Vampires, Witches, and Geeks

This episode was recorded on August 10, 2008. (Happy birthday to Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull!)

This is a news episode, but first we start out with a listener question: “What’s your podcast schedule — is it monthly?” Yes, right now it’s monthly.

VAMPIRES

Another shout out for the Out of the Coffin podcast (outofthecoffin.com), who gave *me* a big shout out on their last episode (thanks!).

Charlaine Harris was the Guests of Honor at Necon, and the news that Charlaine’s books are being made into an HBO series starting September 7, 2008. Two other authors of vampire fiction that I ran into at Necon are Toni Kelner and Christopher Golden.

WITCHES

News about a numbered limited edition facsimile reproduction of Patricia Crowther’s Witchcraft in Yorkshire, available from AzureGreen.com, HarvestShadows.com, and Amazon.com.

GEEKS

Announcement: I’ll be moderating a panel at Pi-Con in Springfield, MA on Saturday, August 23, at 9 pm: Tech tools for writers.I’ll be talking about the software and hardware that writers can use to make their life easier and make themselves more productive. Other panelists include Keith RA Decandido, Genevive Iseult Eldredge, and Joseph McGee.

(Earlier on Saturday, at 5 pm, I’ll be reading from one of my novels at the Broad Universe Rapid-Fire Reading where members get to read short excerpts from their published works or works-in-progress. Broad Universe is an international organization with the primary goal of promoting science fiction, fantasy, and horror written by women. For more information, visit www.broaduniverse.org.)

Cory Doctorow is one of the guests of honor at Pi-Con, along with Randall Munroe. For more information on this event, see www.pi-con.org.

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Tonight we have a special treat for you: an interview with vampire writer, researcher, and publisher Inanna Arthen.

Inanna began studying vampire literature and folklore in the 1960’s, when she persuaded a reluctant librarian to allow her to borrow Montague Summers’ The Vampire in Europe and an unabridged copy of Dracula from the adult stacks.

In 1987, the editor of FireHeart magazine asked Inanna to write an article about her researches into vampires as an occult phenomenon. The article, “Real Vampires,” was published in issue #2 of FireHeart, but found a global audience when it was first placed online in early 1997.

Show Notes

For more information on Inanna, her research, books (Mortal Touch, The Longer the Fall), or publishing company, see http://www.bylightunseenmedia.com.

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I’ve just returned from a short vacation. I thought I could sneak in a podcast before I left, but I wasn’t able to. So here’s the episode I meant to publish.

In this podcast, I talk about a vampire podcast I found, the types of witches in my novel, and I give a short, but very useful geek tip.

Show Notes

OutOfTheCoffin Podcast: www.outofthecoffin.com

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Morven does a short reading from the beginning of her first novel, Darksome Thirst, and answers a listener question.

Show Note:

To contact Morven about this podcast, either leave a comment here, which is viewable to the public, or go to the contact page of Morven’s web site and use the “Podcast Listeners” (bottom left) comment form:

http://www.morvenwestfield.com/contact.shtml

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Welcome to Vampires, Witches, and Geeks, a podcast by dark fantasy author Morven Westfield.

In this introductory episode, I outline my plans for the podcast series.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-f62bd4faa4c708fae6094e6df79e8c78}

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I’ve done a number of public readings for my books Darksome Thirst and The Old Power Returns and people often ask me if the reading is available online for friends who couldn’t make it. So I started to record some of the readings to share with online listeners.

But, as often happens with anything creative, one idea led to another, and before I knew it I was saying to myself, “Oh, yeah! I could do readings and short interviews with other writers and tips and…”

And that’s where I am now. Pulling together my first couple of episodes before I officially launch the podcast.

Stay tuned for details!

My first reading is what I call the “bowling practice” scene. Frederick, a newish vampire, has to go bowling to pacify his mortal girlfriend. First, though, he decides to practice.

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