Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Welcome to the June 2019 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store. These items include some of the short stories that used to be on Fictionwise:
Barnes and Noble
Go here and scroll down to “Available Short Fiction” for a list of those stories with their Amazon links:
Kindle Works
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
In case you’re a fan of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and haven’t read the essay anthology SEVEN SEASONS OF BUFFY, in which many distinguished fantasy, SF, and horror authors discuss their favorite episodes, characters, and themes, it’s still available (in both e-book and paperback) here:
My essay in this volume, “A World Without Shrimp,” explores the trope of alternate realities in the series. There’s an excerpt below to give you a sense of how I approach the subject.
I’ve recently re-released as Kindle e-books two works originally published by companies that have gone out of business. Mundania Press (which had absorbed Hard Shell Word Factory) unexpectedly announced its closing not long ago. So I combined DARK CHANGELING (my first vampire novel, originally released by Hard Shell) and its direct sequel set over a decade later, CHILD OF TWILIGHT, into a two-novel omnibus, TWILIGHT’S CHANGELINGS. The books have been lightly re-edited for minor corrections and changes, nothing substantive:
LOVE UNLEASHED, my Ellora’s Cave paranormal romance about a man cursed into the form of a Saint Bernard, reverting to humanity only between sunset and midnight every night, has been retitled ENCHANTMENT UNLEASHED. (It’s mind-boggling how many books Amazon lists with the title LOVE UNLEASHED.) I revised it to downplay the graphic sex level from erotic to spicy/steamy.
This month I’m interviewing Maria Imbalzano, author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction.
*****
Interview with Maria Imbalzano:
What inspired you to begin writing?
I happened to be reading a best-selling novel and I grew frustrated with the author. She had told the reader the same thing within pages of each other. Being an avid reader, I knew what good writing was, and I couldn’t believe this book had made it through the publishing process and onto the bookshelves. In my naïve, optimistic world I told myself, “I can do this.”
Easier said than done, of course. I didn’t know where to start. As fate would have it, a flier came across my desk for a legal education seminar called “How to Write Your Book in 14 Days (A Lawyer’s Guide)”. I quickly signed up, thinking no one else would be there. I was wrong. The room was packed with would-be John Grishams hoping to write that blockbuster manuscript, sell it, make a fortune and retire from law.
The seminar was exactly what I needed to get started – although to this day, I have not been able to write a book in fourteen days.
What genres do you work in?
Contemporary Romance and Women’s Fiction
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I plot my stories to the n’th degree. I start with developing the heroine and hero, then determine their internal and external conflicts. I then start with chapter one and blueprint each scene/paragraph by asking questions and then giving three words as answers. Although this may take a month, when I sit down to start writing the book, it practically writes itself.
What have been the major influences on your writing (favorite authors, life experiences, or whatever)?
Since my books are character driven, I’m influenced by personalities of people I know and use those traits in developing my characters – making them real. For settings, I use places I’ve either lived in (NYC, Philadelphia, the Jersey shore, Princeton) or visited. Some of my books have lawyer characters and after having practiced law for many years, I know how lawyers think. It was also easy for me to add conflict through a lawsuit or area of practice that conflicts with the hero’s business.
What effect has your career as a lawyer had on your fiction? Do any skills required for legal writing carry over into creative writing?
Lawyers are analytical, organized, and choose words carefully. When I was in high school and college, I hated creative writing. I wasn’t good at it. In law school, I loved legal writing. I understood it. I was also a crazy, mad editor of my own legal briefs, memoranda, and letters. The correct words are so important when making legal arguments. Those qualities have helped me greatly in my creative writing. I actually like to edit my work and I will spend time coming up with the correct word if I think the original word I chose doesn’t work.
How do you integrate fiction writing into a schedule with a demanding day job?
In the past, I would write at night from around 8 – 11pm and on weekends if other obligations didn’t interfere. Of course, board meetings or the kids’ activities always came first, so it took me forever to learn this craft and sign my first publishing contract – fifteen years to be exact. I recently retired from practicing law so I could now write full time. And I’m loving every minute of it.
What are you working on now?
I’m in the middle of a four-book series, The Sworn Sisters Series. The Sworn Sisters are four high school girlfriends who are now in their early thirties. Each friend has their own story, but they are in each other’s stories as well. The first book in the series, “Sworn to Forget” (Nicki’s story) was published last July, and the second book, “Sworn to Remember” (Sam’s story) was released on May 15th. I am now working on the next book in the series.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Never stop learning the craft of writing. And never give up.
What’s the URL of your website? Your blog? Where else can we find you on the web?
