Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘vampire lit’

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Vampires and zombies and literature, oh my…

A while back, we noted that vampire lit had–well, gone legit. (If you can major in it in college, it’s legit.) But it’s not just vampires. All kinds of characters previously relegated to genre writing–zombies, werewolves, and monsters galore–have migrated into mainstream literature. Can we blame this on Twilight, or is something bigger at work here? Harldy, says Joe Fassler in The Atlantic, offering several reasons “literary” fiction has turned towards genre: There was a time in recent memory when writers took their cues primarily from the literary figures that came before them. But in 2011, our literary, media, and […]


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Fiction Meets Baby Names

The Social Security Administration recently released its annual list of most popular baby names, and surprise! The influence of one particular novel—or rather, series of novels—was quite clear. Reports the New York Times: [F]lying up the list was an ancient name with modern fame: Cullen, the surname of one handsome bloodsucker, Edward, in the frighteningly popular vampire films “Twilight,” based on the best-selling novels by Stephenie Meyer. Cullen materialized at 485, leaping almost 300 spots from 2008 for the biggest increase of any boy’s name; it wedged firmly between Braiden and Kason. Other names from the Twilight series also showed […]


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I have an MFA in Fiction and a Master's in Vampire Studies

How do you know when vampire lit has reached critical mass? When it gets an academic conference. Vampire literature is now receiving some scholarly attention with a conference at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. Despite the smirk factor, the conference—”Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture”— has some serious intellectual heft: The aim of the conference is to relate the undead in literature, art, and other media to questions concerning gender, technology, consumption, and social change. […] The irony of creatures with no reflection becoming such a pervasive reflection of modern culture pleases in […]