We Love Vampires Panel - April 29, 2010

We Love Vampires Panel

Lillian H. Smith Library, Toronto. Thursday, April 29, 2010

Tanya Huff, Robert Knowlton and Dr. Elizabeth Miller.

My friend Maggie informed me that there was going to be a panel discussion about vampires at a local library and one of the participants was going to be one of her favorite authors Tanya Huff. So I decided to attend. I’ve been to several panel discussions in the past, but always at conventions and never on their own. I did, however, find this one fascinating.

The panel consisted of Tanya Huff, Robert Knowlton and Dr. Elizabeth Miller.

And was moderated by Chris Szego.

Tanya Huff is a well-known Canadian author who writes paranormal stories. One of her series about a vampire living in Toronto was turned into a TV series called ‘Blood Ties’ and ran for two seasons.

Robert Knowlton is also writer but I am unfamiliar with his work, though he was very knowledgeable about the history of vampires in literature.

Dr. Elizabeth Miller is considered one of the most knowledgeable experts on Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula – about its origins in folklore, literature and history, as well as its influence on the culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

During this panel, the discussions ranged from the origins of vampire folklore to what different cultures believed – which included older vampires didn't drink blood but instead stole food or siphoned energy off the living.

Certain books were discussed and how they help further the legend of the modern-day vampire and how vampires didn't become sexual or good-looking until sex was introduced into the literature. Beforehand they were usually ugly monsters.

And of course there was the usual Twilight bashing, and talk about how well she (Stephenie Meyer) has brought a new life to paranormal literature. There was also talk about how badly her books written. Something I personally don't agree with, but hey that's me.

I did get some video of the panel discussion.

Why do we love Vampires:

Dracula Discussion:

Twilight:

The Vampire Hunter:

Buffy:

My Question:

After the panel Tanya did stay and sign some of her books for anyone that wanted her to and I got one of her Blood Books: Blood Trail. Which was really nice of her to do.

Afterwards, some headed out for a bite to eat and margaritas but I headed home, since that was a pretty tiring day.

Magie

Report edited by the WONDERFUL Ali! Thank you Ali!

Evolve book release and Kelley Armstrong Signing Friday April 9, 2010

Evolve, book release and Kelley Armstrong Signing

Friday April 9, 2010

World's Biggest Book Store, Toronto

Can I say just how much I love Twitter? I find it absolutely wonderful to get information that I normally would have missed.

One of the people I follow on Twitter is Kelley Armstrong. A few days before her reading and signing at the World's Biggest Bookstore, she tweeted a link to her schedule for upcoming events. And I saw that she had an upcoming reading at the World's Biggest Bookstore in just a few days. Since the World's Biggest Bookstore is in downtown Toronto and very close to where I work, I thought it might be fun to swing by and check it out.

I e-mailed my friend Maggie to see if she was up for joining me. Maggie was actually the one that introduced me to Kelley's books. She was the one that recommended I read them and since she had recommended other really good series to me I took her up on it and have been loving them ever since.

On the day of the event, Kelley also tweeted that the first person to ask about her upcoming book ‘Waking the Witch’ would also receive an advance reading copy of it. Once again let me mention just how much I love Twitter!

So the day of the reading came. Maggie and I met up and made our way to the bookstore and while we showed up 30-45 minutes early, we only just managed to snag the last two seats in the very back row. But we were much luckier than many who had to stand.

It turns out that the reading was actually a book release for the anthology: Evolve. It is a unique anthology because it is not only about the evolution of vampires but also contains stories written entirely by Canadian authors. And it was edited by Nancy Kilpatrick.

A good many of the authors who contributed a story were there, such as:

Kelley Armstrong
Claude Lalumiere
Rio Youers
Sandra Kasturi
Gemma Files
Jerome Stueart
Natasha Beaulieu
Kevin Nunn
Victoria Fisher
And the editor Nancy Kilpatrick

After a short introduction and explanation of what the book was about, the editor Nancy Kilpatrick told us how she came up with the idea and how she went about contacting the authors she wanted to contribute to it and then how the anthology came to be.