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
DRINK, SLAY, LOVE, by Sarah Beth Durst. I became aware of this 2012 YA novel by reading a recent interview with the author. It has one of the most quirkily unusual premises of any vampire novel I’ve ever read. The narrator, Pearl, lives in the crowded household of her vampire family and shares the worldview expected of her kind—amoral, self-centered, and predatory. These vampires’ avoidance of killing (most of the time) springs from caution, not compassion. Since Pearl was born a vampire, not transformed like her parents and most of her relatives, she’s actually the age she looks, sixteen. In the opening scene, she and her vampire boyfriend steal a car and stop by a twenty-four-hour ice-cream shop. There Pearl drinks from the clerk, Brad, and erases his memory of the bite. In the alley behind the store just before dawn, however, she encounters a unicorn. Its horn stabs her through the torso. To her surprise, instead of dying, she wakes up in the shelter of her own home, where some unknown person had left her unconscious on the front porch. She soon realizes she’s changing. First, she becomes able to stay awake during the day and face the sun without harm. Her elders regard this mysterious development as an advantage, because they have the duty of hosting the vampire council in the near future and must provide a supply of victims as refreshments for the guests. Since Pearl can now mingle with the human population unnoticed (they hope), her parents enroll her in the local high school and task her with luring a suitable group of students into the vampires’ lair on the appropriate night. While becoming acquainted with her new classmates, passing off her cluelessness and social ineptitude as byproducts of homeschooling, she discovers more traumatic results of her change. She catches herself worrying about what humans think and feel, becoming reluctant to hurt them, and actually behaving like a nice person at random moments. To her dismay, Brad, her victim of the fateful night, is one of her fellow students. He and a perky girl named Bethany seem determined to become Pearl’s friends. The darkly humorous story takes a turn toward darker in the second half. At the climax, Pearl and the circle of friends and classmates she has reluctantly embraced cooperate to oversee the Gothic-themed prom, which Pearl has arranged to host in her family’s mansion. Now that she actually cares about her fellow students, how can she manage to keep them all from getting slaughtered in a vampire feast? Meanwhile, she has discovered that Brad and Bethany, much more than the nerdy high-schoolers they seem, are hiding a fantastic secret. A weirdly fun novel.
THEATER OF SPIES, by S. M. Stirling. Second in the “Black Chamber” alternate history series. It’s now 1916, four years after Theodore Roosevelt regained the presidency (the point of departure from our own timeline). Secret agent Luz O’Malley and Ciara Whelan, her new partner, return from the first novel. Boston-Irish Ciara, Luz’s young lover, is a largely self-taught mathematical and engineering genius. Luz, in addition to her natural gift for languages and the advantages of her upbringing as daughter of Hispanic and Irish-American parents (brutally murdered by Mexican revolutionaries) as well as her family’s friendship with “Uncle Teddy,” has, of course, all the training one would expect for a hard-core spy. She and Ciara are spending their “honeymoon” at Luz’s luxurious home in California when they receive their new assignment. By a roundabout route involving changes of identity and flights on a succession of airships, they arrive in Berlin, where they settle in a modest neighborhood under the guise of a Bavarian widow and her slightly “simple” young friend. Their mission is to investigate reports of a new German secret project. The futuristic technology, code-named Heimdall, sounds a lot like radar. Luz and Ciara make themselves familiar to their neighbors and develop a friendly relationship with the sergeant who guards the entry to the factory where they hope to find the Heimdall project. Luz also makes contact with captured Frenchwomen who perform menial chores such as cleaning in the factory. Readers won’t be surprised that Horst Von Duckler, principal antagonist in BLACK CHAMBER, survived the end of that novel and is relentlessly hunting Luz. Most of the book consists of preparation for the climactic strike, which contains enough fast-moving action to please any spy-thriller fan. My favorite aspects of the novel, however, are the relationship between Luz and Ciara, the background information about this changed world, the interaction between the heroines and the people of many nationalities and ethnic groups they encounter, the multilingual conversations and the richly varied menus (as always, Stirling excels at descriptions of food), and the many incidental glimpses of life in war-torn Europe and the culture of the United States under Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party. In some ways, this World War I is grimmer than ours. The “terror gas” of the first novel devastated France and England, and Germany is winning; they’ve already conquered Russia. With Teddy in charge, though, I trust Stirling will give us an Allied victory in the end. The conclusion of THEATER OF SPIES definitely feels more optimistic than that of BLACK CHAMBER. I’m delighted with the character of Ciara, bright, enthusiastic, and nerdy in the best way. The love between her and Luz helps to soften the character of Luz and reveal her complexity as a person, demonstrating that there’s more to her than a trained spy and killer. A few readers label her a “Mary Sue,” but in fact she has believable flaws (such as being left in the dust by Ciara’s mathematical and technical expertise), and her broad skill set simply reflects her credible experience and training; a spy without those skills wouldn’t have been sent on this mission in the first place.
IRON, FIRE AND ICE, by Ed West. This book shouldn’t be missed by fans at the intersection of the two fields of interest addressed in the subtitle, “The Real History That Inspired the Game of Thrones.” Both informative and entertaining, West goes into great detail about the nations, cultures, events, and individuals in the history of Britain and Eurasia that have counterparts in George R. R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” saga. Sometimes West cites Martin’s explicit statements about a particular incident or character’s real-world inspiration; more often, West draws general analogies. He covers a broad period from antiquity to the high middle ages but focuses heavily on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and Martin’s acknowledged principal source, the Wars of the Roses. I had a little trouble following West’s exposition at times, because he skips around among regions and centuries, sometimes within a single chapter. The fact that multiple persons in the same or related royal and noble houses have the same names doesn’t help. I wish the book included timelines of the rulers of each separate nation discussed in the text. There are extensive footnotes, but the bibliography is really just a checklist of titles and authors, omitting publishers and dates of publication, and the index is less exhaustive than many readers may want. In general, though, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I recommend it to any fan of Martin’s novels or the TV series (West refers regularly to both) who’s also interested in history. You’ll probably come away with the same conclusion I did: As Martin himself has mentioned on occasion, you may think the violence in his series is extreme, but the real-life events were even worse.
