By: Diana M. of SBLC and Paranormal Romance

And I thought my only glimpse of  Charlaine Harris at Comic-Con would be on an afternoon panel about vamps. But the author of the popular Sookie Stackhouse series popped up as a regular audience member Saturday at the “Reading with Brains: The Rise and Unrelenting Stamina of Zombie Fiction.” She smiled and waved from a fourth row seat on the side of room 7AB in the convention center as fans and zombie authors craned their necks to see where she was sitting after the panel moderator announced she was in the room.

Nope. She didn’t make any comments about zombies later during her panel discussion on vampire literature. But during the hour-long discussion and following Q&A she did talk about:

–Book 11: She says she’s kind of looking forward to finishing Sookie’s story. Still no name for book No. 11, but she’s just about to finish it. “Maybe even tomorrow (Sunday),” she said.

–Sookie’s name: For fans who don’t know where she got the name for Sookie, she reiterated that it was the name of her grandmother’s best friend. “It’s a common name in the South.”

–Why she developed her vampire world: She wanted to anchor her vampire stories in a blue-collar culture. She knew she wanted the story to be told through the eyes of someone in the working class. And she wanted the vampires’ struggle to join society to be told through that human’s eyes.

–On sticking to vamp lore: With creatures as strong as vampires, you have to stick to some vampire lore. So her vampires — for example — can’t go out during the day and silver is deadly. You need some rules so they don’t overtake human society, she says. “You’ve got to keep them in their place — which is the coffin.”

–On vampires/metaphors: In Rome, the journalists told her they thought her vampires symbolized capitalists, Harris said. But not for her, she says. “Vampires can be symbols for everything. Sometimes a vampire is just a vampire.”

On how she writes: She does not like to do research. “I hate prep work. … I’d rather just make it up as I go along.” But she admits that’s gotten her into some continuity problems with the Sookie books so she has an editor just to double-check her consistency now. She doesn’t listen to any special music — although when she mentioned bagpipes the other panelists thought that was a bit unusual — but she prefers to simply write in solitude in her room. OK — she does say she plays the soundtracks from the True Blood series when they send them to her.

On why vamps are popular: In economic hard times people want to think about super creatures, she said. Maybe it has to do with living forever when things are uncertain. “I do not want to live forever,” she says.

At Comic-Con’s “Fang Girls and Fang Boys: The Popularity of Vampire Lit” — which probably should have been renamed “Fang Girls and Fang Boy,” since author Christopher Farnsworth (BLOOD OATH) was the only dude on the panel — we found out what works influenced these vamp authors when they were kids:

Rachael Caine (The Morganville Vampire series): SALEM’S LOT

Heather Brewer (The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod): CARRIE

Chris Farnsworth (Blood Oath): CARRIE

Chris Marie Green (The Vampire Babylon series): FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC

Charlaine Harris (The Sookie Stackhouse series): Anything by Edgar Allan Poe or Jane Austen.

Richelle Mead (The Vampire Academy series): Dungeons and Dragons (because that’s what her brothers played)

Jeanne C. Stein (The Anna Strong series): ROSEMARY’S BABY

The Spotlight Series with author Charlaine Harris was held today and she reiterated the same information she has stated in her past appearances:

Charlaine revealed that she’s under contract to pen three more Sookie Stackhouse books, with the next coming in May.

Also, she has a short story coming up in an anthology titled Death’s Excellent Vacation (Edited by Toni L.P. Kelner and Charlaine Harris). The short story, Two Blondes, features Sookie, Pam, and a stripper pole.

In February, we’ll be seeing the Sookie Companion containing: A FAQ by Charlaine, an interview with Alan Ball, recipes, secret emails between Bill and Eric, and a original novella with Sookie, Sam, and Quinn.

But, the biggest news for the crowd was that Sookie would never be turned into a vampire, even though Eric will ask her about it in the next book. That does not mean that it would never happen on the show.

She also stated that Sookie’s telepathy is not related to her fairy blood and happily added that Bubba will be in the next book.

She was asked if she would ever considers adding any of the new characters from the TV show into the books. She screamed emphatically, “No!” Continuing that they are “separate entertainment vehicles … two experiences for the price of one.“

By the way, Death’s Excellent Vacation comes out in a couple of weeks… on August 3rd.

True Blood Sightings:

Yes, you can stop by and get a pint.

True Blood is everywhere.

The True Blood Comic-Book was launched at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con.

~M.

~M.

July 22, 2010 1:00PM – 2:00PM @ Room 6BCF

By: Maria G.

One of the things that fans of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels have been asking for since Dead to the World is a companion book to the popular book series.

Well, we’ve talked about it on the podcast and now we have a cover to the most anticipated A-Z encyclopedia any character since the Outlandish Companion book.

The book will be released in February 2011 and in it you will see a new novella about Sam’s brother’s wedding, an interview with el maestro Alan Ball and much, much more.

One of the cool things about this book is that there is a section where Sookie answers questions from her devoted fans.  You can be a contributor to this section by emailing your question to Sookie to askcharlaine@gmail.com. You only have a finite amount of time to do so… you have until June 26th to submit a question.

Please be aware that Charlaine will pick the questions she deems worthy for the book.

Maybe that is a hint of things to come???

What do you think?

~M.