blog on a regular basis at the moment. I haven't read a whole novel yet this year and so it isn’t because I don’t love my blog, I just haven't read anything in my library to blog about. I’ve decorated it and made it home and it is one of the easiest places to be for me. I love books, physical and digital, I love to read, who doesn’t. I read constantly, but only unpublished novels, I have a read list that hit fifty plus at the end of last year. I had intended this year to set up an internship for editors with Vamplit Publishing, but the time to do the job properly means that I’ve had to put it on hold for this year, being able to line edit isn’t what I hope to train editor for. Anyone with a good dictionary and grammar guide can line edit, but I had hoped to work with people to build skills that would be a little more extensive. I didn’t want to train writers to edit either, in my opinion, writers should write and not edit other writers work. This is only my opinion, but I hold firm in that belief.

As per usual I have digressed from the matter at hand. Earlier this week I visited a friend’s blog and offered to tart it up a bit for him. I’ve know him a while, he is a very talented writer, and I know from personal experience he doesn’t like the technicalities of the internet over much. His talent is for writing not playing with the different options things like blogger offer him. I made the offer, I’ve done it before for others, and he accepted. I visited my blog to check if anything had changed and that is when everything went FUBB, I will explain in private the meaning of that acronym if necessary, but anyone who has tried to change the layout or theme of his or her blog lately will know what I mean. I visited the board and fiddled about in my account a little, but at this time, there is no actual cure. What does this mean? It means back to black for me now. Strangely, its kind of restful and I may keep it like this for a while, I may have to.

On the upside, I’ve set up a new home for our writing group list week with a new name because we’ve joined forces with another online writing group. The change took 42 hours, I know this because I stayed online for the whole time, and I’d like to thank Lee, Wendy and Carole for there support and conversation during this time, they took shifts to tell me to go to bed. It’s done now and we can make the trek to the new group home over the next week or so. If you’re a writer and would like to visit us feel free, we are not a critique group as such. Vamplit Writers, was and is a social network for writes and we have never really embraced the whole “I wrote this what do you all think,” attitude to writing networks. Vamplit Writers is all about making friends with other writers and sharing information. Now it is done I’m going back to my editing and reading list.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, BETTER LATE THAN NEVER?

2011-01-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

Well what can I say I started 2011 with the best intentions, I would write my blog, talk about my books and well everything would go to plan. Well, I can't say I'm surprised that my best intentions lasted until 12 noon on January 1 2011.

I have plenty of new books to blog about, 12 this year, less than in previous years, but then I usually buy my own books and give them to myself. I know that sounds sad, but everyone knows I love picking new books and they all find me difficult to buy for. This year my eldest daughter visited Liverpool medical school, as a sort of tester, before she applies next year, anyhow she decided she would buy family Christmas presents while she was away and yes she bought me books. I'm going to review one of them and yes I must say that I didn't like it before I read it. The book is i before e (except after c) old-school ways to remember stuff by JUDY PARKINSON. Hands up all those who can guess what turned me off before I even read it? Gold stars all around to anyone who said, where are the capital letter in the tittle? I hate it, the slipping standards, but I let it go and I have to say spent a happy hour reliving my youth and boring my family, yes I do that on a regular basis anyway.

So here goes I'm going to share the love and share a few with you too. How do you remember Admiral Nelson's injuries, think EAR, which equals Ear Arm - Right. Now you're either begging me to stop, my family begged too, or you want more. If you want more read on.

Are you, like me, prone to forget the names of the most important Greek philosophers in order of when they were born? Here goes: Socrate, Plato and Aristotle. The first way to remember is by the acronym SPA or think, Smart People of Athens.

Okay and another final one, and this one I think you'll like. How to remember the Cranial Bones: Occipital, Parietal, Frontal, Temporal, Ethmoid, Sphenoid, the aid to memory for this is Old People from Texas Eat Spiders.

To be fair to this book it is well researched and entertaining. I found it at times fascinating, informative, entertaining and a great book to share with the family or friends. As a Christmas present it was a winner, as I wouldn't buy it myself, but enjoyed it.

Happy Halloween, but isn't it an oximoron?

2010-10-31T09:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween to one and all, but you have to ask yourself is it a holiday? No surely not, I wonder if we will start sending Halloween cards next. In Britain the custom of celebrating Halloween is seen as fairly new, a transatlantic idea, that was in-itself a transported idea from countries such as Ireland. I wonder with Paganism now beginning to be accepted as a recognised religion in Great Britain whether it will gain more acceptance.

These are some of the websites and blogs I have found on the history of Halloween and paganism, but I would just like to say that the views on these sites are in no way a reflection on my own views.

The Jeremiahproject.com
Halloween Is here
The Telegraph News Blog
Religious Tolerance
God Web
www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/holydays/halloween
www.bbc.co.uk/news

The are hundreds and thousands of Halloween posts out there on the Internet, these are just a few I've seen today. I think Halloween has the potential to be all things to almost all people: Pagan or Christian. My daughter's school does not allow and mention of Halloween, but all the children celebrate it with parties and trick or treating anyway. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the children could learn more about the traditions and history, rather than just seeing it as a time to watch ghost stories and knock on neighbours doors demanding candy.

Happy Halloween

’68 Buick by Blaze McRob

2010-10-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

’68 Buick by Blaze McRob

I've just posted '68 Buick by Blaze McRob on Blood Read. I read with baited breath, the story is original and novel with a wicked twist at the end. Blaze McRob's penmanship is sublime as he weaves myriad strands within the time line of the short story to knit together the story of a man's life. The '68 Buick of the title represents a man's life through his disappointment and his pain.

I’m left to the solitude of my room again. More time to think, to be alone while the pain whips around me. One thing about physical pain, though: it takes away some of the mental stress. It hurts to think that all a man has after sixty years of existence is suffering. As hard as I have battled the cancer inside me, winning three times before, it’s back again; this time it’s worse than before. I’ve always taken a different approach to fighting it, never going for chemotherapy, because..well, because that would have meant I would have been weakened and unable to provide for my family. They always came first, even my wife. I never considered allowing them to go into my skull and removing the tumors. Better to use my radical anti-oxidant, mega doses of garlic, and running beyond limits that a healthy man is supposed to be able to achieve. Yes, I used the testing equiptment at the VA to gauge my progress, even enduring the rocket engine like sound of the MRI machine while it probed and tortured. I did all of this and thought I was winning. Damn it! I will win!