*****
Excerpt from “A World Without Shrimp”:
“Alternate realities are neat,” declares Anya in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Superstar” (4-17). Apparently the creators of the series agree, for the malleable nature of “reality” proves to be one of the Buffyverse’s central themes. Anya reminds us of the infinite variety of possible worlds and the great differences that seemingly minor changes can produce: “You could, uh, have a world without shrimp. Or with, you know, nothing but shrimp” (“Superstar,” 4-17). Or Buffy could inhabit a world with or without a younger sister.
The advent of Dawn at the end of the first episode of season five sharply draws the viewer’s attention to the fluidity of this fictional universe. The transformation of the Buffyverse by the sudden appearance of Dawn (“sudden” to the audience, not to the characters, who “know” Buffy has always had a sister) highlights the importance of the “alternate reality” theme in this series. Most television programs imitate the presumed stability of the primary world, the “real” world we live in. At most, the average series may feature an occasional fantasy sequence or It’s a Wonderful Life pastiche. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in contrast, presents several alternate reality episodes that produce major dislocations of the world as the characters know it. This recurring motif infects the Buffyverse with a fundamental instability. The introduction of a younger sister retroactively transforms Buffy’s entire family history. Cordelia wishes into existence (or possibly just reveals) a timeline in which Buffy never moved to Sunnydale. Jonathan works a spell to create a timeline in which he stars as a superhero. And the episode “Normal Again” (6-17) reveals a timeline in which Buffy is, rather than the powerful Slayer, a helpless mental patient.
Unlike most secondary (i.e., invented) worlds, the reality of Buffy undergoes frequent, unsettling alterations. All these episodes produce deviations from the “original” reality of Buffy, the world we viewers recognize as being altered when Dawn appears, which I refer to as the dominant reality, or dominant timeline. The magical transformations in the various episodes create alternate realities, worlds that resemble our own but deviate at some point in their history to generate timelines that can vary widely from the dominant one as a result of a single critical change. I use “alternate reality” and “alternate universe” interchangeably. Note, however, that the various transformed realities in the series are not all of the same type, but belong to at least two different categories. If the alternate reality exists in complete independence from the dominant timeline, I classify it as a separate dimensional plane. Alternate realities that replace the dominant one and run in the “real time” of the characters’ lives can be labeled alternate histories. I consider “The Wish” (3-9), for example, to belong to the first category and “Superstar” (4-17) to the second. As for the “demon” or “hell” dimensions often mentioned in the series, they exist on other dimensional planes but do not qualify as alternate realities in the sense being considered, because they do not conform to the model of a universe that parallels ours except for the ramifications of one critical change.
-end of excerpt-
*****
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the May 2019 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store. These items include some of the short stories that used to be on Fictionwise:
Barnes and Noble
Go here and scroll down to “Available Short Fiction” for a list of those stories with their Amazon links:
Kindle Works
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
As I mentioned in an earlier newsletter, my lighthearted story “Therapy for a Vampire” appears as a two-part serial in NIGHT TO DAWN magazine. Part One was published in issue 35, and the second half will appear in issue 36 this fall. You can find out about the magazine here:
In this story, psychiatrists Roger Darvell (vampire) and Britt Loren (human) attempt to cure a young vampire of his neuroses, including a phobia of religious objects. In the excerpt below, they try to desensitize him enough to spend time in a church so he can attend a concert there.
The publisher of DARK CHANGELING (my first vampire novel, where Roger and Britt are introduced) and CHILD OF TWILIGHT, its direct sequel, has closed. Therefore, I’ve self-published both novels together in a Kindle two-book omnibus, TWILIGHT’S CHANGELINGS. I’ve made some minor changes and corrections, but nothing substantive, so you may not want to buy this edition if you’ve already read the books. (The little alterations do improve them, though, I think.) If you haven’t, here’s your chance to get the new, improved versions at a modest price:
This month I’ve interviewed multi-genre author Laura Strickland.
*****
Interview with Laura Strickland:
What inspired you to begin writing?
I began writing because I loved reading so much. I have a wonderful elder sister who took me to our tiny branch library in Buffalo, New York every week, when I was young. Limited as the choices there were, it always felt like being admitted to a treasure trove, one from which I was allowed to choose whatever I wanted. I encountered some of my favorite children’s books there. But after I finished reading them, I always wanted more of the story. And it occurred to me that if I wrote the stories, I could make them as lengthy as I liked.
What genres do you work in?
I’m what I like to call a “genre-hopper”, which means I jump around between different styles of fiction quite a bit. My first love, and my first big break-through with The Wild Rose Press, was a Scottish Historical Romance, Devil Black. But the gods have blessed me with a fabulous editor who’s willing to take a look at whatever my fevered brain produces. I’ve written and published Historical Romance, Contemporary Romance, Romantic Comedy, Historical Sagas, and most recently a series of Faery Tale Rewrites. The second book in that series, Rum Paul Stillskin, will release on May 27.
Very dear to my heart are my Steampunk Romances, set in my native city of Buffalo, New York in the 1880s. Both ground-breaking and addictive, they show no signs of stopping. I’m up to book number seven in the series, which includes gritty heroes and heroines, monstrous villains, and hybrid automatons seeking their rights.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I’m definitely a pantser. When I get an idea for a new story, it usually shows up as a small glimmer of light. When I give some attention to it, it expands on its own. I’m not the woman to mess with that, and in fact if I try to make an outline, or sometimes just share what’s come to me, it dies an early death. It’s as if expressing the idea removes the need to tell the story. While in the thick of writing a book, I sometimes jot down notes and possible directions the story wants to go, just so I won’t forget them later. But all too often, I can’t read the notes, when I return to them.
