Phoebe Matthews, author of Vampire Career – $2.99, spent many years writing romances until she switched to writing what is her favorite reading genre: urban fantasy. Vampire Career is the first novel in this series which is set in the Olympic Peninsula. Before we get to her interview, here is the book description for Vampire Career. A beginning vampire… A gnawing hunger… A friendly guy… Disaster just a heartbeat away. Newly turned vampire Georgia can deal with the “dead all day” part, but she wishes the rest of her new lifestyle came with a training manual. The vampire who turned her went away without teaching her the basics. Can silver burn her? Must she sleep in a coffin? And most important, how can she avoid loving her boyfriend to death? Interview with Phoebe Matthews.
Why did you decide to write about vampires?
Phoebe: Vampire Career takes place on the Olympic Peninsula where, as everyone knows, vampires roam. I went there on a vacation trip with friends to enjoy the sightseeing. But while we were wandering through stores filled with black light displays of recent vampire movies, I had one of those WHAT IF? moments. I’ve written novels in a variety of genres, but for the last couple years I have been concentrating on urban fantasy because that’s what I love to read. The first book of my urban fantasy Mudflat series for BookStrand won the 2009 EPIC Award for Best Fantasy, and that’s when I knew I’d found my genre.
Back to the WHAT IF? What if a sickly girl is told by her doctors that she has less than a year to live? She’s read the books, seen the movies, and lives in Seattle. Are the stories true? She decides she has nothing to lose by driving to the Peninsula and looking for a vampire to turn her. Off she goes, with no clear idea of what life as a vampire entails.
What was your first exposure to vampire stories?
Phoebe: When I was VERY small, maybe eight years old, and completely under the domination of my ten-year old sister, we spent a summer with our grandmother. My sister, who was a good prevaricator, learned in self-defense because we had a couple of older sisters, told my grandmother there was a nice children’s movie at the theater four blocks from my grandmother’s house. As it was a warm midsummer in a small Minnesota town where no one worried about children being out after dark, plus my grandmother really did not like movies, she gave us the money and sent us off with instructions to come directly home afterwards. Four blocks. We’d be home in ten minutes, easy.
The prevarication was about the movie. Like my grandmother, I trusted my sister. I presumed we were going to see a Disney movie.
Huh uh. It was an old black and white film about a vampire, probably Dracula. As we watched wide-eyed, the coffin lid creaked open, the person opening it leaned over to peer at the ghastly white corpse and aaaaagh! A hand shot up and grabbed the man and then the corpse sat up and I spent the rest of the film squished down on the floor between the seats.
That was my introduction to vampires, not glamorous at all. And I think it took at least a day and a night to walk the four blocks back to Grandmother’s house, me shaking all the way and my sister saying, “Oh stop being a baby.” There were also a few death threats in case I was considering tattling. If anyone had told me then that I would not only grow up to enjoy vampire stories, but would also write them, I would have run off to join a nunnery. Oh wait. I was only eight.
My outlook changed with Dark Shadows. I was older and the vampires were interesting. And then along came Buffy and crew. Slippery slope. Thin edge of the wedge. One idea grew into a series. The second novel in the Turning Vampire series, Vampire Disaster, is scheduled to be released next November. So I guess, these many years later, I will forgive my sister for that horrendous walk home through the dark and haunted streets. Actually, I don’t think we walked. I think we ran all the way. Screaming.
Thank you Phoebe for the interview.
Find Phoebe on FaceBook
Twitter: http://twitter.com Mudflatbks
Visit her website. http://phoebematthews.com/
See all books by Phoebe Matthews books on Amazon.
EPIC Award-winning Mudflat series, 2010 BookStrand
Turning Vampire series, 2011 Dark Quest Books
Sunspinner series, 2011 LostLoves Books
