Singer Jill Tracy sent me news about an amazing-sounding event taking place in San Francisco this Friday. Here's her info...
Bela Lugosi's TRUE BLOOD BALL Friday, July 2. Doors at 7:30pm. DNA LOUNGE, SAN FRANCISCO Tickets and info HERE.
"I will be playing piano and singing with the legendary David J (Bauhaus/Love and Rockets.) Expect some brand-new tunes, dark classical twists on old favorites, midnight dancing, and songs about vampires! Featuring LA producer/ multi-instrumentalist Shok, guitarist Kenny Annis, and master percussionist Randy Odell. (Yes, you know them from The Malcontent Orchestra!) Plus Three Bad Jacks and Bloodwire." --Jill Tracy
Doors open early with dance lessons before the concert! (Bands will not get underway until after 9:30pm)
For a taste of Jill Tracy's musical style, here's my favorite of her videos:
Popular vampire enthusiasts and fine art site Vampire Empire announced a Win Bella Swan's Engagement Ring Contest, offering Twilight fans a chance to win an official fashion reproduction of the ring Edward Cullen gives to Bella when her proposes to her. The contest rules appear below the video clip.
The Edward Cullens ring as described in The Twilight Saga is yellow gold; however, the video above depicts the white gold. The winner of the contest will have their choice of either white gold or yellow.
Vampire-empire.com states the contest is EASY and fun to enter for any Twilight fan. Just write an original content post on why Edward Cullen rocks!
To view current entries, for more information, for official rules, or to enter the contest, please visit: http://www.vampire-empire.com/edward-cullens.html. Entries for the contest are being accepted through July 11, 2010.
I awoke curled on my side, facing the wall. The oil lamp still illuminated my golden wallpaper in a muted glow, but the blackness of night crowded around me. My heartbeat echoed inside the mattress, sounding like a second heart pounding within the bed.
Someone was with me.
- From Blackbirds by Cat Winters
I'd like to introduce you to an author who's extremely close to me (I'll tell you how close in a moment): Cat Winters.
When she was seven years old, Cat found a book about "real" ghosts in her school library and was both terrified and mesmerized by the idea that ghosts might actually exist. From that point forward, she became hooked on haunting tales.
She's now working on Blackbirds, a young adult gothic historical novel that's a blend of ghost story, mystery, fantasy, horror, love story, and coming-of-age tale. . . with a touch of steampunk. Her goal is to deliver the manuscript to her agent in early 2011.
Who is this Cat Winters and what has she done up to this point in her life? Well, she's actually me--my new alter ego for my young adult fiction. I've decided to use a pen name to differentiate my teen books from my adult novels.
My inbox runeth over, so I'm compiling some of the announcements I've received into one post. There's certainly no lack of vampire entertainment out there.
From the publisher...
"Alternately narrated by Watson and the charismatic Dracula himself, Seance for a Vampire demonstrates that heroes are sometimes found in the most unlikely places. Saberhagen has recast Bram Stoker's paragon of evil into a noble, witty and chillingly powerful character." Available from Titan Books and Amazon.
Epitaph: Bread and Salt: Director Nathyn Brendan Masters is currently shooting a vampire film based on a series of upcoming comics from Night Phoenix Press.
From the Epitaph: Bread and Salt production notes...
"The Defenders of Eden, a family of Estrie hunters, take on The Reign of Chaos, a union of dark cults with one goal, to drive the world into darkness and to rise to godhood. As the world falls further away from light, Chicago becomes a battleground, where evil spirits gain the power to become flesh and enter our world. But when the Defender's prophetic leader Rabbi Benjamin Jacobson's visions lead him to Victor Locke, a man with the power to fight these supernatural creatures, the tide may turn in their secret war...if he chooses to join their fight. This film stands as a prequel to the comic series."
Samson's Lovely Mortal: Erotica author Tina Folsom alerted me to the publication of her newest novel, available from Smashwords and Amazon.
Vampire-Con starts today! If you're in Southern California, be sure to head to the New Beverly Cinema this evening through Sunday. For all the details, visit Vampire-Con.com.
The second annual Vampire-Con Film Festival starts tomorrow, June 24, and runs through June 26 at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. The L.A. Times just featured the festival in their article "Vampire Con's Anti-'Twilight' Stance: Go for the Jugular". For all the details, visit Vampire-Con.com.
I guess I don't watch ABC enough--and I wasn't reading the TV section of my Entertainment Weekly too closely--because I completely missed that the new ABC series The Gates is about vampires. Did anyone watch it? What did you think?
In case you missed out on the promos, too, I'm including one the trailers for the series below. The Gates airs on Sundays at 10/9 Central.
I've been on the hunt for a video for today's featured song, "Dracula's Daughter" by Colin Meloy of The Decemberists, from his solo album, Colin Meloy Sings Live! Because the song hails from a live album, all the videos are from concerts. Hopefully, you can ignore the throngs of fans screaming in the background and catch him singing about the woes of having Dracula for a dad. I figured it was appropriate, being the day after Father's Day. The song that appears right afterward is "O Valencia!" by The Decemberists.
