July will see the release of Nancy A. Collins‘ third installment in the Vamps (HarperTeen) series: Vamps: After Dark. As detailed in her bio: “Collins is the author of several novels and numerous short stories. In addition, she served a two-year stint for DC Comics’ Swamp Thing series. She is a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award and The British Fantasy Society’s Icarus Award, as well as a nominee for the Eisner Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and an International Horror Guild award. Best-known for her groundbreaking vampire character, Sonja Blue, Collins’s works include Dead Man’s Hand, Knuckles and Tales, and Sunglasses After Dark. Her most recent work is the Vamps series, published by HarperCollins. Collins makes her home in Cape Fear, North Carolina, appropriately enough.” My thanks to Collins for the email interview. It’s great that young adult readers are being introduced to her storytelling talents, giving them another novelist to seek out down the road.

Tim O’Shea: How did you first develop the Vamps concept?

Nancy Collins: The vampire society of Old Bloods and New Bloods emerged from a scuttled comic book series I created for Vertigo Comics called “Dhampire”. It was about a half-human/half-vampire hybrid and how he didn’t fit into either world terribly well. For several years I tinkered with the basic structure of that world, extrapolating on it, until it became the VAMPS world. I had the society and social structure down, but didn’t have a storyline/plot to go with it until my agent suggested that I try and pitch it as a YA series. After that, it was merely a matter of creating the various teenaged vampires and their families.

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