Tag Interview with the Vampire

Fiction Fragments: Andrew Robertson

Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Last week, I spoke with the Darque Bard, James Matthew Byers about his passion for epic poetry.

This week, Girl Meets Monster welcomes horror writer Andrew Robertson.


Andrew Robertson is an award-winning queer horror writer and former journalist. In October 2021, his short story “Sick is the New Black” will appear in the gay-themed multi-genre anthology Pink Triangle Rhapsody: Volume 1 from Lycan Valley Press. He is currently working on a novelization of the same story, exploring themes of queerness, addiction, fame, anti-vaxxers and the toxic nature of post-pandemic life in a culture locked in the thrall of social media. He will also be introducing the Mythimals this month by launching his first monstrous children’s book, And Then The Fart Happened, on the Great Lakes Horror Company Kids imprint with illustrations by LizzDom and colour and layout by Dinis Freitas.

Also scheduled for 2021, his short story Sundowning in Klarissa Dreams Redux is headed to space! The charity anthology will be flying to the moon in July via the United Launch of a Vulcan Centaur rocket as part of Peregrine Mission One – Manifest 9: #WritersOnTheMoon. This book will be part of the largest single collection of contemporary artwork ever put on the Moon, and it will fly there on the first commercial lunar flight in history.

Andrew’s fiction has appeared in literary magazines and quarterlies such as Stitched Smile Publications Magazine, Deadman’s Tome, Undertow, and katalogue. He has also appeared in anthologies including Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland, A Tribute Anthology to Deadworld, Group Hex Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. He is the editor of Dark Rainbow: Queer Erotic Horror, which explores the darker urges we all face.

A lifelong fan of horror, he is the founder of The Great Lakes Horror Company podcast and indie press and a member of the Horror Writer’s Association.

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Andrew. Back in August 2020, I interviewed horror writer Hailey Piper. Her Twitter profile encourages people to “Make horror gay AF.” What does that statement mean to you as writer? How has your identity shaped your writing over time? Has it evolved, and how? How do you define queer horror, and what sets it apart from other flavors of the genre?

AR: First, I wanted to say thanks for having me on GMM! I’ve been reading all the interviews and excerpts and they’ve been great.

For me, being queer has always meant feeling like an outsider, and when you feel that way, you have a choice of embracing your queerness or hiding it away. When people are othered, it comes from a place of fear in the dominant society, and with fear comes ignorance, and both lead to violence, in words and actions. For most of us, I think that feeling of otherness comes from societies fear of what queerness is, this great unknown, often characterized by over the top characterizations of masculinity and femininity along with a lot of really damaging stereotypes that come from those. Growing up in the 80s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and seeing how vilified queer people were as scapegoats for a disease that knew no sexualities, it was really difficult to come to terms with being queer when that seemed to be a death sentence one way or another. You internalize a duality that informs how you act in a given situation, and what you can or should do or say. It’s awful…horrific in fact.

The media did a great job of turning gay men in particular into total pariahs and then the gay community further segmented their own population by favouring the healthy muscular look as opposed to those who could look ‘sick’. You had to fit into the cookie cutter mold or you were stigmatized and rejected. You tend to internalize that feeling of ugliness, along with a lot of the hate that spreads in society, especially when you can be easily clocked as queer. I may have been closeted, but I still dyed my hair blue, wore pigtails and dog collars, and loved Tina Turner and Siouxsie Sioux more than you would expect from a straight man.

The way queerness comes into my writing is through a lot of the themes I write about, like the desire to be seen, to be accepted, or in my recent work in progress, to do things that you would never normally do just to break through to the mainstream and get those ‘likes’ at any cost. There are also themes of hidden identities, duality, self-destruction, transformation, anger, resentment, and revenge which can be pretty common in queer horror. It’s not always at the forefront, but it’s always there however it becomes refined over time.

GMM: When did you begin writing horror, and who were some of your favorite writers who influenced you? Has that list changed over time? Have your tastes in horror changed? What are your favorite subgenres in fiction and film?

AR: I always enjoyed writing, and would scribble up short stories in high school that were pretty well informed by my goth interests, but in university I headed in the direction of journalism, telling other peoples stories instead of my own. That always preyed on my thoughts. It wasn’t until I met Sephera Giron a few years back that I got serious about it again, joined the HWA Ontario Chapter and got published. She’s a great cheerleader. Like the Demon Aunt I’ve always wanted.

For writers, one of my favourites has always been Anne Rice. She created a very queer universe for her characters in the Vampire Chronicles and beyond. Louis and Lestat are very clearly in a bromance turned romance, going as far as to create a small vampire family as poor Louis struggles with what and who he is. You can really relate to that as a gay man raised in the 80s. The Witching Hour made me want to create a universe, so that’s probably my turning point.

I think you can find horror in anything really, like the writing of Harry Crews. That’s a real trip, and I guess the genre is grit lit.

I also absolutely love the confrontational writing of Lydia Lunch, in particular, her classic Paradoxia: A Predator’s Diary. That would likely fall under non-fiction, it’s so very autobiographical, but entirely literary. She really controls her own narrative and I’ve been lucky enough to meet her a few times.