The winner of the autographed copy of Saudra Mitchell's Shadowed Summer is Marianna. Congratulations! Please send your snail mail address to catkarp at gmail dot com.
Thanks to Saundra for the giveaway, and thanks to everyone who entered by sharing whether or not you believe in ghosts. If you didn't win, be sure to find a copy of Saundra's book and check out her fantastic ghostly tale. You can read my interview with her here.
July 16th: L.A. Leammle Sunset 5
July 23rd: San Diego Gaslamp Theater
I wish I still lived in San Diego so I could head to the Gaslamp. Such a perfect place for a vampire flick.
Speaking of ideal vampire locations, how about beneath your house? I found Tessa Gratton's vampire short story, "The Vampire Box," online at Merry Sisters of Fate. The wonderfully intriguing opening line: We have a vampire living in our basement. Tessa's novel Blood Magic will be available from Random House summer 2011.
Friday morning at 8:00 AM Pacific Time is my deadline for entering to win a signed copy of Saundra Mitchell's Shadowed Summer. Enter today!
Today's featured song, Danish musician Mads Langer's "Beauty of the Dark," has been heard in The Vampire Diaries (Episode 5: "You're Undead to Me"). I found a gorgeous acoustic version of the song, so I'm sharing it below. The video doesn't contain any Vampire Diaries clips, but it's an excellent way to enjoy the lyrics. "Beauty of the Dark" is from Langer's 2009 album, Mads Langer. You can download it for free at fan.musicglue.com or buy it at iTunes.
At the end of May, I started thinking about June being quite a month for vampire mega-releases. True Blood just kicked off its third season on HBO almost an hour ago (on the east coast), and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse debuts in theaters June 30. So, I asked my visitors, "Which June vampire release are you most excited about seeing?"
Here are the results. . .
True Blood: Season Three: 64% The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: 33% Neither of the Above: 3%
Suburban Vampire receives several hits from visitors looking for the True Blood theme song, which may explain the HBO series' huge lead over Eclipse. Whatever the case, congrats to Sookie and company for holding their own against Team Cullen and crowd. In celebration, here's Jace Everett singing the aforementioned True Blood theme song, "Bad Things."
Joining me today is Saundra Mitchell, author of Shadowed Summer, the tale of a fourteen-year-old Louisiana girl who finds herself communicating with the ghost of a teen missing for over twenty years. The novel was a 2010 Edgar Nominee for Best Young Adult Novel, and it won The Society of Midland Authors Book Award for Children's Fiction. Shadowed Summer just came out in paperback June 8, so Saundra is here to give you the behind-the-scenes scoop on this gripping mystery.
Catherine Karp: Shadowed Summer opens in the perfect setting for a ghost story: a Louisiana cemetery. Where did the novel start for you? In other words, how did the idea and characters first come to you?
Saundra Mitchell: This novel started when Iris showed up in my head in the spring of 2002. All I knew was that her name was Iris Rhame, her best friend's name was Collette, and she lived in Louisiana. Usually, when a character appears, they want something--and that's how I build the story, working through what the characters want.
But not Iris. She didn't say anything, she wouldn't do anything. No matter how much I poked at her, she just loomed there. It was like having someone read over your shoulder for months at a time. Finally, I decided I would force the issue--I decided I'd write a paranormal love story, one that made me feel the way Annette Curtis Klause's The Silver Kiss had made me feel when I was seventeen.
Oh, then Iris had something to say. She didn't want to fall in love with the ghost. The ghost didn't want to fall in love with her. So drafting Shadowed Summer became an exercise in figuring out what Iris didn't want, and writing down the opposite. I know all of this sounds a little woo-woo, but imaginary people don't realize they're imaginary. So it's a challenge sometimes to corral them.
CK: The novel takes place in tiny, fictional Ondine, Louisiana, home to "364 good people and 3 cranky old coots." Why did you decide upon this particular setting? And do you have any theories why Louisiana makes for such an attractive spot for ghost and vampire stories?
SM: Louisiana has an extraordinary lineage. You can get from what is now Pennsylvania all the way to the Gulf of Mexico by riverway, so people have been coming and going through Louisiana since there were people to come and go.
As residents, the Choctaw and Chitimacha imprinted their influence on the land, followed by the Spanish, who left theirs, and of course, the English. The French influence is the most obvious to us today, but half of that came to Louisiana by way of the Acadians--French colonists who originally settled in Canada.
Because New Orleans has always been a bustling sea port, there are Haitian influences, African influences, Cuban, Irish and German- it's a place unlike any other in the United States. The region has its own cuisine, its own language, and its own point of view.
The scenery is romantic, the above-ground cemeteries are gothic, and when you have that much living history in a single place, of course it makes sense to see the ghosts of the past walking among the living. I think writers tap into that. There's 10,000 years of continuous history in this rich piece of land--it makes a perfect home for the immortal and the incorporeal.
CK: Your main character, Iris, has such a wonderful, authentic voice that doesn't sound like an adult writer trying to come across as a fourteen year old. Did you find it difficult getting inside the head of a young teen?