'68 Buick by Blaze McRob is consise in its style and on the surface is very straight forward, but deeper the author merges reality and fantasy to ask the reader testing questions of themselves. McRob, in one short story, challenges our perception of fear and how the mind dissimulates under the cruelest test of courage known to man, his own mortality.

SOME DAYS I WONDER WHY I GOT OUT OF BED

2010-10-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

Can any of my American friends explain to me why the tax system there seems so difficult to navigate? I've just finished a telephone conversation with the American Tax Office and am no closer a resolution than I was before. Just because she told me there would be a notary in every town doesn't mean there is. I've spent most of the year trying to sort this problem out. Result still trying to prove I'm not a U.S citizen and that I hail from a country with a valid tax treaty. I do. Now I must have made about ten telephone calls this afternoon and no one could understand why this I needed to apply for exemption as our business is not based in the U.S and no one outside the U.S has heard of an Apostille or The Head Convention, apart from the lady from my bank's head office who looked it up on Wikapadia.

Oh just to add insult to injury I received my notification two weeks ago, but the letter was dated August, can you guess what's coming next, yes, I now need to start again from the very beginning. Mark Coker from Smashwords has tried to sort this problem out for non U.S. residents, but he is still struggling. Oh well I have emails written to a number of people who may be able to help and if I do resolve this I'll let you know.

Fact, Pies and Blogging

2010-10-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not blogging much at the moment because editing it taking up most of my time, but I just thought I'd put a few thoughts up here before I get back to work. Now if you wondering why the title? I'm not sure, but I have been watching Boston Legal and I suppose James Spader is reason enough for me. I remember when Sex, Lies and Video Tape was released and I loved the quiet rage contained within the characters.

I try very hard not to push my own writing style on others, I have no interest in being a writer, but I do love to edit other people’s words. I feel real passion for helping authors make their novel the best it can be. I love to check any fact based part of a novel and can spend many happy hours researching tiny details, after-all they do say 'the Devil is in the detail' and for me this is true. If I read a published novel and find, a factual mistake the experience is now ruined for me and I'm just as bad over films. My husband runs for the remote control in terror, if Braveheart is on the TV because he can't stand the hours of ranting. This trait is as much a part of me as my blue eyes and I don't think I'll ever change now. I don't want to change and for editing the fact that I'm willing to check every detail makes me good a my job. I'm not going to apologise for that, but at least one author I know would happily drown me after my constant nitpicking, actually more than one. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a know it all, I check, or if it’s a mini-niggle I ask the writer how they know it’s factual. This leads me to a series of novels in my library, the Sookie Stackhouse novels, in which Sookie owns much of her eclectic knowledge to her love of reading. The bond between reader and writer is one of trust and once this is broken, nothing can repair it.

I've just finished editing The Dark Road by Marissa Farrar and enjoyed the process so much. I edited Marissa's first novel Alone last year and had a blast to be honest. Very few novels come to me in almost perfect condition, but Marissa's writing does. She is an absolute professional, but more import, she is a natural born storyteller. If you'd like to see what I mean then Marissa has put a teaser of The Dark Road on her blog. This novel deals with some big moral issues, but that isn't what is most apparent, it's the characters and their totally believability that draws the reader into the plot. Marissa is well travelled and this shows in her writing. Her choice of exotic location to stage her horror is a perfect backdrop to her plot as she weaves a story that will leave you thinking about bigger things such as fate and moral responsibility. I can't help waxing lyrical because while working I found myself drawn into the novel as a reader, rather than an editor. That is a rare occurrence for me. I have more knowledge now of backpacking in Asia and what hostels are like.

I can almost hear you asking; what-the-heck is this post about? Mainly it’s about how much a novel can contribute to the wider knowledge of a subject and the authors role in educating the reader. Not in a preachy, I’m an expert type of way, but as part of an experience in which you live through the characters and visit their world.

Summer Hell or Working From Home in the Holidays

2010-08-29T09:56:00.000-07:00

Okay what do you do when your internet has an intermitent fault, your telivision signal has an itermitent fault, your children are on school holidays and you work from home. Forget the nervous breakdown, I had that earlier this month. I made a choice and the the choice I made was to not open my email for a week. Antisocial behavior has never been my forte, but needs must when the Devil vomits in your shoes. Today's belated blog entry is a general apology to all those people I've ignored for over a week. I'm now answering my emails and will be in touch over the next couple of days.

My next apology goes to those who have submitted to Blood Read, you will apear in the September issue. To the writers at Vamplit Writers' Group, I haven't died, just been out of the loop for August, but I'm back now and looking forward to catching up.

I've just finished editing another novel, The Beast of St John's Cove by Wentworth M. Johnson, and I am about to start editing Fovever, as well as releasing Emun of Mor by Mathew Bridle and finishing the final proofread of Vampyre Quest. Paperback production of our titles, it's a long story about which I won't bore you with details, ground to a spectacular halt earlier this month, but we are now back up and running.

So at the end of the Summer Hell, I'm sorry, contrite and really looking forward to working without distraction this autumn.

Blood Read Online Magazine

2010-08-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

We have a new feature this month 50 Words of Fun with Zombies visit and read or join the group and contribute at Vamplit Writers' Group. This month the 50 words Fun is with Demons.

Love Stories That Time Forgot

2010-07-31T15:42:00.000-07:00

I’ve been following a blog, Demon Vampire Horror, by Carole Gill, a writer I know and respect. I recently read a post, a comparative piece on Jane Eyre and The Twilight Saga that got me thinking. In the blog, the writer makes the comment, ‘Both [Jane Eyre and Twilight] are great romances and romance is romance,’ and like many others who commented on this post, this phrase struck me and it is the basis of this book review. This month’s ‘Frightening Fiction Review’ is a free choice and another review on another blog, Bloodleggers written by W.J. Howard and R.J. Robyn, entitled A Book we Have to Read More Than Once, inspired me to cross between the two and write this review.

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas

For the purposes of this review, I am only looking at the love story within the novel, but any student of literature will tell you this story is so much more. ‘The Black Tulip’ is a tale of power, passion and the evil perpetrated by men. The story begins with the lynching of two brothers, Cornelius and John de Witt, by the angry mob. Alexander Dumas gives the reader no option but to read how barbaric human nature can be. One girl, the jailer’s daughter Rosa, uses her wit and natural understanding of human nature to try and save the brothers from the mob.