Clive Barker’s body of work is also incredible, The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks was an eye-opener, and I’ve loved recent work by Indigenous writers like Cherie Dimaline, and Waubgeshig Rice. As a genre hopping reader, right now I’m also enjoying the Diary of Anais Nin and a few works by Tama Janowitz.

For film, my go to is always, always horror, with a particular love for the Hellraiser franchise, classic monsters, 80s slashers, and found footage films.

GMM: I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that “Hamburger Lady” falls under the category of body horror. Tell me about the story and what about body horror appeals to you as a writer? As a reader?

AR: Haha, yes that story is definitely body horror. So much of my work is!

I think that it comes from my fascination with perceived or actual self-destruction, or the wilful destruction of another, and what we are willing to do to survive or succeed. Body horror has always been particularly triggering for me, however I’ve found that rather than pushing me away, it held me rapt. There are so many ways the body can betray us, and so many ways it can disgust us.

That fascination led me to writing in that genre. For example, The Fly was such a landmark film for me in many ways, as was Hellraiser. I love Pinhead! I watched them through my fingers the first time, but couldn’t stop, you know that feeling? We all do! That’s why we slow down near a car crash, to see what could have happened to us. Both films can be read as very queer, and both deal with pushing the limits of the human body and mortality.

There are also so many ways we can transform our bodies. I used to go on body modification sites to see what people were up to, with a sense of morbid fascination and respect for what an individual would do to live their truth. When I discovered what subtraction is I was gobsmacked! I also was obsessed with the artist Orlan and her work in plastic surgery using her own body as the canvas.

The title of my excerpt, Hamburger Lady, is a reference to the song by Throbbing Gristle. I recommend everyone listen to it. The lyrics are actually from a real letter penned by a doctor describing a woman who was a burn victim in a hospital ward, and it’s one of those things you never forget. You wonder at what point keeping someone alive is a punishment meant to exercise the might of science over mercy. My story deals with a future where a disease ravages the skin of those who contract it, leading to the market for skin dealers and donors. I’ll leave it at that for now, but if anyone wants to add the full text to their anthology, I’m game.

Excerpt from “Hamburger Lady”

“My client doesn’t want the whole cheek. She won’t need that much for what’s…well, I’ll say for what’s wrong with her. I mean, we’re friends here at this point, you know the drill. She just wants this part,” Dr. Sawney the Plastician says to Kate, indicating the area by running his damp index finger along what the industry calls the apple of the cheek.

The apple: where women like Kate are meant to put a simple highlight or blush before they go out with men who want to look at them adoringly and see absolutely no flaws at all. Even a light rash or pimple is a bonerkiller. Flaws mean the men aren’t flush enough to pay for the best, and their financial peacocking is what gets them hard. The men want to be envied by all the other bucks and stags at the chosen restaurant, bar or fast food joint, and then with all the chivalry absent from this new world, pay for everything before the two of them have what any of these men are sure is incredible sex fueled by their show of chauvinist financial superiority. It will be better for him. Every time. All these men benefitted for the fallout of the most recent of many pandemics. Women were shoved right back down to where they had been over a century earlier- the second choice for any good job, any decent benefits, any rights at all really. And if you weren’t perfect, you were invisible.

The type of man Kate meets hopes and probably believes he isn’t directly paying for this great sex with all his other nice efforts. He wants to be enough of an attraction all by his handsome self even if he leaves a few hundred on the nightstand afterward. And aside from this beau’s assumptions and assertions, no one wants to bring a bruised produce to his lips if there are better options.

She resists the urge to wipe the moisture off when the Plastician is done. And regardless of the circumstances, imaginary or otherwise, in this case, the apple is still quite attached to the tree.

She can’t believe she’s back at the Sawney clinic in Room Three. The minute she passed through the front door, she felt trapped by her own circumstance. The receptionist with the awful makeup sat there looking surprised as always that anyone would come into this terrible place to give away parts of themselves. The door between reception and the treatment rooms stood in its menacing steel frame, locked until the receptionist hit her button and the mechanism snapped the door open so she could begin what always felt like the longest walk ever to Room Three. They might as well name this Kate’s Room.

As his finger returns to again run across her apparently perfect apple, Kate can smell the onions he had with lunch on his fingers and breath even through his surgical mask. She doesn’t move. She knows her rank. A high-end skin-dealer as skilled as he is means that he can be a bit gross and never hear a complaint from a client or well-compensated vendor. Donors he calls them, like it’s a charity for the poor rich folks.

She can see the sauce from his lunch at the top of his mask, which he wears constantly to remind everyone that he is the surgeon and that it’s his name on the door. Unfortunately, the majority of his skill is used on the end consumer, not so much on ‘donors’ such as herself who make do with whatever they have left after they are harvested and paid. Either way, right now, she can’t even afford an onion or an apple, and can’t be picky about who is cutting off what. But she doesn’t want to give away anything above her neck if she doesn’t have to. Her own clients choose her because, unlike many of the other girls, she is mostly intact. She is, however, terrified of how broke she’s become, and what could happen if she stops paying for her mothers’ treatments at the community hospital.