What have been the major influences on your writing (favorite authors, life experiences, or whatever)?
I think for a writer, a little of everything he or she experiences winds up in the writing. Life shapes us, and we shape the words on the page accordingly. As for writing influences, they have been many. Patricia Finney’s ancient Irish tales inspired my first Celtic sagas, and the late Sir Terry Pratchett’s body of work, mainly the books of his Discworld Series, showed me just what Fantasy can be. Music always inspires me greatly. I have a favorite artist for every genre. (Jethro Tull is excellent for writing Steampunk!)
What attracted you to the particular historical periods you write about?
I like the dark side, a truth that’s apparent to anyone who reads my books. The periods toward which I’ve gravitated seem to contain that glint of dark, and lend themselves well to the inclusion of black humor. To be truthful, I’m never sure what era in history may grab me next.
What kinds of research do you use in writing historical fiction?
I favor immersion. When I get interested in a period, or a story that requires research occurs to me, I read and study everything I can get my hands or eyes on. I let it all percolate a bit and imagine what it would be like to live in that time. I think what I’d need to exist, and how things would feel, day-to-day. Then when I write, the details flow naturally, and it tends to eliminate preachiness or info-dumps.
Can you tell us a bit about your experience with animal rescue?
Ah, now there’s a subject dear to my heart. It seems as if I came into this world wanting a canine companion. I love felines too—in fact, I value all animals highly and will fight for them—but a dog is a requirement for me. I’ve had so many wonderful canine companions during my life. The last four have all been rescues, one adopted from an animal shelter and the other three from rescue organizations. Two of those were senior rescues, when my husband and I adopted girls who’d lost their owners very late in life. We were privileged to guide both those sweet darlings through a number of happy years and to their end-of-life experiences, with us at their sides. They’re so easy to love, and so hard to lose.
Lacy, our latest adoptee, came to us from Kentucky via a local rescue. She was picked up as a stray with one puppy, who was also adopted into a wonderful home. We got lucky, again. She’s a little angel without wings.
What are you working on now?
I’m working two projects at the same time, half way through transcribing and editing my next Steampunk, and writing a Historical Young Adult novel set in Victorian London. I enjoy both the creating and the editing.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Love what you write and write what you love. Your readers will be able to tell, and if you don’t love your story, they won’t either.
What’s the URL of your website? Your blog? Where else can we find you on the web?
Web site: Laura Strickland Books
Facebook
Twitter
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
THE GRAVES ARE WALKING, by John Kelly. If you’re interested in the Irish potato famine of the 1840s and want to read an exhaustive, in-depth account of it, this is the book to get. It’s fairly recent (2012) and very comprehensive. From the onset of the potato blight to the aftermath of the “great hunger,” with historical background information to set the scene, Kelly covers the period from every angle in a highly readable style. Broad political and social issues as well as the human suffering on the ground receive equally thorough treatment. Narratives of individual experiences personalize the multi-year catastrophe, and quotations from numerous contemporary sources reveal the opinions and positions of people, of both exalted and modest status, involved in the complicated process of trying to mitigate the disastrous effects of repeated potato crop failures. Irish land policy as well as reliance on the potato as the only staple food crop for small farmers made Ireland far more vulnerable to those failures than other nations. Kelly emphasizes how relief efforts were hampered by the British philosophy that “dependence on government” was one of Ireland’s most serious problems. The English attempts to help the starving population while avoiding both such “dependence” and damage to British commercial interests (through provision of cheap imported food) led to ever more complex problems. Furthermore, the English view of the Irish as ignorant peasants and barbarians (plus the religious dimension of most poor Irish being Catholic and therefore suspect in the eyes of British Protestants) undermined their sympathy for the hungry masses. Two chapters explore the impact of emigration upon both Ireland and North America. Kelly concludes that although English policies did not deliberately inflict genocide upon the Irish, the ultimate result was largely the same as if they had.
POPPIES AND ROSES, by Allison Norfolk. A retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” during World War I. Unlike PHOENIX AND ASHES, Mercedes Lackey’s fantastic World-War-I reframing of “Cinderella,” POPPIES AND ROSES mostly translates the fairy-tale plot into naturalistic terms, keeping the magical elements low-key. The hero, Lord David Montgomery, sent home with mysteriously unhealing wounds, has been cursed by a German hedgewitch (a woman who uses herbs and other plants in her magic spells). In a twist on the usual tale, the curse is ultimately intended for his good. The witch, whose son David killed in battle, has seen too much death and hatred to want gratuitous revenge. She sets up the curse so that David must learn to open his heart to love in order to be healed. His wounds continue to bleed but never endanger his life or even become infected. His hired nurse, Clara Prescott, temporarily removed from battlefield duty while recovering from a leg injury, is also a hedgewitch. Therefore, she believes the truth about David’s condition when he reveals it to her, and she has a chance of curing him with her specialized skills. She grew up in the village where he lives, a source of unhappy memories. After her mother’s death, Clara’s alcoholic father paid no attention to her. She “ran wild” and gained a completely undeserved reputation as the town bad girl (in the sexual sense). After straightening out her life and becoming a nurse, she hasn’t returned home or had contact with her father. David and Clara, although both scarred by their ordeals, have to learn to trust each other and regain faith in the goodness of life in general, in the context of wartime trauma and, at the climax of the novel, the postwar influenza epidemic. The magic weaves smoothly through the mundane elements of the story to lead these two strong characters into an emotionally satisfying relationship against a believable historical background.