Cornelius Van Baerle, the godson of Cornelius de Wit and friend of his brother, John, is sent into the same prison. Cornelius is wrongly accused of treason and sentenced to death. This is the beginning of one of the most beautiful love stories ever written. I’ve never read this novel, telling the story of the relationship between Cornelius Van Baerle and Rosa the jailer’s daughter, without crying unashamedly at the purest of loves and the brilliance of the writing that can invoke such feeling.

When Cornelius is led away to be executed, he leaves Rosa three tulip bulbs and his last will and testament. In this she is to raise the bulbs and when they bloom she should present them, naming the variety Rosa Baerlensis and gain the prize as her dowry. Cornelius’s sentence is commuted by William of Orange to a life term in a prison for political prisoners and so the couple are separated. I am trying to write this review without giving too much of the plot away, but if you were looking for an inspirational couple to rival Romeo and Juliet or Cathy, her Heathcliffe or Jane and her beloved master Mr Rochester, then Rosa and Cornelius would be up there with the greats.

Rosa, although she is unable to read or write, manages to get her father the position as head jailer in the prison. Rosa is both clever and honest, but she is also faithful and has a deep and abiding love for Cornelius. She sees in him a purity and piety that is only marred by his obsession with growing a black tulip. Theirs is a strange courtship for any romance novel as it is conducted through the bars of Cornelius’s prison cell, but the love that blossoms between the couple, like the black tulip, grows, flowers and blooms, against all the odds.

The Black Tulip is a novel I read in my youth. In fact, until today I hadn’t read this novel for over twenty years and I regret this. Cornelius and Rosa’s story, like that of Romeo and Juliet, deserves a regular airing and to be discovered anew by every generation of readers and writers looking for inspiration. I’m just going to leave you with a short quote from the novel, because I think this speaks more eloquently than I ever could on the subject of love and romance.

“Ah! Dear, dear sweetheart,” cried Cornelius, “do you not see how my hand shakes and how pale I am? Can you not hear how my heart beats? Well, it is not because my black tulip smiles at me and calls me; no, it is because you smile at me, it is because you are near me; it is because – I do not know whether this is so or not – it is because it seems to me that your hands, though they avoid mine, are nevertheless inclined to stretch forth towards them; it is because I feel the warmth of your fair cheeks behind the cold grating. Rosa, my love, destroy the black tulip, destroy the hope of this flower, put out the light of this charming dream which I have grown so accustomed to. Be it so: no more beautiful flowers with their elegant grace and their divine caprices! – deprive me of all that, flower jealous of other flowers, deprive me of all that, but do not prevent me from hearing and seeing you, and from listening to your footstep on the dull staircase; do not deprive me of the light of your eyes in this gloomy corridor, or of the assurance of your love which unceasingly soothes my heart. Love me, Rosa, for I know well that I love you alone.”

Alexander Dumas

House Keeping Post

2010-07-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

Just to let everyone know I'm struggling to stay online for any reasonable period of time. I will be back, the question is will I be able to stay.

Team Jacob vs Team Carlisle

2010-07-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

So another post about The Twilight Saga in celluloid. Today was the day I took both my daughters to see Eclipse and it didn't disappoint. There were no arguments, apart from the usual popcorn related ones, no moaning about who picked the film and I didn't drop off halfway through.

The age difference between myself and my youngest is thirty-seven years and I can honestly say that her sophisticated taste in film and reading material is a constant relief to me. However, the drawback to this is finding suitable subject matter that doesn't have any adult content. The Twilight Saga is perfect for her, if a little short on horror. My teen daughter is another matter, she runs at about a decade behind her sister in her film taste. She is the girl who can sing, albeit out of tune, all the songs from Mulan and Beauty and the Beast. The fact that we can find something to watch together is a miracle.

As we sat together my girls Team Jacob and me Team Carlisle I wondered, apart from the obvious, what it was the made this particular film transcend age, but not gender. I sat in a cinema filled with females. I did see one or two teen or pre teen boys, but you know they hadn't been given a choice in going. So like every other girl/woman in the theatre I gave myself over to chick-flick heaven and forgot about vampires and horror. We watched in harmony as two hotties vied for the affection of Bella. The bottom line, for me, Dr Cullen just looked hot and so there was something for everyone.

In fairness to the film I will add that it was very well put together, the plot, where it differed from the novel hangs together, but what is missing is the feeling that Bella is somehow special. I think it would have, in the time frame, been difficult to put together the dynamic between Bella, Edward and Jacob. The scenery is stunning, the acting is good from the whole cast and the movie is pacy, but it didn't have the sense of urgency of the first two movies.

Artwork A Personal Story of Jekyll and Hyde

2010-07-04T15:24:00.000-07:00

When I decided to start publishing I knew that I would have to produce book covers. To be honest I wasn't worried, as I'd studied art in college. Art was my first love, but like all first love it is problematic, I will never forget my love. However, I know it wouldn't have made me happy.

What I didn't count on was the fact that painting, even on the computer, still makes me certifiably nuts. I am by nature a reasonable person, but when I paint, and I don't because I love my family, I become a demented psycho bitch.

In my library I have many books on painting and painters and I have encouraged not only my children, but all the children who have passed through my dining room to put on aprons and experiment with finger paints, poster paints, watercolours and finally oil paints. I have taught more children how to draw faces than I can remember and still today I tell my daughters that art is to be enjoyed, it tells us about ourselves, our culture and helps us develop other skills for life.To the outside world I seem like a reasonable person, when it comes to art, mumsy even. Ha...not even close.

Vamplit Publishing now has other artists producing beautiful artwork: Sue Midlock, Justin Francis and the author Jevron Mc Crory who produced the vibrant cover for Swan Song himself. Each of us has our own style and way of working. We each bring something different to the covers we produce and I hope make each cover distinctive and in the spirit of the novel. I apparently still bring madness to the mix. This cover was only possible thanks to the amazing photography of Julie Cote, who with almost no instructions took exactly the picture I wanted. Thank you Julie without you the madness would have lasted much longer.

The cover above is for Dear Diary by Raven Usher which is being released as an ebook this month and as paperback later this year. The story gripped me from the beginning and I remember describing it to colleagues as the love child of Bridget Jones and Hannibal Lecter. Working on the cover turned me from smiling happy editor into the neurotic idiot who spent two hours working on one section of the painting that you can't actually see at book size.

