Sunday, June 7, 2009

Charlaine Harris: Festival nabs bloodsucker bestseller

Dallas is GOING ! If you are want to meetup please email me.
We will have at least 6 hotel rooms full of fans on Friday night many fan events in Friday and Saturday planned ..

from Shreveport Times
If anyone opens a vampire bar in Shreveport, they better name a drink after Charlaine Harris. Heck, they better ship the profits to the Magnolia, Ark., author, who for the last decade has been penning the Sookie Stackhouse series about northern Louisiana's undead.
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Harris will be featured at the second Author! Author! Shreveport-Bossier Book Festival at Municipal Auditorium on Saturday. She'll sign "Dead and Gone," the ninth book in the series, after she speaks at 2 p.m.

The festival, which begins Friday night, will pull together 30 regional and Southern authors and offer readings, signings, children's activities and oodles of books. Proceeds benefit Friends of the Municipal, a nonprofit organization.

Harris' series (a.k.a. Southern Vampire series) has been adapted into HBO's "True Blood" by "Six Feet Under" creator Alan Ball. The story is set in Bon Temps, a fictional northern Louisiana town near Shreveport. A minor portion of the first season was filmed locally.

Sookie is a telepathic barmaid who falls in love with a vampire named Bill Compton. Their relationship stands on the brink of two worlds: one of mundane rural Louisiana drenched in sweat, fear and superstition, and the other of mysterious bloodsuckers torn between ancient tradition and mainstream assimilation. (If your taste in mythological creatures is more varied, rest assured the books include werewolves, shape-shifters, witches and quirky humans.)

Some of the details are pretty witty too. Vampires and mortal drinks at Merlotte's, the Bon Temps bar where Sookie works. Vampires order synthetic blood, bottled under the brand TruBlood, and have it served warm. (Fifteen seconds in the microwave tastes best.)

Though writers have long capitalized on New Orleans' supernatural mystique, Harris surprisingly doesn't find much that's gothic about northern Louisiana.

"That's what's fun about it," Harris said. Sookie "is pretty much my imagination."

Harris has invented a world where vampires are becoming part of the fabric of American life. The cross-creatural conflicts are laden with mystery, power struggles, blood, betrayal, equality themes, violence, and, sometimes, sex.

Read on

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man Dallas, I wish I was going with you :(
Econmy is non-existant in Michigan rite now..SOoooo sad.
Luv u, Smargypants

" Dallas " said...

we'll get you down here soon Smargy!

Anonymous said...

I wish I could go!!! I'm *sooo* jealous!!! You all have fun though!!! For me. :D I want stories when you get back!!!