SM: Thank you so much! I mentioned earlier that Iris was kind of stubborn and obnoxious. I'm not sure I ever got into her head, but I definitely struggled (with her, and with me) to make her real. The real trick was making sure that Iris wasn't more intellectually experienced than she could be for her age, without being patronizing about how smart someone can be at fourteen.
CK: Your ghost, Elijah, doesn't say much more than the chilling line, "Where y'at, Iris?" How did you decide how much we'd see and hear of him?
SM: I didn't want anyone--least of all Iris--to get comfortable or familiar with Elijah. The things we know don't scare us--the scent of burning wood is great when it's coming from your fireplace. But when it wakes you up in the middle of the night, it's terrifying. I limited the ways Eli could communicate so that he would always be smoke in the night.
CK: Your bio says you're a fan of ghost hunting? Please tell us a little about your ghostly adventures.
SM: Now that I have children, I don't get to go hunting much anymore. But through my teens and twenties, my friends and I enjoyed studying local ghost lore, and going out in search of the unknown. Funnily enough, we never found anything when we went looking, but occasionally, I stumbled on something strange and inexplicable.
In college, I had a friend whose off-campus rental was haunted by spectral dogs. No one ever saw them, but every night around 2:00 am, they would start barking under the house. No dogs in the neighborhood, definitely no dogs in the house--but they would snarl and bark viciously, and they seriously sounded like they were under the floorboards. It was creeptastic, and we ended up moving my friend out before his lease was up.
CK: What are some of your favorite ghost stories (in books and/or film)?
CK: I'm a huge fan of historical novels, especially historicals that involve the paranormal, so I was thrilled to read that your next project, The Vespertine, is an otherworldly tale set in 1889 Baltimore. Please tell us more about it.
SM: I'm so excited about this book. I can't wait until I can share it with everybody! The Vespertine is about a Victorian teen named Amelia, who gets to spend a summer in Baltimore with family--theoretically, in search of a husband. But when she arrives, she discovers she can catch glimpses of the future at sunset.
This makes Amelia and her new best friend very popular--everybody wants to spend time with the girl who can tell their future! Her summer becomes a delicious whirlwind of social calls and secret powers--and the poor artist Amelia finds herself drawn to is keeping a secret himself.
But when Amelia starts to predict disaster instead of delights, the people around her start to wonder if she's not just the seeing these things, but causing them. I had so much fun writing this novel--there's mystery and intrigue, gorgeous gowns and unsuitable boys. I really love it, and I hope readers will love it, too!
CK: Where can readers learn more about you and your books?
SM: I have an author website at www.saundramitchell.com (with links to websites for my novels!) you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SaundraMitchell, or join my mailing list at http://eepurl.com/m8yr. It's a low-traffic list (maybe one or two messages a month, at most). I post secrets and news there, long before any of it goes live on my website!
CK: Thanks so much for joining me, Saundra. Best wishes to you, Shadowed Summer, The Vespertine, and other upcoming projects.
For a chance to win an autographed copy of Shadowed Summer, leave a comment saying whether or not you believe in ghosts. Saundra has graciously offered to ship the winning book anywhere in the world, so the contests isn't just for U.S. and Canadian residents. Deadline: Friday, June 18, 8:00 AM Pacific Time.
The winner of Karin Harlow's contest for an Enemy Lover L.O.S.T. mug is Zina. Congratulations! Please send you snail mail address to catkarp [at] gmail.com.
Thanks so much to Karin Harlow for joining us at Suburban Vampire and for offering her fabulous prize. Thanks also to everyone who entered. Now head on out and buy a copy of Enemy Lover!
Singer Jill Tracy sent me news about an amazing-sounding event taking place in San Francisco this Friday. Here's her info...
Just released today is electrogothrock band 
." I'm attaching the video, as well as a sample of another one of their songs, "Dr. Night." For more Mach FoX info and some free music downloads, check out 
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Séance for a Vampire: Titan Books just released a novel by Fred Saberhagen that reinvents Dracula as Sherlock Holmes's cousin! 
demonstrates that heroes are sometimes found in the most unlikely places. Saberhagen has recast Bram Stoker's paragon of evil into a noble, witty and chillingly powerful character." Available from 
by Colin Meloy of 
Because the song hails from a live album, all the videos are from concerts. Hopefully, you can ignore the throngs of fans screaming in the background and catch him singing about the woes of having Dracula for a dad. I figured it was appropriate, being the day after Father's Day. The song that appears right afterward is 
by The Decemberists. 
is Marianna. Congratulations! Please send your snail mail address to catkarp at gmail dot com.
Today's featured song, Danish musician 
, which may explain the HBO series' huge lead over Eclipse. Whatever the case, congrats to Sookie and company for holding their own against Team Cullen and crowd. In celebration, here's Jace Everett singing the aforementioned True Blood theme song, "
had made me feel when I was seventeen. 
SM: Ooooh, this list could go on forever. In movies, I loved 
, 
, and 
. In fiction, I love 
by Betty Ren Wright, 
by Megan Crewe, 
by Marilyn Nelson and Tonya C. Hegamin; I'm very much looking forward to 
's anthologies, and pretty much everything written by Beth Scott and Michael Norman (
is my favorite.) 
The winner of 
!