Now for the point that links this post to the title of my blog. If you're looking for a really interesting book on art then you should read E.H. Gombrich's Art and Illusion: A study in the psychology of pictorial representation, published by Phaidon. I have had a copy of this book in my library since 1992, but it was first published in 1960. I have used it in both the study of art history and literature. Professor Gombrich's style of writing is clear and concise and the subject matter fascinating. He explains, with scientific methodology, the complex reality of seeing the world and seeing art. This book helps to explain the relationship between different types of art and those who see it, from Egyptian pictorial painting, which is an expression of a culturally accepted image, to modern abstract art and the vulgarization of art through over exposure in the modern world.

I know what E.H. Gombrich would describe my work as and it isn't art, but each time I read Art and Illusion I am inspired anew and overwhelmed by the complexity of not only creating, but seeing art. We can't all be great artists, but we can all look at art and wonder at the illusion that creates the image. We can be amazed. Gombrich shows a simple trick with a circle and by adding another circle, two triangles at the top and an S shape at the bottom you have a credible image of a sitting cat from behind. This image isn't so much created on paper, but inside our brain, it's a trick, an illusion. Without thinking about it I've been doing a similar trick to amuse the children for years. You start with a circle inside you put a stick man, legs apart you call the circle a bubble car and the stick man the driver. You add two half circles to the top and the draw two open doors and the man in the bubble car is now the face of a dog. I may have missed a step or two but you get the idea. The brain takes simple shapes and wants to make sense of them, but in a way that is informed by predetermined cultural images.

If this was a review I would give E.H. Gombrich's Art and Illusion a full five stars, it isn't an easy read, but it is thought provoking and informative.

My Next Frightening Fiction Review

2010-07-02T19:34:00.000-07:00

Next week I will be posting my July review for The Frightening Fiction Review Blog Hop. Entries in the June/July hop are free choice, you can pick any book you like to review. I reviewed Poppy Z. Brite's novel Drawing Blood for the June blog hop and have decided to go for something completely different this time. My next choice is a novel by Suzy McKee Charnas, The Vampire Tapestry. Written in the 1980's this novel always appears in my top ten vampire novel lists. Nothing I have read since has changed my mind about this book,described by Stephen King as 'Scary, entertaining, suspenseful...Unputdownable'.

If you have a copy on your bookshelves why not pull it out this weekend and read it with me. If you've never read it before try and get a copy from your library, bookstore or online. The Vampire Tapestry will give you a new perspective on the literary vampire.

The Frightening Fiction Review Blog Hop

Join us on Blood Reads and here for a blog hop that brings together reviews on the books we LOVE. You can review a book you’ve recently read or an old favorite on your own blog. Read reviews on the hop and find great books to read.

Bloodleggers #1: Making the Bones

2010-06-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

Bloodleggers #1: Making the Bones

I don't usually review any writing by authors known personally to me, I always like to be impartial and sometimes, with the best will in the world, that is difficult. However, I've just read the first installment of the serialized novel Bloodleggers by W.J. Howard and R.J. Robyn and because of its cross genre appeal I wanted to write a small piece about it rather than a review.

When Wendy first told me the idea for Bloodleggers I was intriged. I hadn't read any hardboiled vampire novels. I have, however, read my fair share of hardboiled detective novels in my time and watched numerous films with stars such as Humprey Bogart and George Raft so idea of uniting of these two genres had me almost salivating.

I've just read the first installment and I wasn't dissappointed. I've read vampire novels where the central metaphor was for gang violence or criminal organisation, but in Bloodleggers the vampire is transported whole and it's looking like it likes its new home. The writing is crisp and suits the genre perfectly, as the darkness eminates from both the language and the subject matter equally. This isn't a world where a sparkly vampire could survive, this is the world of bloodleggers, hit men and crime bosses who control both the Mayor and city officals.

I wish W.J Howard and R.J. Robyn every success with this joint writing venture, if the first installment is anything to go by readers will become addicted to their crime infested world, where a blood feud really is a feud over blood.

Announcing Bloodleggers on Blood Read

2010-06-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

Announcing Bloodleggers, a new serial vampire novel releasing the last Wednesdays of the month on Blood Reads Online Magazine.

What is this story about?

FBI Agent William Knox is sent to Denver to investigate a rash of missing persons. There he meets indentured vampire, Regina Todd, working for a bloodlegger to pay off her father's gambling debts. They soon discover that thirty years prior, vampire elders imposed a prohibition on pure human blood to control the vampire population and avoid exposure to evolving crime scene investigation techniques. As a result, William and Regina must put their lives on the line to unravel a dark maze of crime syndicates and secret blood running that threatens both vampire and humankind.

Authors W. J. Howard and R. J. Robyn are long time friends and now co-writers of Bloodleggers. Why did they decide to embark on this joint writing venture? They answer this question today in their blog. Drop by and read more. In addition, we will feature interviews with the authors on June 16th.

Return to read the first installment of Bloodleggers on June 30th.

So Many Emails So Little Time

2010-06-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

This little post is for anyone waiting for a reply to their email. I'm working on it. I realised today that the Vamplit emails have well over 3,000 emails in, even though I did a massive clear out last month. To anyone who has submitted a manuscript, sorry I'm working my way through submissions at the moment. Last Monday I wrote a post about how I hate Mondays, as I write rejection emails on a Monday, but didn't post it as it sounded incredibly whiny.

This is not a whiny post it's a I'm sorry post to all those waiting for a reply.

Release by Nicole Hadaway

2010-06-26T06:44:00.000-07:00

From eBook to Paperback: A Tale of Love, Faith and Devotion by Publisher and Author

Vamplit Publishing is now officially a paperback publisher, as well as an epublisher, with the forthcoming release of our first novel into print. We have our proof copy, the next copy will go to the British Library for their archive and the rest will be history.

All the ups and downs of the last few months, as we've worked to find an acceptable way to take Vamplit Publishing into print, are over. This for us is a big event, we never intended to go into print, but the demand for paperback copies of our titles has been so great that it changed how we saw our future in publishing.

We are still 100% behind our vision of the eBook reading revolution, but we have changed it slightly with a small, but significnat step into conventional publishing.

What we would like to do is thank Nicole for her patience, understanding and for her faith that we would get the job done. Without Nicole and the other authors none of this would be possible, it is their talent that drives Vamplit Publishing, it is their love and devotion to the craft of writing that is the foundation of everything we believe in as a company.

