Die Booth - has Twilight brainwashed a generation?
Last month as part of the annual Chester Literature Festival I took part in a debate about Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Now, anyone who knows my writing will know that I’m not a huge Twilight fan. I’m quite happy for people to read what they want, and for writers to do new things with established genres - so it’s not the sparkly vampires that bother me so much (although I do personally think they’re rubbish!) It’s the fact that, since Twilight’s astronomic rise in popularity, the misunderstood heartthrob vampire now seems to be the only type being written - and subsequently, a lot of horror markets have placed a blanket ban on submissions of vampire stories, which is a shame for writers like me who like vampires (and werewolves, and zombies, and other newly ‘unfashionable’ creatures!) This was actually the entire reason that me and L.C. Hu produced our anthology ‘ Re-Vamp! ’ in 2011, to counteract all the mopey teenage monsters - but I’m digressing. The thing is, in this debate, I wa...