May 23, 2008 (The Oregonian / Jeff Baker) -- Stephenie Meyer's fans waited all day to see her. She talked to them for 15 minutes before starting to sign autographs. No one was complaining, and everyone got their book signed, but Meyer's brief appearance onstage Tuesday at the Bagdad Theater was shorter than an election-night concession speech and almost as anticlimatic.

Meyer is the author of the wildly popular Twilight series of vampire novels for young adults and a new novel for grown-ups called "The Host." Her fans are primarily young women, and they started showing up at the Bagdad at 9:30 a.m., more than nine hours before Meyer was scheduled to take the stage. Admission was $26, which included a copy of "The Host," and the 600 tickets had been sold out for more than two weeks.

By 6 p.m. a line stretched around the block. Eight of every 10 people in it were girls and young women. Some were dropped off by their mothers; some came with their mothers or boyfriends. But most were in groups of three or four. They held shopping bags with the three books in the Twilight series, and they were dressed in black or in T-shirts that said "I Love Edward Cullen" or "Mrs. Edward Cullen," in reference to Meyer's hero, a dreamy, creamy-skinned vampire who can't quite bring himself to devour his girlfriend, Bella Swan.

Inside, the Bagdad was lit in amber and yellow, faux-Halloween style. When Meyer took the stage, her fans greeted her with a standing ovation and loud cheers. She said she was glad to be back in Portland, where she spent time hanging out on the set of the "Twilight" movie. The series is set in Forks, Wash., because Meyer, who had never been there, did some research and learned the Olympic Peninsula is one of the rainiest places in the country. Portland had a rainy spring, apparently good enough for the moviemakers, who shot in numerous locations around the area. It's due out Dec. 12, and Meyer said on her Web site that people "might want to bring a paper bag to the movie," because the chemistry between stars Kristen Stewart (Bella) and Robert Pattinson (Edward) "may cause hyperventilation."

Nobody was hyperventilating at the Bagdad as Meyer started answering the questions. What is the most powerful kind of love? "The love of a mother for her child." What kind of scenes does Meyer like to write? Violent ones, believe it or not. She also gets upset when she writes emotional scenes and can't "type and cry" at the same time.

Meyer talked briefly about other hot-and-heavy, look-but-don't-touch literary couples and said she was a big fan of Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice." Her audience erupted in a rousing, spontaneous cheer. Meyer also likes Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe, from "Anne of Green Gables." Hooray!

The reaction was a key to understanding the appeal of the Twilight series. Edward and Bella want what they can't have, and Meyer keeps things steamed up without ever bringing them to a boil. The eroticism in a vampire novel is obvious, but Meyer said on her Web site that it wasn't "entirely my idea" to have the last line of "Twilight" be ambiguous and that Edward most certainly did not bite Bella. Those were his lips, not his teeth, on her neck.

After assuring everyone that she hasn't suffered from writer's block since she got started on "Twilight" six years ago -- "I've got so many stories, it's like a dam bursting" -- she thanked everyone for being "awesome, smart, beautiful fans" and went to the lobby to start signing books. There was a system involving numbers on the tickets that determined the order for the autographing line, but women with babies were allowed to go first.

Wordstock is sponsoring a short fiction contest with a $1,000 first prize. Ursula K. Le Guin is the final judge.

Details: www.wordstockfestival.com

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Posted by Vladimir Tue, 05/27/2008 - 11:23

 

Tired

It's too soon
I'm so tired
leave me be.
its too late
I'm exausted
let me sleep
now I can't
sleep
I'm so tired
but I can't
sleep
I'm staring
at the wall
willing the
sleep to
come but
stuck on
this side
of that wall
on this side
without
dreams and a
nice soft
oblivion to
fall into
sleep
I'm so tired

Raevynn
February 8, 2002

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City Councillor Wants Official "Vampire Day" in Brazil

August 11, 2002 - Who better to promote the virtues of giving blood than a vampire? At least, that's what a Brazilian city councillor thinks and why he wants to officially declare August 13 Vampire Day, to coincide with a city-wide drive for blood donations.  Jose Laurindo de Oliveira said the campaign will also celebrate the vampire in literature and all things gothic.

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Blood So Sweet

your blood so sweet,

biting harder and waiting for an unheard scream,

drinking long and feeling your pain and agony,

holding you close and wanting you to always stay with me,

lapping at your liquid soul,

watching you turn and walk away, feeling a deep hole...

the pain anger and fear eating away inside of me,

standing, looking at your form disappear, nothing more to see,

searching what's an eternity for a place to bury my dispair,

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Father, Vampire

You my dark angel have given me the dark gift,
For you have saved me from a mortal death,
My innocent blood surged through your veins more succulent than life itself.
You gave me immortality!

The spirit of a young woman cries out to be free,
From the body of a child that's me,
Yearning, burning for physical maturity,
But it shall never come,
It's forever that I shall be the age of eight,
Never experiencing puberty,
Never experiencing my first date or the rapture of a young man in my adolescent
Arms,

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Chapter 28

Terrible as was his loneliness, a meeting with Jack would have been more terrible. And, after all, it was true, a gulf had opened between them.

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