Jamie Rush: July 2010 Archives

Toni Kelner and I had a great chat about the exciting new anthology of (lucky!) thirteen deliciously dark tales, all by different authors. In Death's Excellent Vacation, editors Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner bring together a stellar collection of tour guides who offer vacations that are frightening, funny, and touching for the fanged, the furry, the demonic, and the grotesque. Learn why it really can be an endless summer-for immortals.

So of course we want to know about the new book, Death's Excellent Vacation. What's it about and why do you love it?

Death's Excellent Vacation is our take on the beach book.  We asked our contributors to write about supernatural creatures on vacation--that was our whole pitch--and Charlaine and I were just amazed at how many different takes on that simple theme people came up with.  I love how each story is both wonderful and wildly different from the others.

I see that this is the third anthology you've put together. I'd love to know how you and Charlaine came up with the idea to collaborate on this kind of project in the first place.

Frankly, I was drafted.  Martin Greenberg at Tekno Books was the one to come up with the idea of  Charlaine editing a vampire anthology.  I wasn't there, but I've imagined the conversation going something like this: