Soapbox
Research by proxy
When you write about ostensibly mythic creatures, actual research is next to impossible. That’s one of the challenges of The Cowboy and the Vampire series. Cowboys are easy. I grew up on a ranch in Montana and still remember what it’s like to ride and rope and brand. Plus, Kathleen and I live in the…
Surges, sacrificial rats and near-death
I was surprised – and excited – to wake recently to headlines in the Washington Post and New York Times about near-death experiences. “Surge of brain activity may explain near-death experience, study says.” The research showed that seconds before death the brain experiences anomalous neural activity in what may represent a heightened state of consciousness….
Enumerate
Six pop mythical creatures that are really cultural environmental indicators in disguise, and why you should care One: Big Foot aficionados (and their Yeti-loving cousins) are not crazy. Data suggest their obsession reflects a naïve hopefulness that an intelligent, gentle, human-like species could still live freely, deep in the primeval forest, having cunningly escaped the…
Hearts of darkness: The vampire as voyage of discovery
Undead fiction, like The Cowboy and Vampire Thriller Series, help readers discover worlds beyond the reach of maps. Everybody knows vampire fiction is dead. (Actually, undead.) There’s nothing original left to write about the undead. Every interesting lens vampires provide to examine social trends — the morally draining effects of capitalism, our uneasy relationship with…
Are serial killers sexy?
Why do novelists romanticize characters that torture, dismember and repeatedly murder men, women and children? Why are fictional serial killers always smarter, sexier, wittier and pretty much better at everything they do (in addition to killing) than the characters in their fictional world, and their readers? And why do readers hungrily gobble books about psychopathic…