When she left their apartment for this appointment, her mother looked up through eyelids covered in weeping sores and told Kate that her smile was enough to get her through any day, no matter how bad they became. She said Kate was born with a perfect smile, one that made the sun shine, and that it was her greatest achievement as a mother. Kate’s heart broke but it got her moving. One day they could leave this country and find somewhere to live out their days where things weren’t so bad. But right now, this man in a dirty mask reeking of onions wanted to cut off a piece of her face.

“How’s that going to look, man?” She asks incredulous, thinking of the quivering torso in a wheelchair she had noticed when she had entered the clinic. The torso had been rolling into the neighbouring chamber, Room Two, assisted by one of the Plastician’s assistants. It had been almost entirely covered in a tacky sheet. There was no way that…torso was a complete person, she thought. It had no legs for one thing. And where the sheet didn’t cover the face, it looked like a meatloaf had exploded, with one bulging left eye like a hyper grape darting around a fleshy socket. Its gaze had landed on Kate long enough to freak her out.

She didn’t know if it was a ‘donor’ or someone being treated, but things were so bad it could have very well been someone making the ultimate sacrifice to feed a family or stay out of the mines. The sheet looked sticky, and the torso seemed to be struggling to get one arm with stumpy fingers up to its’ awful face past what could have been the remains of a breast while the assistant kept slapping the hand away. It held something wet and bloody. What was it trying to look at? Was it chewing a hangnail?

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

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Women in Horror Month Fiction Fragments: Aziza Sphinx

Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Wednesday, I chatted with Violette Meier about her writing, what inspires her, and she shared a fragment of her soon to be released Oracles.

Today, Girl Meets Monster welcomes Aziza Sphinx. I met Aziza in a chat room during Multiverse this past year. We were the only ones in the room, which might have been awkward, but I ended up having a very interesting conversation. We shared our thoughts on the political climate, why we write horror and other dark speculative fiction, and what we were working on at the time. Connecting with other writers who look like you can really make a difference. Community is everything.

Aziza Sphinx sees the world through peaches and pecans and a canopy of weeping willows. Family matters, and not just blood, for those who care for us are the truest who stand and fall during the winding road. When the hills and valleys of the journey summon and the pen becomes mightier than the sword, this is the world Aziza Sphinx breathes for.

Ten Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster and thank you for being part of my first Women in Horror Month series, Aziza.  What projects are you currently working on? Is horror your primary genre, or do you write in other genres? If you write in other genres, which do you feel most comfortable writing, and why?

AS: I’ll preface my answers to these questions in the context of the idea that I am not always the writer of my stories. I am an empath and I channel my characters, so I walk the role of the scribe while not necessarily controlling the story content. I have quite a few projects in the works which span multiple genres. The Nai, a race of entities with energy manipulation responsibilities, have been speaking as of late so I’ve been a bit focused on that alien origins stories for the Of Lies and Nai series. My wraiths and reapers are still at odds and I believe The Burning Queen has said her due and is ready for the world to read her tale. For me, comfort comes from sanity. So long as I do as I’m told and write the stories of the voices in my head, I write in whichever genre they deem appropriate for their stories.

GMM: When did you first know that you were a horror writer? How did you develop an interest in the genre? What initially attracted you to horror stories? Which writers influenced you then? Which writers influence you now?

AS: I’ve been writing dark stories since I was a child. Some of the love grew out of exposure from events in my life and others from my favorite books and shows. I grew up in the time of old school comics and television such as Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside, and Twilight Zone. These were staples in my household, and I find myself to this day still venturing back to watch them.

Though I was exposed to authors such as Amiri Baraka, Octavia Butler, and Maryse Conde at an early age due to my mother being an English teacher, truth be told, as far as influence is concerned, my writing is more influenced by mythos, mythology, history, legend, theoretical science, and transpersonal psychology than the writings of others both stylistically and in content.

GMM: The documentary, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019), explores Black horror and the portrayal (and absence) of Black people in horror movies. As a definition of what Black horror means begins to take shape, Tananarive Due says “Black history is Black horror.” What do you think she meant by that? Can you give an example of how this idea shows up in your own work?

AS: I’m inclined to agree with the assessment that “Black history is Black horror.” As I look around at my experiences and listen to the stories of others in my community Black history both past and in its ever-evolving state, is a form of horror I would not wish on a friend nor an enemy. It shows up in my writings in the subtle manipulations of intentional omissions for the sake of those in power to control the narrative of the very entities they proclaim to be protecting. As one of my characters so eloquently reiterates, “selective omission is still a lie.”

GMM: As a WOC writing horror/dark speculative fiction, do you feel obligated to have a deeper message in your stories? Can writers of color write stories without broader messages about identity, class, and racism? Is it possible to divorce yourself from that ongoing narrative within our culture when you set out to write a story?