This is the first time anyone, apart from myself and the printer, has seen Release from the back.
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Finally, this is starting to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech but I have to say it, to the many book reviewers out there that have taken the time and trouble to read our novels and review them, thank you. I'd especially like to thank Andy Boylan at Taliesin Meets the Vampire and Shellie at Layers of Thought who were the first of many to agree to review Vamplit Publishing titles.

Release by Nicole Hadaway is available as an ebook in all formats from Barnes & Noble, Ebookundead, Kobo, Apple and will be available soon from Sony and Amazon. If you you have a Kindle reader and would like to read Release now, visit ebookundead.com and use the link to Smashwords where it can be downloaded in all popular formats priced $4.99.

Paperback Release date to be announced.

Subtext and Subversion

2010-06-25T20:16:00.000-07:00

The last hundred years of human history have engendered swift economic and social changes within society. In the maelstrom of change that characterised the late Victorian age, Bram Stoker wrote his celebrated popular novel Dracula (1897). Literature is a product of our culture, and the same culture that produces the novel also consumes it. Although only seventy eight years separate Count Dracula from Lestat, Anne Rice’s vampire lives in a world where human knowledge and invention are spiralling out of control. We could argue that in The Vampire Chronicles themselves, the vampire is a metaphor for contemporary problems of adaptability and survival.

‘In modern times, of course, as the complexity of human society and the rate of technological advance constantly increased, the vampire must adapt faster and more radically than ever before’.¹
^.

The different modes of travel available, aeroplanes, cars and trains, reflect the speed at which humanity now exists, but, for the vampire, transport is a metaphor for anonymity. Vampire survival, like human survival, depends on adaptability. However, in Bram Stoker’s Dracula the humans, as a collective and collecting whole, serve as a metaphor for adaptation and technological advance. The vampire’s lifestyle mirrors that of the rich and famous, which bombard us from the pages of glossy magazines. Ken Gelder describes the new vampire as:

‘Global exotic’ - where the vampire functions as a kind of internationalised, cosmopolitan tourist, mobile (and leisured) enough to make the world ‘my own’ — and channelling that world through the kind of panoramic perception’²
^.

Armand, one of the most conservative vampires, owns an island retreat which he shares with a mortal male partner. Travel for the vampire had become as common place as for humans. Many vampire fictions are concerned with travel and more importantly journeys. Jewel Gomez’s vampire Gilda, starts her journey as a hunted runaway slave and at the completion of the novel Gilda is once again a slave, hunted by the same wealthy powerful humans; these humans now want the use the vampire’s blood. To survive, as in previous times, slave labour was necessary to them for economic survival. In Jewel Gomez’s The Gilda Stories, vampires live in a symbiotic relationship with humanity, it's mortality which engenders predation of the other, the vampire.
.

We could also describe the polymorphic metaphor in vampire novels as a telescoped or complex metaphor and is described best in a phrase devised by I. A. Richards, tenor and vehicle.

The vampire is the vehicle within the novel and the tenor is its unconscious meaning. It is the tenor of the metaphor which is fluid and it is the fluidity of the tenor that we are describing as polymorphic. That is to say, the metaphor of the vampire is static and singular, it is the meaning that is plural. It is the adaptability of the vampire as a metaphor for everything, from dieting to homophobia and feminism to the death of small town middle America, that requires us to think about why it works. Because it does work, in each new incarnation the vampire both gives us something new and remains unchanged.

Anne Rice’s successful novels The Vampire Chronicles introduce a different type of vampire from Dracula.

Jules Zanger has argued that the vampire Lestat is too fully humanized to act as a metaphor and that now the ‘new’ vampire has shifted towards metonymy rather than metaphor.³

The reason why Anne Rice’s vampire appears to be more human than Bram Stoker’s creation could be due to the fact that when she wrote the novel Interview with the Vampire (1975) Anne Rice had not read Dracula. Anne Rice had only encountered the cinematic version of the vampire Dracula. The cultural differences between the society in which the Dracula of the novel was produced and the Dracula of the cinema had already begun to erode the image of the vampire as alien other. The critical study of the literary vampire is a cultural study, because the language used, as well as the imagery revealed in the text of the novel, tells us about the society it was created within and that which consumes it.

Although, Anne Rice’s vampires may have blurred the edges between human and other, she could not eradicate the main difference between vampire and human, death. The character of the vampire in modern fiction is the monster who is neither alive or dead in human terms. This point is clarified in The Tale of the Body Thief (1985). In this novel, Lestat is conned out of his vampiric body. Once Lestat is fully human again, he is changed. The vampire experiences again, after three hundred years, the fear of death.

As you read vampire fictions try and identify the tenor of the metaphor for yourself. Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Steven King’s contemporary American vampire novel Salem’s Lot share a common metaphor, the fear of outside corruption from the old world into the new world. Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles and Poppy Z Brite’s Lost Souls are the examples of post-structuralist critical theories of absence and quest.

Recpetion theory is one way to understand why the literary vampire is still so popular. The theory simply explained says that we, society, do not read in a vacuum. Each person who reads a text reads something different, because we, as readers, bring a new element to each novel we read.

Reception theory helps to explains the vampire as a metaphor for absence and quest. We, as readers, superempose our own absences and our own quests into the vacant spaces within the text. In conclusion, an argument is proposed that reception theory is most applicable in understanding why the vampire as a metaphor is polymorphic. Much academic criticism has been written in recent years on the subject of the popular literary vampire. Much of the stigma attached to serious study of such a culturally marginalised subject has now been rejected. According to Franco Morreti:
.

‘Mass literature is not the undifferentiated and meaningless expanse most critics still say it is. It holds many surprises, and not just because of the meanings within it, but also because of the light it sheds on works of a different kind’⁴

The literary vampire is a playground for theorists, mainly because it is a culturally metaphoric character. When reading a new vampire novel, an awareness of the complexity of what we are reading isn't necessary, because we are all products of the same culture that has produced the vampire. We are all unconsciously aware of the subtext and subversions that abound in the vampire novel.

****

1Carter, Margaret, L. “The Vampire an Alien in Contemporary Fiction”. Blood Read, The VAMPIRE as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1997. United states of America. (p.33).

2Gelder, Ken. Reading the Vampire. Routledge London and New York, 1994. London. (p.123).

3Zanger, Jules. “Metaphor into Metonymy: The Vampire Next Door”.

Gordon, Joan & Hollinger, Veronica. (Editor). Blood Read the VAMPIRE as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture. University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, 1997. United States of America

4Moretti, Franco. Signs Taken for Wonders Essays in the Sociology of literary Forms. Verso, 1988. Great Britain. (p,15).