Afterwards, each of the authors got an opportunity to speak. Some of them talked about their stories in general – in some cases because they couldn't read from their stories in the anthology because and I quote “it's a little too porny. for the PG crowd” – and others actually read from their stories in the book.

While I had primarily been there to see Kelley, I found myself very much enjoying both the readings and the tales behind how they came up with their stories.

Kelley was the last one to speak and she read part of her story from the anthology. It was about her Toronto vampire, Zoe. I have asked her on numerous occasions why she hasn't done A Women of the Other World book with either Cassandra or Zoe (the two female vampires) as the protagonists. She has stated that she just doesn't write vampires as well as she does werewolves or witches. However, she does find that they are excellent leads in short stories and has done a number of them.

After all the authors had spoken, they open the floor up to questions. I was first to ask one (not much of a surprise, since I like being first), and I asked Kelley when Waking the Witch was coming out as well as what she could tell us about the story. This was in fact on a list of questions that I had prepared beforehand, it just wasn't first, but because of her Twitter contest I changed it to the first question that I asked.

I'm not sure if everyone else understood why Kelley was amused by the question, but I guess she figured out that I was one of her Tweeple. She let us know a little bit about the plot, nothing that would give anything away, and that it was her first novel which centered around Savannah, a character we had first met when she was 12 in her second book ‘Stolen’. Savannah was now 21 and a force to be reckoned with.

Several other questions were asked to both Kelley as well as the other authors, about both their work in the anthology as well is their other work. It was quite an interesting set of questions, most of them very insightful (that's the joy being around bookie people).

I did get to ask one of my other questions, also for Kelley, if she would be tweeting as any of her characters again. Prior to the release of her book ‘Frostbitten’, which was about Elena (a female werewolf) she had started tweeting as Elena. I found the tweets really entertaining, considering they were supposed to be coming from the fictional character.

Kelley did say that she had thought about it that she originally thought about having Clay do the tweeting then changed her mind when she realized the Clay would be the last person to ever go on a social network. But she did consider perhaps having Savannah tweet. She never did,but that might have had something to do with her crazy schedule in the upcoming months.

After the Q&A, they had a book signing, people were welcome to either bring up a copy of Evolve or if they had another book they could get that signed. I had actually purchased Evolve and had brought some books of my own for Kelley to sign.

They called people up row by row and then had everyone who was standing line up for the signing. Due to some confusion Maggie and I ended up being among the last people to go through. That was because Maggie would let the people who had been standing in line in front us (even though we had a right to be as we had been there first) because she disagreed with how the bookstore was running the signing. I understood her stand on the matter I just disagreed with the action – something I pointed out to her at the time.

First I went through the other authors who had stories in Evolve. Most of them are really nice and spent some time talking to me or joking about my name (the fact that I only spell it with one ‘G’).

Then I lined up separately for Kelley. Since she had the longest line, they had actually separated the lines (and where the problem started for Maggie).

When I got to Kelley, her first words after ‘Hi, how are you’ were ‘I owe you a book’ and she pulled out the advance reading copy of Waking the Witch. This is really cool for me, since it meant I got to read it almost 4 months before it would be released, and I got the book free! Once again, let me point out how much me loves Twitter!

Kelley and I also had a great conversation about her YA series and what was to come in the next one. I did tell her I had a bone to pick with her about the name because she'd held a contest and I had submitted the name that was used but somebody else got the credit. She promised to look into it and get back to me.

*She did send me a message on Facebook, stating that I had submitted the name ‘The Dark Rising’ and the name chosen was ‘The Darkness Rising’. I thought it was the same, but her publisher disagreed and I guess it's enough of a difference so I can't fault her. Oh well, maybe next time.*

Once we were done, and by now almost everyone had left including some of the authors, Maggie and I headed out to dinner. All in all it was a fun night and I quite enjoyed myself!

Magie

PS. Oh and while this has nothing to do with the signing some one did bring the worlds smallest dog to the store and I snapped a picture of it. I swear it fit in the one hand and was maybe 1 pound if that! It was really cute!

Report Edited by the WONDERFUL Ali! Thank you Ali!