AS: Because I am but the conduit from which my stories are told, I am less inclined to feel obligated to structure my stories with a deeper message. However, with the nature of the transpersonal as an influence, I do find deeper meaning in the experiences of my characters. Whether from unconventional ideas and approaches to what could be black and white situations to the questioning of the actions of ancient civilizations within the context of their view of existence during their time and even being open to anything as a future possibility my characters reflect on these options as they stumble their way through their own revelations. Whether intentional or not I can see in my stories a replay of events in my life through both a fictional representation and a therapeutic lens affording me the courage to face and comprehend the trauma of present-day culture and society and continue to contribute in the ways that I can to help others like myself see themselves as important even when society tries to reiterate, we are not.

GMM: What are your top five favorite horror movies, and why? Top five horror novels? Which book or movie scared you the most?

AS: Movies: Vampire Hunter D; Bloodlust because of its exploration of not just the idea of evil that has traditionally surrounded the role of vampires in storytelling, but because of the psychological motivation presented in the characters and what drives them in their quests. Blood, gore, and sheer terror are fulfilled with the Russian movie Nightwatch (2004) and The Host (Gwoemul, 2006) both of which focus on the fear of unknown creatures lurking in the darkness. Though cheesy by today’s standards I still love to lounge around with Tales from the Hood playing in the background. And for the movie that made me suspicious of every doll in existence even before Chucky’s reign Dolls (1987).

Books: I love a good vampire story from both the perspective of the hunter and the hunted, so I fell in love with Minion by L.A. Banks the first time I stumbled upon it in a bookstore. And because I have an affinity for cemeteries myself, Amana Stevens’ The Kingdom fills the need in her character Amelia Gray’s desire to discover why she is called The Graveyard Queen. The rhythmic cadence of The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe draws me in and soothes the poetic desire that sometimes gnaws at my psyche. Smoke and Shadows by Tanya Huff reminds me that ghost stories come in many forms and so do protagonists, while Kelley Armstrong’s Omens melds the modern world with mythology.

As for the movie or book that scares me the most, I will admit that Dolls is at the top of the list. Not just because of the creep factor, the beady little eyes of every toy stalking prey in the night; but also because of the cultural parallels as many believe dolls and other possessions contain a piece of the soul of their owners.

GMM: How do you feel about white-identifying writers who write stories about non-white characters? What problems have you encountered? What potential issues do you see with white-identifying writers telling BIPOC stories? What advice would you give those writers?

AS: For me, the fact that we are still having the conversation about white-identifying writers writing stories about non-white characters continues to pour salt in a festering wound. The question itself is a constant reminder that those controlling the capitalist machine continue to value stories about non-white characters only when written through the eyes of white identified writers. That BIPOC writers are not worthy of access to the machine’s markets when telling their own stories with their own voices. For any white-identifying writer who deems it absolutely necessary for the core of their story to include a non-white character in a primary role, instead of sequestering a person providing you incite for the sake of authenticity to the role of a resource thanked into obscurity in the acknowledgement section, give the person the opportunity to share your platform as a co-writer and allow them to tell that part of the story in the most authentic way.

I’ve had the greater challenge of being informed that my Black characters aren’t authentic in academia more than anywhere else. Specifically, I was taking a course and receiving feedback that my Black characters weren’t authentic and that I was portraying stereotypes and needed to change my stories. Because this was a course for academic credits, I signed up using my legal name so those providing feedback assumed I was not Black either because of my name or the choice of language presented in my writing. Their responses only reiterated the idea that my experience as a Black woman writing my story from my perspective could only be told from what they deemed to be an acceptable point of view. That my character’s actions and responses were only a stereotype and not authentically portraying what may have been a true to life experience from someone in the Black community.

GMM: All writers have experienced some form of impostor syndrome. What has your experience with impostor syndrome been like? Did you ever have a particularly bad case of it? If so, what caused it and how did you manage it?

AS: Because my writing tends to be an amalgamation of genres imposter syndrome rears its head when faced with the challenge of classification for publishing purposes. Having to balance the need to categorize my works within the current market restraints while understanding the idea of reader expectation has led to the frustration of feeling as though my stories will be judged with the eye of one set of reader’s expectations while not being afforded with another classification option for the wider market. There is still the constant push to get the publishing industry to expand its classification structure allowing for new types of works that the big publishers may not deem as profitable to have their own classification. To manage, I try to align my works with the genres I feel would be most appropriate for each work while focusing more on key words when marketing and remaining aligned with who I’ve deemed to be my target market.

GMM: I recently picked up a copy of your novel, A Moment Before Midnight, which is near the top of my TBR pile. You mentioned that your vampires are different, which I think you meant as a warning. However, I’m always excited to see new approaches to how vampires show up in fiction. What should readers know about your vampires? What sets them apart?

AS: There is always the story behind the story and what shows up on the surface is just that; surface. My vampires usually don’t know the full extent of their power or purpose on their respective plane and part of their journeys is discovering their truths and greater role they are expected to play in the futures that lay before them. While this idea is present in the Naverro Vampire Tales series it comes to the forefront more in my novel A Licentious Storm where my vampires as the Doridian is specifically introduced.

GMM: I assume that as a horror writer who writes about vampires, you enjoy reading about them, too. And, most people experience vampires on film first before they pick up their first novel. Which vampire narratives and characters inspired you the most? What did you like about them? What did you feel was missing?

AS: In truth I drop in and out of the desire to read vampire stories. I don’t typically go searching for specific types of stories to read so I’m all over the place on the speculative fiction spectrum. My first exposer to vampire stories probably was in movies like Nosfertu, Fright Night, Interview with a Vampire, and Life Force. If any of those inspired me, it would probably be Life Force. Just the idea of vampirism in terms of energy rather than the blood approach is a perspective that has stayed with me. Also, the sentience of vampires presented in Interview with a Vampire is present in my approach of my stories not just of my vampires but of other entities as well.

GMM: Tell me about Of Darkened Woods. Without giving away too many spoilers, what is it about? Do you retell a specific fairytale, or did you create your own new story? What is it about fairytales that makes them so easily adaptable to horror? Have you written other stories based on fairytales?

AS: Because I like to delve deeper into a story and seek out the origins and purpose of its creation from a historical perspective, Of Darkened Woods is one of my interpretations of the Hansel and Gretel story drawing more from the original German tale and spiritual interpretations while exercising creative license to add a twist on the potential true villain of the story.

Excerpt from Of Darkened Woods

My day begins with ravens. Big black broad-winged squawking harbingers of death omen ravens. They perch on the roof, their repetitive cacophony generating a pounding headache forcing me from bed long before sunrise. I’d seen them gathering at twilight, one by one, taking up residence along the roofline. But they’d been silent until now affording me a few hours of Sandman surrender before sounding off in a deafening chorus.

Luna! Luna! Luna! Witch.

The last squawk of my name stings. Though barely a whisper, it strikes as hard as a slap to the face.

“I hear you! I hear you! Now cease that infernal racket.”

The flapping of wings against the pottery roof reminds me of the pelting of rain, something long overdue. I toss back the lace curtains. Streaks of light slicing through darkened skies greet me. And so, the routine begins. Wash. Dry. Dress.

“Good morning, my beauty.” My fingers tiptoe over the walls, trailing down the hallway as my humble abode gently sighs. “Oh, how misunderstood you are.”

Me and this house in the woods came to an understanding many moons ago. The binding sentiment between us, the wish to be cared for and left in peace. Our harmonious symbiosis endures as I venture to the other world by day and return to nurture by night.

A dash of dusting. Wipe down the walls. Basket of fruit placed just so. My melodious voice soothes the temperament of my uneasy hearth. “There. There,” I mutter as I trace a newly formed crack in the doorjamb. “Fear not my lovely. I’ll fix that right up upon my return.”

The groan from the wooden floors offers assurance. One last gentle caress and I lock up shop to gather items to make the repair.

As I step from the stoop, feet sinking into moist dirt, the spell of the house falls away. The first frightening layers of reality smack me in the face. Heat bears down on my lungs. Thick and heavy, draining me of the need to pad over to what I see as a stone wall and entryway into a world no longer my own. No need for acclimation, for this place in-between where the glamour possesses less of a hold lasts merely ten paces, I scurry forward.

The ravens eye me suspiciously, though maybe my mind is anthropomorphizing. Might ravens actually consider the conduct of mere mortals? Not that I am a mere mortal. The conspiracy stalks my every move, heads rotating in unison as if by a puppeteer’s strings; their beady little eyes boring into my back as I reach for the latch on the iron gate. Once over this threshold, the glamour will fade in its entirety and the outside world will see me as they wish.

“Will you gawk at me all day?” I chide, lifting my cloak over her head. “Shoo now. Be on your merry way.”

The clank of the lock disengaging sends the conspiracy a-flight the sky falling black as the winged mass rises to the heavens before dissipating. Silence follows, not a chirp to be heard as I cross into the other realm and secure the doorway behind me.

An intoxicatingly sweet aroma of honeysuckle and cherry blossoms wraps around me as I turn to see what others see. Colorful arches revealed through wispy willow fingers hang heavy with candy apple fruit. Iridescent winged creatures flit about. Roof shingles reminiscent of icing cascade to trim toasted mouthwatering walls of gingerbread. Beds of not flowers, but gum drops and lollipops, line the windows and walkway of peppermint pavers. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear the windows formed eyes for the house to watch me. The door, an ‘O’ of surprise.

Can it see the truth? Does it know why I venture out? Breaking eye contact, lest the house learn my secret, I gather my composure, lowering my hood. Oh, I see how the charm draws outsiders in. An oasis in the center of the thick of foreboding forest. The trees rally with me to discourage trespassers. Yet some still venture through the forbidden following the curious creatures in league with the house, their doom written to the ancients for daring to tread too close. Still, the façade actually works against the true nature of the spirit of the home. Instead of warding others off with the peculiarity of such beauty in this desolate land, it encourages curiosity seekers to explore further. And once trapped in its spell, the house disposes of threats as it sees fit.

