APPEARANCE SCHEDULE:

Big Book Bash, Colorado Association of Librarians. Denver, CO.
November 11, 2006.

Once considered the protégé of Satan, the vampire has evolved from monster to a world-weary character whose supernatural powers—immortality, magical agility, and heightened senses—are the flip side of an existence cursed with loneliness and persecution. Recently, the vampire has evolved further from the embodiment of evil into the role as hero. In Charlaine Harris' Sokie Stackhouse series, the boyfriend Bill the vampire protects Sokie from murderous humans.

Felix Gomez, the central vampire in the NYMPHOS OF ROCKY FLATS, fights two human conspiracies: government assassins and fanatical vampire-hunters from Transylvania, no less.

Jeanne Stein (THE BECOMING, Penguin 2006):

…Anna Strong, is a vampire and a hero in the true classic sense. She gets into trouble, both human and otherwise, and has to save herself or someone else to make it come out right. There's mystery and conflict because she can't abandon her human family. She did not choose to become a vampire, she wouldn't have believed they existed except in fiction before being bitten. Now she knows better. Anna's life is a balancing act between her human family and the strange world of the undead. The one common element in both worlds remains the same: monsters. Whether mortal or immortal, the battle between good and evil is a constant. Sometimes the challenge is distinguishing one from the other.

From Marta Acosta (HAPPY HOUR AT CASA DRACULA),
Simon & Schuster's Pocket Books, July 2006:

…I never succumbed to the romance of vampires, i.e., fancy accents, dinner jackets, silver bullets…The Catholic-based magic, like using Holy Water to burn vamps, seemed needlessly exclusionary. Why couldn't a Cross of David scorch them? How would a Muslim deter them? Why weren't there any Mexican vampires?

…We like to think we're more civilized now—we don't need to buy Medieval man's past-due-date superstitions. We can consider the vampire as a misunderstood outsider, a misfit, an anomaly who just wants a little TLC—and maybe a pint or two of hemoglobin. We want to psychoanalyze the vamp's childhood traumas, go for a ride in his muscle car, and say, “I feel your pain.” If the vampire once represented darkness and death, then the modern vampire represents our power over death via science, technology and plastic surgery. Or maybe we just like the way they talk fancy.

The modern vampire could be on the next bar stool over sipping a martini, acting as your secret protector, and maybe asking if you'll cosign his car loan.

Win prizes! share your comments about vampires, speculative fiction, and writing at thehollowfang@marioacevedo.com.

If selected, we'll post your comments in a future edition and send you a nifty gift.
———————————————————————
Obituaries (continued from page 32)

fondness,” said the comely young blonde. Ziegfried van Drek, or Ziggy, as he was known in his late-night cocktail clique, kept company with the Mayfair bohemian crowd in Denver. Swingers of both genders were readily accepted into Ziggy's entourage. “He had a murky side to his party-loving persona,” said Detective Colfax of the Denver Metro Police Squad. “Ziggy courted plenty of shady characters, among them dealers of ‘Jamacian tobacco,’ Columbian ‘nose-candy’ and fenced merchandise. I'm sure his demise is linked to Negroes or Mexicans from the west side.”

Robert Carcano.

We regret the recent passing of our editor, Robert “Bob” Carcano. A memorial service for the late Carcano was conducted earlier this week near the town of Last Chance, COLO. A transplant to Denver, Carcano was a Quality Control manager with the Front Range Blood Bank. He was active in the fantasy role-playing community and edited “The Hollow Fang” newsletter catering to aficionados of vampires and the undead. Contributions in his name can be (Continued on page 81)
———————————————————————
I write, I teach!

I teach a seminar on the Genre Novel with the Lighthouse Writers Workshops.