“The Vampire,” from 1748 by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, expresses the dark seductive theme that is still carried out in today’s vampire stories.
- And as softly thou art sleeping
To thee shall I come creeping
And thy life's blood drain away.
And so shalt thou be trembling
For thus shall I be kissing
And death's threshold thou' it be crossing
With fear, in my cold arms.
And last shall I thee question
Compared to such instruction
What are a mother's charms?
Do you do special book signings for Halloween? Have you ever dressed as a vampire to promote your books?
Last year I participated in a special Halloween reading with other authors, which was really fun because the master of ceremonies was dressed and talked like a pirate. Who doesn’t love pirates and pirate talk? I don’t know if I’ll be doing anything for Halloween this year. I’ve been too busy trying to meet my next deadline to think about it. I’m practically under house arrest.
What don't you like about the horror genre these days?
I don’t like it when a horrible, ugly thing happens just to advance the plot, without any reason, but that’s not exclusive to horror. It’s common in thrillers, crime fiction, mysteries, and literary fiction. There’s a technique I call Gratuitous Child Endangerment. It always gets an emotional reaction, but it’s cheap and easy to do.
What I do like in horror these days is all the interesting cross-genre writing – so we’re seeing horror elements in literary fiction, or sci-fi elements in paranormal stories. Then there’s steampunk, which is sort of a historical cyperpunk, and there’s a steampunk horror subgenre.
Nathan Barker of Kayleighbug Books told me that he checks through romance books because so many good horror novels are being sold as romances.
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