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

Edward Cullen is a Monster: A Review of Midnight Sun

Michelle R. Lane Leave a comment

If you’ve read any of my previous posts about vampires, you know how I feel. And, it’s complicated. I am absolutely obsessed with them and have spent a lot of my life reading about them, learning as much as I can about them in folklore and literature, as well as how they are perceived in popular culture. On the one hand, I think vampires are sexy and interesting and they are some of my favorite fictional characters. On the other hand, I have some concerns about how vampires are depicted in paranormal romance in relation to the acceptance of violence against female protagonists. You can find my 4-part blog series, “With This Ring, You’ll Be Dead: Violence Against Female Protagonists in Romantic Vampire Fiction” over at Speculatve Chic, as well as my thoughts on vampires and white privilege. Sexy yes, but monsters nonetheless.

Edward Cullen is a monster. This may come as a shock to some of you. Or, maybe not. Some of you automatically assign him to that category because he is a vampire. Vampires are monsters. But some of you many not think of vampires that way because of the way they have been portrayed in popular fiction, and particularly in paranormal romance. Traditionally, and by tradition I mean folklore and myths, vampires were undead creatures who rose from the grave to feast on the living and thereby create more of their kind. They infect the living with their disease of undeath and cause villagers to panic and perform strange rituals when burying their dead. Vampires or vampire-like creatures appear in some guise or manifestation in almost every culture worldwide. So, if you think vampires are something Anne Rice invented in the mid-70s, you’re off by a couple thousand years.

Speaking of Anne Rice, her vampires were monstrous at times, but they were still attractive, well-dressed, wealthy and powerful. They led interesting lives, fell in love, felt remorse and loneliness, befriended humans, and even became rockstars. But she still made a point of making them visibly different from humans and capable of unspeakable acts of violence and murder. While there were guidelines in place to limit exposure to humans, vampires were still expected to drink blood and kill humans at least occasionally. Vampires are pretty and interesting, but don’t get too close if you value your life.

I’m not sure why, but many folks who haven’t read the Twilight Saga assume that because the vampires sparkle in sunlight they are somehow less dangerous than other monsters. In fact, I would argue that many people don’t even think about the vampires in the Twilight Saga as being monsters at all. To be fair, some of the doubt around Edward Cullen’s monstrousness comes from how Stephenie Meyer wrote him in the narrative and the way he is portrayed on film. Just because he refrains from drinking human blood and tries not to kill people doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to do what comes naturally to him. In fact, Edward makes it clear that he is dangerous and could easily slip back into his natural vampire habits if given the right amount of temptation. Edward and his family choose not to feed on humans. And, much like a freshman who decides to become vegetarian at college, they must fight the urge to take a bite of turkey or ham when they come home for Thanksgiving. Every day is Thanksgiving for a vampire and humans are the buffet.

His human love interest, Bella Swan, could be played by a lemming in a wig given how desperate she is to die in the arms of a vampire. Technically, Twilight is a love story. But it is the story of an unhealthy love, in which a teenage girl falls in love with a literal monster and continually puts her own life at risk in order to maintain their relationship.

Stephenie Meyer has this to say in the dedication of Midnight Sun, which is an alternate perspective on the Twilight Saga told from Edward’s POV:

This book is dedicated to all the readers who have been such a happy part of my life for the last fifteen years. When we first met, many of you were young teenagers with bright beautiful eyes full of dreams for the future. I hope that in the years that have passed you’ve all found your dreams and that the reality of them was even better than you’d hoped.

Given the fact that Meyer’s narrative romanticizes the idea of willingly dying in order to be with the one you love, and that stalking is okay as long as you really care about the person, and the best way to live your life is to live in denial of your true nature, then I hope her young impressionable readers were able to find healthy relationships that didn’t put their lives at risk out of a sense of loyalty to a handsome partner with extremely controlling behaviors.

One of my good friends recently used my blog series in her classroom, and after several of the young women read the articles, they were shocked to realize that they didn’t actually think of vampires as being monsters. They viewed them as they had been written by some of their favorite authors: ideal partners. When my friend shared that with me, my emotions were all over the place. First, I felt a sense of validation because I realized that what I had written wasn’t just me ranting into the void. And second, I almost hated to be right. What I had proposed in those blog posts was that there was a certain level of danger in normalizing romantic relationships with monsters, but vampires specifically, because they are essentially serial killers. In Meyer’s Twilight Saga and Deborah Harkness’ Discovery of Witches series, vampires are portrayed as being the ideal sexual and life partners, to the extent that they also normalize violence against female protagonists and make excuses for abusive and predatory behavior.

Again, just to be clear, I am fascinated by vampires and I find them sexually appealing in many ways. However, as an adult woman who has been in several abusive relationships and have learned from those mistakes after finding the courage to walk away, it deeply concerns me that none of the female protagonists walk away from these abusive relationships. Even when the vampire warns the protagonist about the dangers of being close to them, this somehow encourages the protagonist to go against all of her instincts telling her she should be afraid and to run, and instead, insist on becoming that monster’s main squeeze.