Daybreakers

2010-06-18T10:57:00.000-07:00

I don't usually write about films, but this one is worth watching and writing about. What I really enjoyed was the vampire as metaphor for corruption in a world held hostage by big corporations. It just gets better and better for the vampire doesn't it; he's been a metaphor for infection, unnatural sexuality, old world corruption and a host of other negative themes to numerous and diverse to mention.

Basically the plot is very simple, vampirism has spread like a plague, but instead of the world falling straight into anarchy the corporate world has taken over. Vampires continue their 'lives' as if they were still human. The setting and costume indicates a futuristic 1940's influenced look which adds a film noir feel to the cinematography. Wet roads and angled lighting abound the only thing missing is the classic femme fatale who leads the hero astray. So if you're like me and are always looking for well made intelligent vampire film this one will certainly make you happy.

Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite A Review

2010-06-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

Having signed up to The Frightening Fiction Review Blog Hop, I decided that I probably should write a review. As Ms Brite announced her retirement from writing and our topic of the month on Vamplit Writers’ Group is poltergeists, I am reviewing Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite, first published in 1993by Delacorte in the USA and by Penguin in 1994. Drawing Blood and Lost Souls, also set in Missing Mile, were both nominated for the Lambda Litterary Award. What follows is my own personal opinion of a novel that has graced my bookshelves since 1998 when it was recommended to me by Professor Peter Kitson, my dissertation tutor. I haven’t read this novel since 2001 and I’m so glad I picked it off the bookshelf to review as my memory didn’t do Drawing Blood justice.

***

Drawing Blood begins in the past, 1972 to be precise, with a family on a journey following the signs to a new future. Bobby McGee, his wife Rosena and two sons Didi and Trevor are travelling across country from Texas via New Orleans to New York. Bobby is a cartoonist, an artist and creator of Birdland, a fictional place filled with junkies and lowlifes. He was once successful and happy, but now he has lost his art. He cannot draw, his work and his life are disintegrating before his eyes and so is the car they are travelling in. Their journey comes to a full stop in Missing Mile, North Carolina where Rosena is happy to stay. This is her homeland, her journey has come full circle and she is comforted by the familiar, the old life and she now takes Bobby’s place in the family. She becomes the breadwinner, the provider for them all and her husband is relegated to the position of househusband, all the while tormented by the loss of his talent. Bobby, Rosena and Didi’s journey ends one night when Bobby violently slaughters his wife and baby son and then hangs himself, leaving the silent five year old Trevor alone.

***

Twenty years into the future and two young men begin their own journeys. Both are damaged, both are following signs that will lead them to Missing Mile and the haunted farmhouse made uninhabitable by the presence of Bobby McGee. Trevor and Zach’s lives collide in a powerful resolution to the past. Birdland draws Trevor into its twisted world and as Bobby makes his presence known in the house, the past and the present implode as these lost souls try to lay their respective pasts to rest.

This novel still holds me in its thrall today, as the story unfolds bringing each new piece of the puzzle into play. The descriptive passages are beautifully written in an elegant style, bringing with them pictures as vivid as any of Bobby’s or Trevor’s drawings. The truth in the novel, I believe, is signs. Each of the main protagonists faces are a sign to where they’ve come from. Eddy is very clearly of Asian decent, but, as an exotic dancer she calls herself Miss Lee and very few people look beneath the façade to identify her true Korean heritage. Zach, or to give him his full name Zachary Bosch, is the combination of two people, he has his mother’s Cajun features and mental hospital pallor and his father’s vivid green eyes, jade green eyes. His father claims to be a direct descendant of Hieronymus Bosch, a medieval painter of devotional works. Bosch’s painting often depicted scenes from Hell and unlike many artists he was immensely successful in his own lifetime. Carl Gustav Jung described Hieronymus Bosch as ‘The master of the monstrous... the discoverer of the unconscious.’ In this novel, Zachary Bosch, the abused child of a father who blames him for his own lack of success and a mother who was too lazy to have him aborted is the character in the novel who masters the monstrous and discovers the unconscious desire in Trevor to break free from his father’s tainted legacy.

***

Drawing Blood is a novel about love and its destructive and constructive power, what makes us who we are and why our choices are not always our own, but should be. Ms Brite’s novel looks at the breakdown of the 1950’s nuclear family and the effect it has on future generations. What she sees isn’t always pretty, but it does make very clear that our and future generations have an opportunity to restructure family into a more fluid institution. The heroes in this novel, if they can be described as such, Trevor McGee and Zachary Bosch have, by falling in love with each other, effectively stopped the spiral of inherited madness and abuse. Their relationship will never be stained by unwanted children left to grow in an unwilling womb, but instead, and sadly, all the potential for the future will die with them. They are in themselves everything they can and will ever be. The saddest underlying message in this novel is that, although Trevor manages to step out of his past and not kill Zach, Zach’s very real past of unprotected and non-discriminating sexual excess will probably kill them both.

***

Blood is at the very core of this novel. The destructive force of Birdland, Bobby’s own creation, feeds on the blood of the artist like a parasite, like a vampire. Inside Birdland, Sammy demands Trevor’s blood as payment to find Bobby, but once he injects it he dies. Trevor’s blood kills, it is so badly tainted that not even Sammy can take it and survive. Blood in this novel is a metaphor for life and death, for hopeless dreams and lost youth. In blood the ties of family and love are created, but also destroyed and subverted into evil. Blood harbours secrets unseen by the onlooker, blood is everywhere inside this novel, it flows from page to page and pulsates from each new beginning to its unseen end.

***

If you read Poppy Z. Brite’s Drawing Blood, you will not regret it, but you will, like myself, be sad. Ms Brite’s unique talent has been silenced, but not by death. Hers was a gift that burned so bright it still shines as a beacon to new writers of horror fiction who step outside of their genre and produce novels of such complex ideas and emotions that each new generation that discovers them will find something new and vital within the beautifully crafted fiction.

***

This blog post has been added to the Frightening Fiction Review, a blog hop hosted by Blood Reads eZine, for readers and writers who love the night. Join a new hop each month and share reviews of our favorite dark fiction.

Charade

2010-06-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

I'm watching Charade with my youngest daughter at the moment and its just struck me that if any writer wanted to see snappy dialogue in action this film would be perfect.

