Jeannie Holmes: September 2010 Archives

From the delightful mysteries of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series to the brooding love affair of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga, vampires have taken over the literary world in recent years, especially the young adult market. Why do these creatures fascinate us? Is the fangs? The immortality? The youth?  And where did it all begin?

As a writer of vampire novels, I've often pondered these questions and know they're probably best left to the realm of scholars. However, I do enjoy discussing the topic with fellow writers and I recently had an opportunity to do just that, as well as ferret out some details on her new novel, iDrakula, with my good friend Bekka Black, aka Rebecca Cantrell.

Hey, Bekka. I'm glad you could take time from your busy schedule to answer a few questions. I'm really excited about your new book. iDrakula is a re-imagining of the classic Bram Stoker novel, Dracula, and is written using e-mails, text messages, web browsers, and search screens. How did the idea for retelling Stoker's tale through these modern forms of communication begin?

I was in a LA on my book tour for my novel, A Trace of Smoke, when I noticed tables of teenagers sitting silently next to each other. Intrigued, I asked one teen what they were doing. He rolled his eyes, but did look up at me long enough to say, "I'm texting her." He jerked his head to the side. I looked at him in shock and said, "But she's right next to you." He gave me that pitying look I used to give adults and went back to his work.