So, when I read Midnight Sun, I was confused by the fact that I actually began to like Edward. And then, it dawned me; I liked him because he was honest about being a monster. His perspective is wonderfully unsettling. When we finally get to see what is going on inside Edward’s head, we get a real horror story. Think about all the novels you’ve read that are told from the POV of a serial killer. Some of the most horrific stuff you’ve read, right? Okay, now put an extremely handsome face on that serial killer and have him fall in love with one of his potential victims. By his own admission, humans are drawn to him because of his physical attractiveness, and since he is able to hear the thoughts of the people around him, he is disgusted by how often women and some men lust after him. Mainly because he thinks they are stupid for not being afraid. He feels relief whenever people feel uncomfortable around him, especially when he wants to control them. Edward is quite manipulative and makes use of his attractiveness as tool to essentially do as he pleases and come and go as he likes while attending Forks High School.

One of the most iconic scenes in the Twilight novel and movie, is when Bella has to share a lab table with Edward in their biology classroom. He spends most of the class covering his mouth and nose, not breathing, giving her dirty looks, and staring at her like she has a second head. When that scene is told from Bella’s POV, we get a lot of internal dialogue about the fact that she thinks Edward hates her on sight and is confused by what she could have possibly done to earn his hatred. Well, she wasn’t entirely wrong about his first impression of her. We learn that Edward’s weird reaction is due to the fact that Bella smells like the most delicious thing he’s ever wanted to eat. Even after Edward eventually tells Bella that his initial attraction to her was because of how delicious she smelled, she writes off his craving for her blood as a character flaw, and convinces herself that he would never really hurt her.

If she could have heard what was going on inside Edward’s head during that class period, she might not have been so quick to think about forming a lasting bond with him. And, it is this interal dialogue he has during biology class that made me fall madly in love with this handsome predator. In the first chapter of Midnight Sun, Meyer allows us to peer behind the curtain and witness Edward Cullen’s thought process the first time he meets Bella Swan. It is terrifying, and I love it.

I desperately want to share the entire scene with you word for word, but then I’d be robbing you of the opportunity to read the internal thoughts of a vampire –a monster– in the throes of bloodlust. I will however share some of my favorite lines with you, and you can judge for yourself if Edward Cullen is a monster or not:

I knew what had to happen now. The girl would have to come sit beside me, and I would have to kill her.

The innocent bystanders in this classroom, eighteen other children and one man, could not be allowed to leave, having seen what they would soon see.

I flinched at the thought of what I must do. Even at my very worst, I had never committed this kind of atrocity. I had never killed innocents. And now I planned to kill twenty of them at once. (p. 11-12)

Does that sound like the beginnings of a romantic relationship to you? It shouldn’t because during the first encounter Edward has with the girl who will eventually become his wife, he has a murder fantasy about her, calculating step-by-step how he would need to kill everyone else in the room first so he would be able to savor killing her and drinking her blood.

Let’s examine this scene again, but with Edward’s thoughts in mind.

I’d like to point out that the title of this video clip, that was most likley uploaded to YouTube by a fan of the series, implies that they think this is a romantic first meeting of people who are obviously destined to be soul mates and live happily ever after. As I’ve mentioned before in other posts, in order to have a happily ever after with a vampire, they will eventually have to murder you. Perhaps it will be the sexiest murder ever, but you will nevertheless be dead in some fashion or other.

If you’re a weirdo like me, and if you decide to read the novel, you will probably share my hope that Edward will somehow invert the narrative and live out his fantasy, embracing the true monster he really is. Each time he admitted his desire to kill and how easy it is for him to literally crush the humans around him, I liked him more. As much as I love paranormal romance featuring sexy vampires who are smoking hot and excellent lovers, it was just as thrilling to see the deviant inner workings of a monster with the face of a young man who would easily be at home on the covers of teen heartthrob magazines.

Edward Cullen is so monstrous at times in this retelling of the “love story” between himself and Bella, that I can almost forgive him for sparkling in the sun.

Fuckable Fictional Characters: Damon Salvatore

Michelle R. Lane 7 Comments

Hi. I haven’t blogged in a really, really long time, and I need some motivation to write. Today is the first day of February 2016, a leap year, and the month of my birth. I’m not going to tell you how old I am unless you ask very politely and promise not to laugh in my face. What I will happily tell you is that my birthday is February 14. That’s right. I was born on Valentine’s Day. People have a habit of saying how lucky I am, and what a special birthday it must be each year. Well…that isn’t entirely true.
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Here are my top 3 reasons why Valentine’s Day is a crappy day to celebrate your birthday on. Yes, I know it would suck to have a birthday on Christmas, too, unless you’re Jesus, but Valentine’s Day birthdays are their own special brand of Hell. So, let me count just a few of the ways that having a birthday on Valentine’s Day totally blows.