This opening scene is a perfect example of show rather than tell. The original screenplay The Unsuspecting Wife was written by Peter Stone and Marc Behm. From the little bit of information I've found the screenplay was written with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in mind but wasn't bought be any studio. Peter Stone then turned the screenplay into a novel and renamed it Charade. Stanley Donen saw it in a magazine and bought it to make into a film.

Charade is a stylish mystery, romantic comedy with dream cast of actors. The plot is fantastically simple Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) is widowed suddenly. Her husband is murdered and it turns out that he isn't what or who he seems. Mr Lampert was a thief and back in WWII he'd double crossed his partners and run off with the $250,000 of Uncle Sam's money. Regina is now left widowed and has the US government and her husband's ex-partners in crime after her convinced she knows where the money is hidden.

The Cast
Cary Grant ... Peter Joshua
Audrey Hepburn ... Regina Lampert
Walter Matthau ... Hamilton Bartholemew
James Coburn ... Tex Panthollow
George Kennedy ... Herman Scobie
Dominique Minot ... Sylvie Gaudet
Ned Glass ... Leopold W. Gideon
Jacques Marin ... Insp. Edouard Grandpierre
Paul Bonifas ... Mr. Felix - Stamp Dealer
Thomas Chelimsky... Jean-Louis Gaudet

So if you've just finished writing your novel and you've had it rejected or reviewed and the comments include stilted dialogue watch Charade. The acting is flawless, the direction effortless and the pace is spot on, but better yet the writer of this screenplay was an artist. The dialogue is quick and witty and in the modern novel dialogue plays such an important part that you can't afford to neglect it.

Subtext and Subversion

2010-05-28T16:50:00.000-07:00

****

2Gelder, Ken. Reading the Vampire. Routledge London and New York, 1994. London. (p.123).

3Zanger, Jules. “Metaphor into Metonymy: The Vampire Next Door”.

Gordon, Joan & Hollinger, Veronica. (Editor). Blood Read the VAMPIRE as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture. University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, 1997. United States of America

4Moretti, Franco. Signs Taken for Wonders Essays in the Sociology of literary Forms. Verso, 1988. Great Britain. (p,15).

Loving the Undead

2010-05-22T04:22:00.000-07:00

How, in the realms of the imagination, could necrophilia ever be sexy? Yet our continuing love affair with the vampire belies a natural and deep seated revulsion of sex with the dead. In 1898 Bram Stoker published his novel Dracula and the vampire in a modern literary sense is launched into popular culture. Dracula was not the first literary vampire, but he has become synonymous with the genre in the popular consciousness. Since the late 1970’s and Anne Rice’s reinvention of the vampire into a heroic character, vampire romances have sold in their millions. When Joss Whedon wrote the script for the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer film he portrayed the vampire, played by Rutger Hauer, as an ageing ineffectual, lecherous caricature of Bela Lugosi. Buffy, the new Fay Wray, would not have loved or lusted after her vampire, but when her character is brought back to life on the small screen things have changed. Buffy is less of an air head and the vampires have a new spinted group, the vampire hottie.

The vampire is recreated into an angelic soulful Angel, transformed by a gypsy curse from the evil Angelis. Sex with the vampire is still taboo, still something inherently bad and degrading. Angel is transformed by sex from new ‘good’ vampire back into bad old world vampire. Sex with the vampire ends the new order and the only thing that restores it is love. Very moral and worthy for the teatime, teenage audience. As this audience grows up, Buffy comes of age and, although the darker side of sexuality within her is always tempered with almost Catholic guilt, she hopes to find a human love. Enter Riley, the all american, action hero, college guy and still he is flawed. He is a steriod-raged masochist, who is jealous of Buffy and threatened by her strength. Once again Buffy is left alone, feeling she is to blame for Riley’s shortcomings. Human men, like vampires, struggle to deal with a girl who is stronger than they are. Buffy then enters a relationship with Spike and this is where necrophilia hits a brick wall, because technically Buffy is also dead and the guilt she feels becomes a metaphor for what happens when ‘nice girls’ step off society’s notion of right. Buffy, now the motherless waif, is brought back to life by Willow using black magic. The choice of Willow, another girl who is deviating from the paternal ideal of womanhood, as Buffy’s savior brings Mr Giles’s wrath as she is meddling with forces more powerful and corrupting than she can understand. When Buffy finally gives into her baser instincts, she literally brings the house down and then spends her time filled with self-revulsion. Willow stands outside the boundaries of patriarchal law, she worships not “God”, but the “Goddess” and has rejected male sexuality. Yet again ,as with Angel, Spike is redeemed by love and his soul is saved by his devotion to Buffy. Buffy is saved both physically and morally by Spike’s, the vampire’s, death.

Bram Stoker’s character Dracula is a metaphor for sexuality outside the legal and moral boundaries of marriage. Since the publication of Dracula this sexual metaphor has been deeply ingrained in the character of the vampire. Reading Stoker’s novel, the character of Lucy, seduced by Dracula, can’t be saved, her nature preordains her fate. However, Mina, the wife, the stable down-to-earth helpmate, is saved by the men who defend her, who decide she is worthy as a woman. Mina isn’t a woman, she is the cause these modern day knights fight for; she must be cleansed for she is the carrier of the future. Victorian sexual morals coloured Stoker’s writing, just as 21st century sexual behaviour colours the writing of vampire fiction today. Anne Rice, writing about beautiful young men living apart from society, found fame and success just as AIDS and the end of the millennium filled the collective psyche. Again the vampire and sex are intrinsically linked in a metaphorical way.

The vampire has now become the beautiful young man, the Tristam to the modern day Isolde, doomed by a fated love that cannot be consummated. The dead Romeo in love with the living Juliet, portraying an innocent courtly love from the medieval romances. Sex has become unclean and our daughters, the untouched obsession of ageless teenage boys, who agonise endlessly about corrupting their love. These modern day, star crossed lovers are doomed, just as Dracula, Spike and Lestate were doomed, because as society changes, so does sex with the vampire.

Whether we like it or not, the vampire represents us, not the other, alien evil. The vampire is our fear, our savior, our love and our longing for something new; someone larger than life, a perfect love and a perfect lover. Society decrees how we love and share our bodies with each other. Patriarchal societies protect their daughters, as the future mothers of its sons and the vampire threatens this and so, eventually, the townsfolk will arrive, pitchfork and torch in hand. The day of the vampire hero may be coming to a close and with it our infatuation. The superhero may sadly return to our fear of the one dimentional, evil undead.