MOCKINGBIRD, by Sean Stewart. This novel in the first-person voice of a female protagonist might legitimately be labeled magical realism rather than fantasy. The heroine, Toni, and her sister, Candy, take the supernatural legacy of their mother for granted as an inescapable part of life; the story might develop almost the same if Toni had inherited mental illness rather than unwanted magic. The book begins with her mother Elena’s funeral. We meet a cast of quirky characters and learn that Elena could see the future. Her fraught relationship with Toni is encapsulated in her epitaph: “There are some gifts which cannot be refused.” For as long as Elena’s daughters can remember, she was periodically possessed by her “Riders,” spirits embodied in a collection of puppets, dolls, etc. stored on the shelves of a cabinet in Elena’s house. In addition to the six Riders, the family is haunted by tales of an enigmatic figure they know as the Lost Little Girl. Candy has prophetic dreams that show only happy futures, while Toni gets stuck with her mother’s affinity for the Riders. After Elena’s death, leaving nothing much besides the house, the Riders, and a pile of debt, Toni decides to make a fresh start in life by becoming pregnant. She gets herself artificially inseminated, then sets out to find a father for her forthcoming child. Despite her attempted refusal of the Riders, we aren’t surprised to see her getting possessed at the worst possible moments. Meanwhile, she loses her job and discovers a previously unknown half-sister from a short prior marriage Elena had never mentioned. Toni is an actuary by profession, and her brilliant grasp of numbers and finance combine with her magical legacy to make her a unique character. Her highly individual narrative voice makes the story darkly funny where it might otherwise be painful to read. The Houston setting, in geography, climate, and culture, is vividly realized. The story reaches its climax in the midst of a hurricane, a fitting outward reflection of Toni’s inner turmoil. I’ve never read a fantasy novel quite like this and found it fascinating.
*****
Excerpt from “Therapy for a Vampire”:
Accordingly, on the following night, a breezy, pleasantly cool September evening, the two of them strolled from Britt’s condo apartment near the Naval Academy to Church Circle at the top of the half-mile, brick-paved Main Street in the heart of the historic district. They found Franz waiting outside the wrought-iron gates opening onto the grounds of Saint Anne’s, which occupied the entire circle. At least he showed up, Roger thought. That’s hopeful. “Shall we proceed?” He held the gate ajar. The nave of the church would be open, even if the rest of the building was locked. He strode up the walk to the three steps leading to the double doors of the red-brick, nineteenth-century structure. Franz, with Britt falling in behind him, had little choice but to follow.
The young man stepped inside the foyer and froze, clutching the door frame. Roger paused halfway to the inner door and cast an annoyed glance over his shoulder. “Come, now, do I have to pry your fingers loose and pull you along like a dog on a leash? You’ve touched a crucifix. Simply entering a room should be easy by now.”
“Suppose I hold your hand?” Britt said. “This building is open to the public, so you don’t need an invitation. If your unconscious mind insists you do, I’m a member here, and I invite you.”
“Okay.” Despite the strain in his voice, he managed to take a step forward and accept her offered hand. Together they walked across the foyer.
Roger opened the door to the main worship space, dim, cool, and smelling faintly dusty. The only light came from low-wattage lamps above the altar. “Gaze into my eyes and believe what I tell you. Nothing here will harm you. It’s safe and peaceful.”
Franz’s breathing and pulse slowed. “Yes, Doctor.”
“You’ll take one step inside, then return to this spot. I have confidence you can do that.”
Clasping Britt’s hand, the young vampire did as commanded.
“Well done,” she said. “Next, try two paces.”
They worked their way up, advancing and retreating step by step, until the three of them stood in the back of the church behind the last row of pews. Roger blocked Franz’s path when the patient would have withdrawn again. “Enough of that. We’ve demonstrated you can come inside with no problem. Now we’re going to walk all the way to the front.”
Franz took one more pace and froze. “What do you think is going to happen?” Roger asked, struggling to rein in his impatience. “Do you expect to crumble into a pile of ashes?”
“Of course not.” With a tremulous laugh, Franz stepped forward again, then halted. His head whipped from side to side as he took in his surroundings. His heartbeat thundered in Roger’s ears. Sounding half strangled, he whispered, “But they’re everywhere.”
“What?” Britt said.
“The pictures. Staring at me.” He squeezed her hand.
She winced. Sensing her pain, Roger said, “Relax. You’re hurting her. Remember your strength.”
Franz released a shuddering breath and obeyed.
Roger faced him to snare his gaze. “You mean the windows?”
A shaky nod.
“They’re inanimate works of art, completely harmless, as you know perfectly well on a conscious level. Don’t you?”
Another nod.
“You will come with us to the altar rail, and nothing will go wrong. Understand?”
The young vampire’s tension visibly eased under the pressure of Roger’s hypnotic stare. He took a pace forward as if heading for his execution. Roger and Britt flanked him on each side. They proceeded up the aisle past an array of stained-glass windows depicting figures such as Christ the Good Shepherd, an angel proclaiming the Resurrection, Saint Anne with her daughter, the Virgin Mary, as a young girl, and many others. In the deep shadows, they were plainly visible to the two vampires’ night vision, but not to Britt’s human eyes. Thoroughly familiar with the layout of the sanctuary, though, she pointed out a Tiffany window as they passed it. “Don’t worry, the saints won’t leap out of the frame and pounce on you. If they try, I’ll protect you.”
