A Little bit of Me Time

Not an announcement of a hiatus but just a quick blog to note a couple of things.


Firstly, is to mention the book Growing up with Vampires: Essays on the Undead in Children’s Media edited by Simon Bacon and Katarzyna Bronk. The blurb of the book is as follows:


Growing Up with Vampires is the first book to focus solely on the figure of the vampire in print, film, and other media specifically meant for pre-teen children. Whilst narratives about the undead are often considered suitable only for adults, there is a long history of their appearance in material meant for children. Although the essays in this collection mainly consider examples from Western culture in the 20th and 21st centuries they provide an important and accessible roadmap of when vampires became popular in children's media, how to explore the ways in which vampires are used, what they might symbolize, and what their ultimate meaning or significance might be. Vampires are never what they quite seem: in stories for children they are just as likely to be an expression of anxiety around change, growing up, aging and the unfamiliar as they are to be the new best friend who will make you realize just how special difference and individuality are. Growing Up with Vampires is an ideal introduction for those new to the topic and an invaluable resource to readers looking to gain further insight into vampires in/and children's media.


The reason for mentioning it is that the first chapter, Children of the Night: Mainstreaming Vampires Through Children’s Media, was written by me. My thanks to the editors for giving me the opportunity. As it is an academic book it isn’t cheap but I’ve put some Amazon links there just in case


Growing up with Vampires In Paperback @ Amazon US


Growing up with Vampires In Paperback @ Amazon UK

The other reason for today's post was to thank Adrien Party who reviewed my reference work, the Media Vampire, over at Vampirisme. Its rather humbling that my work received such a positive review and the fact that this was via a French language site is great – my language skills are non-existent and could never even begin to read, let alone review, a book written in French. Luckily, Chrome translates pages for you as you go and I fully take on-board the main criticism levelled at the volume, which was the need (given the consistent pace of discoveries in vampire media) for a new edition. I have actually done some of the work for a second edition – unfortunately real life has gotten in the way but eventually I will complete and release it.


the Media Vampire In Hardback @ Amazon US


the Media Vampire in Hardback @ Amazon UK