Angels, Angels Everywhere!

2010-05-19T17:15:00.000-07:00

Angels, Angels Everywhere!

Maria Zannini: Killer Campaigns: Promo Bucket List

2010-05-15T12:32:00.000-07:00

Maria Zannini: Killer Campaigns: Promo Bucket List

Patricia's Vampire Notes: Release - Vampire Novel Review

2010-05-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

Patricia's Vampire Notes: Release - Vampire Novel Review

The Blutsauger Chronicles Part III by Randall Stone

2010-04-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Blutsauger Chronicles Part III by Randall Stone

Editorial Ass: Moonrat's Guide to Getting into Publishing

2010-04-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

Editorial Ass: Moonrat's Guide to Getting into Publishing

Editorial Ass: what's a standard submission process like? (Your Questions continued)

2010-04-05T17:16:00.000-07:00

Editorial Ass: what's a standard submission process like? (Your Questions continued)

Dance on Fire: Sunday Morning Musings

2010-04-05T14:53:00.000-07:00

Dance on Fire: Sunday Morning Musings

Smashwords: Smashwords Ebooks - iPad Ebook Publishing Made Easy

2010-04-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

Smashwords: Smashwords Ebooks - iPad Ebook Publishing Made Easy

Dance on Fire: Sunday Morning Musings

2010-03-31T17:35:00.000-07:00

Dance on Fire: Sunday Morning Musings

National Geographic Vampire Witch of Venice.

2010-02-28T09:58:00.000-08:00

As far as author inspiration goes, this article is enough to stir almost everyone's imagination. I read it and thought I'd share it. It has a wealth of scientific and historical information in concise form.

Swan Song by Jevron Mc Crory

2010-02-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

Swan Song by Jevron Mc Crory

James Garcia Jr. Author of Dance on Fire

2010-02-09T08:47:00.000-08:00

James Garcia Jr. Author of Dance on Fire

Reviews of Release by Nicole Hadaway

2010-01-16T06:42:00.001-08:00

Dottie at My blog 2.0

Shellie's review on Layers of Thought

E-novelpromotions.blogspot.com/2009/12/fabulous-e-books.html

Taliesin Meets the Vampire

Fang-tastic Books: 2 Ebook Reviews : Kiss Me Deadly and Release

Nicole Hadaway's debute novel Release has been reviewed on Taliesin Meets the Vampire, Fang-tastic books, by Shellie at Layers of Thought, Dottie at my blog 2.0 and E-novel Promotions, if you'd like to review Nicole's debute novel on your site please contact either Nicole at All Things Smart and Scary or contact Vamplit Publishing for a free review copy.

If you have read the reviews and would like to purchase the ebook it is available from Ebook Undead
priced £4.99.

Pandemonium by Anson Brehmer

2009-12-01T16:29:00.000-08:00

Pandemonium by Anson Brehmer

Name That Genre

2009-12-01T16:25:00.000-08:00

This is an obscure vampire film from 1960 and I thought I'd share it with you. For fans of film Noir it got some very interesting lighting. For fans of Atomic Cinema it's got all you could need with its metaphor for science as an uncontrolable monster unleashed on the world. What it hasn't got is any vampires.

We have for the last decade seen many new vampire characters and the fall from grace might be around the corner. However watching this film gives me faith that the vampire will continue, as long as we have something to fear and whilst we fear death the vampire will never die.

New Year’s Toast

2009-11-19T06:39:00.000-08:00

New Year’s Toast

Paul D. Brazill: Guest Blogger: Dave Zeltserman - Vampire Crimes

2009-11-18T06:12:00.000-08:00

Paul D. Brazill: Guest Blogger: Dave Zeltserman - Vampire Crimes

Vampire Sex by Grace Mahoney

2009-11-18T05:23:00.000-08:00

Vampire Sex by Grace Mahoney

The Blutsauger Chronicles Part II By Randall Stone

2009-11-18T04:53:00.000-08:00

The Blutsauger Chronicles Part II By Randall Stone

Jevron Mc Crory’s Vampires With Bite

2009-11-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

Jevron Mc Crory’s Vampires With Bite

Subtext and Subversion

2009-10-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

Subtext and Subversion

Release by Nicole Hadaway

2009-09-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

'Forever.' That’s the response Ben Gongliewski receives, when he asks Miranda Dandridge how long she’s been a vampire. He doesn’t expect the word "forever" in her reply, but then again, Ben never imagined meeting vampires, let alone demons and werewolves, during his time in the Polish Resistance during World War II. Far from being horrified, Ben discovers that Miranda and her friends have very useful … talents … especially when it comes to saving children from concentration camps. After all, in these desperate times, while the line between good and evil is clear, the one between heroes and monsters is very, very blurred.
For more information

The Pumpkin Seed by Timothy C. Hobbs

2009-09-16T03:00:00.001-07:00

“I am a drinker of human blood and an eater of human flesh, a monster dressed in the skin of a man.” So states Charles, the main character of the novel, after being infected with a virus transmitted by an insect vector.

The Pumpkin Seed opens in India near the Nepal border in the late 17th century. A commissioned officer of the East India Company is seeking a profitable new trade route into China. Indian bandits of the Thuggie clan attempt to stop this further invasion by the British and release a plague of insects, which carry a unique virus. This organism not only infects humans, it transforms the chemical and physical nature of the host’s body. Longevity, resilience and the need to feed on human blood and flesh make the host an efficient killing machine, especially in regard to the human race. The novel follows the characters through 17th and 18th century England and India, culminating in present day Austin, Texas.

For more information

Vamplit Publishing

2009-09-01T09:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Blogspot for Vamplit Publishing.

We've changed our name to Vamplit Writers as it has become a little difficult with so many vamplit sites. The new vamplit site Vamplit Publishing has just been launched and now I have my personal blog back again. Nothing has really changed except our address. Our new contact form is accessible from this link submissions and this change should help with the flow of manuscripts being acknowledged quickly.

To anyone waiting for a manuscript to be edited I am working around the clock and have now had to take on other editors to clear some of the backlog. Our aim is to have an incredible thirteen manuscripts published by September, with a further ten expected by Christmas.

On a personal note, I would just like to thank all of you for your contributions to this group. I hope that what we build here will be a friendly writers' group, committed to improving our own writing skills and helping others to do the same.

If anyone has a short story for entry in the summer short story competition, now is the time to email me as the closing date is approaching fast.