Franz’s surge of indignation at the idea of being “protected” by an ephemeral kept him moving. She then drew his attention to the pipe organ in the choir loft. “Eyes on the prize. Think of the music you’re going to hear.” Finally they halted at the top of the aisle, facing the altar and its cross.
-end of excerpt-
*****
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the April 2019 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.” For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, e-mail me to request the desired issue, and I’ll send you a free PDF of it. My e-mail address is at the end of this newsletter. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links (gradually being updated as the Amber Quill and Ellora’s Cave works are being republished):
This is my Facebook author page. Please visit!
Facebook
Here’s my page in Barnes and Noble’s Nook store. These items include some of the short stories that used to be on Fictionwise:
Barnes and Noble
Go here and scroll down to “Available Short Fiction” for a list of those stories with their Amazon links:
Kindle Works
Here’s the list of my Kindle books on Amazon. (The final page, however, includes some Ellora’s Cave anthologies in which I don’t have stories):
Carter Kindle Books
Here’s a shortcut URL to my author page on Amazon:
Amazon
I’m thrilled to report the re-release of my nonfiction book DIFFERENT BLOOD: THE VAMPIRE AS ALIEN. It’s been slightly updated, with discussions of several more recent books added.
Below you can read a few paragraphs of the introduction, to give you an idea of the flavor of the text.
This month’s interviewee is romance author Debby Grahl.
*****
Interview with Debby Grahl:
What inspired you to begin writing?
I have a disease of the retina called Retinitis Pigmentosa which causes gradual vision loss. I lost the ability to read in my early twenties, but even when I had sight, seeing the printed word was always difficult for me. Reading a book would take me twice as long as a person with normal sight. I became frustrated with this and began to make up my own stories. It wasn’t until the invention of computers and screen reading software that I was able to put my stories into words. Everything I type is read back to me aloud. This enables me to do research and post on social media. This incredible advancement in technology has truly opened a new window of opportunity for me.
What genres do you work in?
I write both contemporary and paranormal romance. I’ve always liked reading books with ghosts and witches. I like using them because they’re so versatile. You can have nice or mean ghosts. You can have those who can be seen or not. I also enjoy using ghosts of historical characters. My witches are normal people with different stages of power.
With contemporary books, I like to set them in intriguing and interesting places.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I begin with a general outline of the location, characters, and plot, but mostly I wing it.
What have been the major influences on your writing (favorite authors, life experiences, or whatever)?
As a small child I enjoyed having books read to me. Mysteries were always my favorite beginning with Nancy Drew, and to this day I still love the classics: Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy L Sayers. I’m also a romance junky, from historical to paranormal to contemporary and suspense. I love them all. Books have always been such a part of my life, that being able to write my own and have people enjoy reading them is more thrilling to me than I can ever express.
What kinds of background research do you do concerning the locations where you set your novels?
Two of my books, Rue Toulouse and His Magic Touch, are set in New Orleans. This is one of my favorite cities not only to visit, but to write about as well. I have an opportunity each year to attend a conference in New Orleans, so I’m able to do my research. If I can’t actually go to the location, I find Google Earth to be extremely helpful.
What are you working on now?
I have a couple of projects in the works. A Touch of Magic is the second in my Magic in New Orleans series, and Mountain Fire is the first in my Carolina Heat series.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
My advice for new writers is take online writing classes. A number of writing groups provide these, and they’re usually not expensive. My first mistake in writing was thinking you just wrote the book, sent it to a publisher or agent, and away you go. Not! I sent the first twenty-five pages to a publisher who was offering a free critique. She wrote back and said I had a good idea for a story if I could write it. She said she marked all my writing mistakes in red. Well, most of the page was in red. There’re a lot of unknown writing mistakes beginners make that they’re unaware of. Such as the use of tag lines, POV changes, information dump, and grammar and punctuation. A critique group is also a good idea. It’s amazing how different your story sounds when you hear someone else read it. My last bit of advice is stick with it. If you want to write, don’t give up. Remember even the well-known authors received rejection letters.
What’s the URL of your website? Your blog? Where else can we find you on the web?
Debby Grahl
Facebook
Amazon Author Page
Goodreads
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
THE SISTERS OF THE WINTER WOOD, by Rena Rossner. This fantasy novel set in the village of Dubossary on the border of Ukraine and Moldova under Russian rule, around 1900, was inspired by actual events in the history of the author’s own family. The story combines legends of swan maidens and bear shapeshifters with the plot of Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market.” The family of teenage sisters Liba and Laya isn’t completely accepted by the Jewish community because their mother converted from Christianity rather than being born Jewish. Soon after the book opens, their parents inform the sisters of a family secret that sets them apart from their neighbors in a more profound way: Their father is a bear shifter, their mother a swan, and both of their families disapproved of the union. Liba, the older sister, takes after her father and Laya after their mother. When their father receives news of his own father’s death, the parents have to leave the sisters alone, with Liba in charge of watching out for swans that may try to seduce Laya to join them. Liba fears and resists the possibility of changing into a bear, while Laya yearns to become a swan and enjoy the freedom of flight. While Liba grapples with the growing attraction between her and Dovid, the butcher’s son, Laya succumbs to the allure of a mysterious, rakish family of outsiders who sell irresistibly appetizing fruit (as in “Goblin Market”). She becomes increasingly more rebellious and secretive, despite Liba’s warnings, and eventually falls ill. Meanwhile, murder victims turn up drained of blood. At first the townspeople attribute the deaths to bear attacks, but soon they begin to cast suspicious eyes upon the Jewish community. Bears in human form approach Liba, and Laya catches glimpses of swans, while each of them finds herself on the verge of transformation in moments of stress. Torn between the human world and the supernatural realm, the sisters ultimately learn the dark secret of the fruit-sellers. The two of them tell the story alternately in first person (and present tense). Liba’s sections are in standard prose narrative, while Laya’s are formatted like free verse. A review I read criticized the novel on the ground that the sisters are too obsessed with boys and romance. Good grief, why wouldn’t they be? They’re teenage girls from a culture in which virtually all women were expected to marry, and marriage constituted the most important decision of their lives—what else would you expect? The book ends with an Author’s Note on the historical and folkloric background, followed by a glossary of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ukrainian words used in the text.