  1. Corporate-Sponsored Peer Pressure: Valentine’s Day manipulates you to find that special someone and/or give said someone not only your undivided attention, but also gifts that evoke romantic sentiments. There is nothing worse that being expected to buy romantic gifts for someone you have either recently met, or secretly hate and plan to leave soon. Especially of they do something really nice for you on your birthday.
  1. Envy: Watching other people who aren’t even celebrating a birthday receive flowers, cards, gifts, etc., and you might only get lucky enough to go out to dinner with a friend or eat a cake that a co-worker bought at the last minute on the way to work.
  1. Loneliness: Being single can be depressing at the best of times, but when you are single on Valentine’s Day, the feeling of being alone often feels more amplified. And, if it’s your birthday AND Valentine’s Day, some years you feel like the biggest loser that ever walked the face of the Earth.

Expectations run really high on Valentine’s Day for a lot of people, and birthdays can be bad enough if you experience anxiety about that fact that another year has come and gone and you still aren’t living up to your full potential. Talk about a double whammy.

Last year I was in a relationship that sent me straight to therapy and required medication. I’m still working on exorcising those demons. This year I am single. And, oddly enough, I’m pretty happy about that. I doubt this is the first time I was happy to be single on my Valentine’s birthday, but I don’t remember ever feeling so relieved.

This year to celebrate, I’m planning a party with some of my closest friends and we’re going to have an ‘80’s dance party. I’m very excited, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The purpose of this post, and a series of posts I plan to share with you each day this month, is to talk about some of my favorite fictional characters. More specifically, fictional characters I would hop in the sack with…or on a couch…or in the backseat of a car…or the hood of a car…or in a crypt…on a train…I think you get the idea.

ANYWAY, since this is the month of love and romance, and since I’m single and have sworn off online dating, I’m going to spend the month fantasizing about sexy fictional characters and why I find them so irresistible.

February 1: Damon Salvatore

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For the first installment of “Fictional Characters I Would Totally Fuck”, I offer you Damon Salvatore. Damon, Damon, Damon. Where to begin?

Well, for starters, he’s a vampire. That usually scores big points for me when it comes to fictional characters. I totally effing love vampires. And, I’ve loved vampires since I was about 12-years-old. WAY before Edward Cullen started sprinkling glitter all over the vampire fiction universe. My mother gave me a gently used copy of Interview with the Vampire for Christmas one year, and that solidified my obsession with vampires. I had spent a lot of time watching horror movies as a kid, and vampires and werewolves were my favorite monsters. I saw Bela Lugosi in Dracula when I was really young, and was given set of View Master disks that depicted a version of Stoker’s novel in cartoon images. I guess my interest in vampires started with Universal and Hammer films, and I devoured Dark Shadows. Let’s face it folks, vampires rock. And, I’ll most likely devote an entire post to Dracula this month.

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Stefan who?

But today, I’m going to talk about the hottest vampire in Mystic Falls, Damon Salvatore. I might be inclined to watch The Vampire Diaries if Ian Somerhalder wasn’t cast as Damon, but I’m not going to lie, he’s the main reason why I watch the show. He’s an incredible anti-hero who enters the story as a villain. He’s the bad boy older brother of the hero, Stefan Salvatore. Stefan’s attractive, and he seems to be a really nice guy. He’s handsome, emotionally stable, smart, romantic, and initially, safe. By all outward appearances, he’s a parent’s wet dream. This is exactly the type of guy high school girls should be interested in dating. Well, normal high school girls who are Hell-bent on having a safe, boring, vanilla relationship with a guy you could easily imagine marrying, and having kids with…if vampires could procreate. He was a perfect match for the heroine, Elena Gilbert. They were happy and I wanted them to be happy. But the moment Damon makes his first appearance on screen, I was like, “Stefan who?”

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This statement made me giggle like a school girl. A school girl with a deeply perverse imagination and access to classic smut.

Damon is everything Stefan isn’t. Impulsive. Sexy. Violent. Vulgar. Inappropriately funny. Stunningly gorgeous. Promiscuous. Vain. Reckless. Dark. Dangerous. Comfortable with being a vampire, and not afraid of his true nature. And his true nature is to be a monster. He never really pretends to be anything else, and when he is tempted to go against his nature, he always manages to disappoint the people closest to him by reaffirming that he is a monster and in many ways, proud of that fact. He’s a villain. I like villains. But more importantly, I like villains who seek redemption and show me that despite their murderous rampages, they really are the most logical, loyal, and honest character in the story. It helps that he’s the funniest character and gets some of the best lines in every episode.

All of his romantic scenes are hot. The way he kisses women, touches them, gazes at them, bites into their necks, tears off their clothes…there isn’t a dry pair of panties in the audience when he grabs the object of his desire and succumbs to lust. Or love.

And seriously, look at him.

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Yep, totally fuckable.

No, really, LOOK AT HIM!

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I’d skip prom to make out on the hood of a car with this guy.

I sure as shit wouldn’t kick him out of my bed for spilling blood.

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Bite me already.