DAMSEL, by Elana K. Arnold. A mind-blowingly unique version of the “prince rescues maiden from dragon” trope, this fantasy novel begins in the viewpoint of Prince Emory, about to fulfill the quest every heir to his kingdom has to undertake. Upon the death of his father, the prince has to slay a dragon and bring the dragon’s captive damsel home to become his wife. Only then can the prince be acknowledged as the new ruler. When Prince Emory reaches the dragon’s lair, at the end of the book’s short Part One, the narrative breaks off. Part Two begins in the viewpoint of the rescued maiden, as the prince is carrying her away from the dragon’s cave, and we stay in her perspective for the rest of the story. She can’t remember anything before this moment, not even her name. Prince Emory names her “Ama.” He refuses to discuss his battle with the dragon, preferring to focus on the forthcoming coronation and marriage. On the journey back to the castle, the first hint of friction arises between him and the maiden when Emory kills a lynx, and Ama insists on adopting the orphaned cub. Nevertheless, Ama initially finds a welcome at the castle, including from the queen mother (the previous damsel, like all the queens before her), and the prince honors her as his destined bride. Ama never regains any memory of her life before her rescue, and she learns that all the damsels arrived in the same condition, effectively without a past. It’s better that way, she’s soothingly informed. As she struggles with the often uncomfortable and disorienting task of learning to be a lady and a proper prospective queen, the lynx cub becomes a symbol of the hopelessness of her truly fitting in and her sense of being trapped rather than sheltered. Gradually, Prince Emory’s true character begins to show—domineering, sexually aggressive, sometimes cruel. His hatred for the lynx and impatience to possess Ama become steadily clearer. He also resents Ama’s obsession with learning the craft of the royal glassblower and creating her own art. Although I guessed the truth of her past well before the devastating climax, the revelation of the exact method by which the prince conquered the dragon and freed the damsel still came as a harrowing shock. As several of the Amazon reviews mention, this book is definitely a fairy tale for adults—and not fainthearted ones.
ENCHANTED, by Alethea Kontis. This novel combines the Frog Prince with Cinderella and clever incidental allusions to many other fairy tales. The heroine, Sunday Woodcutter, is the youngest of seven sisters named after the days of the week. In this magical world, each one grows up to fulfill the traits prescribed in the rhyme beginning, “Monday’s child is fair of face.” All except Sunday, that is, who may be “bonnie” and “good” but not exactly “blithe” and “gay”; she spends a lot of time alone with her journal to assuage her discontent at her status as the boring youngest sister. The family has not led a trouble-free life. In this world, many people have fairy godmothers, and magic is accepted with no particular surprise. The sisters’ oldest brother, Jack, was turned into a dog by the prince’s fairy godmother, as punishment for killing the prince’s favorite pup. Jack’s fairy godmother, in retaliation, condemned the prince to become a frog for a year upon reaching adulthood. Graceful Tuesday was danced to death by enchanted shoes. Thursday, having “far to go,” enjoys her life as a pirate queen, but the family’s only contact with her comes through her letters and gifts. Monday married a king and has grown distant from her kin. The young foster brother, Trix, has fairy blood. As the story begins, Sunday meets a talking frog, Grumble, who becomes her best friend. With no memory of his former life, he is at risk of losing his humanity; Sunday’s friendship anchors him. She kisses him several times in an attempt to break his curse, but when the kiss finally works, she doesn’t witness the transformation and thinks her beloved friend has vanished, possibly died. Meanwhile, the newly human Prince Rumbold returns home earlier than expected. Unlike in the typical fairy tale, his re-transformation doesn’t instantaneously restore him to wholeness. He has to regain his health gradually and learn to be a man again. Determined to find Sunday, he decides to hold three lavish balls in a row. Unlike Cinderella’s stepmother, Sunday’s mother actively wants her to attend the balls, a plan Sunday resists. To her, the missing and now recovered prince is simply the reason she lost her brother. She’s surprised and somewhat dismayed to find herself attracted to Rumbold. When he finally reveals his identity as Grumble, she reacts realistically; rather than thrilled at the reunion, she’s angry and grieved that he deceived her for so long. The story unfolds with fresh twists on many different tales, with suspense, sorrow, joy (not to mention a pair of fairy godmothers actually named Sorrow and Joy), revelations of a web of previously unknown relationships, and a happy yet bittersweet ending. I was delighted with this book. The author has published several additional novels and a collection of short stories set in this world.
CONVERSATIONS WITH MADELEINE L’ENGLE, edited by Jackie C. Horne. A compilation of interviews with Madeleine L’Engle arranged in chronological order, from 1967 to 2006 (the year before her death). The editor begins with a thoughtful introduction, not glossing over the fact that L’Engle’s autobiographical statements weren’t necessarily always accurate. The book includes a chronology of her life and an index (a very nice feature). The thirteen well-chosen interviews go into great depth and detail about L’Engle’s opinions on wide-ranging topics such as theology, literature, science, love, the use and abuse of technology, the value of fantasy and imagination, and of course the art and craft of writing. Several of the “conversations” are quite long. The book necessarily includes some repetition, since inevitably some of the same questions keep getting asked, and L’Engle has favorite anecdotes, allusions, and statements of belief that crop up in a variety of contexts. There’s less repetition than I expected, however. No hard-core fan of her work should pass up this handsome, reasonably priced trade paperback.
*****
Excerpt from DIFFERENT BLOOD: THE VAMPIRE AS ALIEN:
Vampires in science fiction, like other alien races, often function as a distorted reflection of ourselves, illuminating the human predicament by contrast. When Ransom, the hero of C. S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet, visits Mars, he encounters three sentient species rather than one. A Martian sage expresses surprise upon learning that Earth harbors only one intelligent species. He concludes, “Your thought must be at the mercy of your blood… For you cannot compare it with thought that floats on a different blood” (103). Lewis’ aliens place a high value upon communion between members of different species.
The natives of Lewis’ Mars are not vampires, yet his works do cast light upon the literary motif of the vampire as alien. Out of the Silent Planet offers a deliberate contrast to the older image of extraterrestrials (specifically Martians) embodied in such creatures as the vampiric aliens of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. As Lewis remarks in the dialogue “Unreal Estates”, “most of the earlier [science fiction] stories start from the…assumption that we, the human race, are in the right, and everything else is ogres” (147). Wells’ novel of Martian hostile invaders who consume the blood of human captives falls into this category (though Wells’ characterization of his Martians is a bit more ambiguous than the term “ogres” implies). In Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis offers a more benign model of the first-contact situation. The antagonist in this novel, influenced by Wellsian science fiction, kidnaps Ransom and brings him to Mars as a human sacrifice, under the misapprehension that “the eldil [angelic spirit] drinks blood” (121). Explaining his predicament to the ruling eldil of Mars, Ransom says, “I was in terrible fear. The tellers of tales in our world make us think that if there is any life beyond our own air it is evil” (121). Through his interaction with the natives, he learns the error of this belief. His initial fear of the Martians yields to a desire to communicate with them, leading to friendship. Significantly for the theme of rapport between human minds and “thought that floats on a different blood”, Ransom is a philologist, a specialist in communication. The tension between fear of (and consequent hostility to) the alien Other and the drive toward inter-species understanding dominates “vampire as alien” fiction.
In “Unreal Estates” Lewis himself cites an instance of friendly contact between a human protagonist and a quasi-vampiric extraterrestrial, from Zenna Henderson’s short story “Food to All Flesh”. Henderson’s character, Padre Manuel, finding a spaceship in his pasture, tries to aid the hungry alien, a huge, sleek, fanged female accompanied by a litter of cubs. The visitor tests every available source of nourishment, including a variety of foods provided by Manuel, without finding anything her kind can digest. One of the starving cubs bites Manuel, and immediately, “Its little silver tongue came out and licked around happily and it went to sleep” (81). In the face of the knowledge that human flesh and blood can feed the alien cubs, Manuel neither fights nor flees when the mother seizes him. She, in turn, releases him, gathers up her young, and departs in her ship. Lacking any common language, human and alien nevertheless attain a rapport that supersedes their differences. Despite their “different blood”, they share a common ethic grounded in reverence for life. Henderson’s story and The War of the Worlds represent two extremes in fictional treatment of aliens (vampires as well as other types). A tone of hostility and paranoia prevails in earlier literature but also survives alongside the more sympathetic rendering of nonhuman characters in contemporary works.
These two contrasting attitudes–fear/hostility and the desire to understand the Other–as applied to vampire fiction are analyzed by Jacqueline Lichtenberg in an essay entitled “Vampire with Muddy Boots”. She classifies the two ways of dealing with “monsters” as the horror approach and the science fiction approach. In horror “the Unknown is a menace which is a menace because it’s a menace. In sf [science fiction], the Unknown is a menace because we don’t understand it yet… In sf, understanding, either intellectual or emotion [sic], or maybe both, is the key to the solution of the problem” (4). Not only does a natural (science fiction) rather than supernatural (horror) rationale for the “monster” provide the opportunity for human characters to understand rather than fear him, this approach also allows the nonhuman character free will and the possibility of moral choice, bounded by the limitations of flesh and blood. “A true supernatural force,” Lichtenberg points out, “doesn’t suffer the inconvenience of slogging through cold wet mud. And as a result, such an entity doesn’t grow spiritually, in character or relationships” (5). Her own fictional vampires, in contrast, deal with moral quandaries and strive for emotional connection both among themselves and with human companions. She envisions “a world in which each and every individual has a fighting chance provided they’re willing to…step outside their cultural straight jackets [sic] to deal with the Unknown on a friendly basis” (5). Lichtenberg declares her goal as a novelist to be “to step sideways into another universe and become another person for awhile” (5). In general, “vampire as alien” fiction typically invites the reader to “step sideways” into the consciousness of a not-quite-human being, who offers a fresh perspective on the human condition.
-end of excerpt-
My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
Harlequin: Harlequin
Whiskey Creek: Whiskey Creek
Wild Rose Press: Wild Rose Press
You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter