Author Archives: William the Bloody

About William the Bloody

Cat lover. 18C scholar on the dialogue and novel. Co-convenor OGOM Project

17 of March 2015’s Best YA Books

The YA novels listed here look very exciting, and many have a Gothic, paranormal tinge to them, featuring witches, ghosts, and so on. I have to confess to not knowing any of these but I’ll be investigating them!

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Neck of the Woods, Manchester International Festival, Fri 10 Jul 2015 – Sat 18 Jul 2015

Not quite werewolves, but obviously of interest to those exploring those boundaries between wolf and human that the werewolf narrative explores. Neck of the Woods–a multimedia performance on the wolf–looks very intriguing: MIF has invited Turner Prize-winning artist Douglas Gordon … Continue reading

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Happy 18th, Buffy!

My interest in vampire fiction and subsequent exploration of the genre of paranormal romance was initially aroused by the now-classic TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is eighteen years old today. Created by Joss Whedon and combining wit and … Continue reading

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Caryl Churchill, The Skriker, with Maxine Peake, Manchester Royal Exchange, 3 July 2015-1 August 2015

This performance of Caryl Churchill, The Skriker, with Maxine Peake looks fabulous; I’d not, I’m ashamed to admit, heard of this play before. Very appropriately, I’ve just finished my chapter on werewolf narratives, ‘”But by blood no wolf am I”: Language … Continue reading

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Dragon lovers: extract from Julie Kagawa’s Rogue

One of the things that fascinates me while researching paranormal romance is the insight into the creation development, and interaction of genres. This genre itself is a mating between the monstrous (masculinised?) genre of Gothic horror and the feminine romance … Continue reading

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Alice in Wonderland Meets Dali and Nabokov in a New Exhibition

Jonathon Keats reviews a fascinating exhibition on Alice in Wonderland and its various translations and adaptations, including illustration. I didn’t realise Nabokov was the book’s Russian translator–I wonder what distinctive slant he might have given it? Nabokov’s book are full … Continue reading

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What Disney princesses would look like if they were zombies

I do like Disney, but it’s always fun to see its wholesomeness subverted. Here, classic Disney princesses have succumbed to the zombie state, their perfection decaying and their cuteness become horror. This is pure silliness, really, yet can raise interesting … Continue reading

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Vampire Queen Anne Rice and the Sympathetic Vampire (23 Feb 2015) By Ms Leigh McLennon

A thoughtful and well-researched blog article on the sympathetic vampire, acknowledging the lesser-known precursors before Anne Rice and noting the shifts from those vampire lovers of the 1970s to their descendants in contemporary paranormal romance by Leigh McLennon, PhD candidate … Continue reading

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Lauren Owen, ‘Varney – the Forgotten Vampire’

Possibly the ancestor of ‘the sympathetic vampire’ who features in present-day paranormal romance, the nineteenth-century Varney the Vampire, serialised by Malcolm Rymer, is not perhaps as well known as he should be. Lauren Owen of Durham University gives a detailed … Continue reading

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Review: Dr Gennie Dyson, ‘Moonrise Falling, by Adrian L. Jawort’

This review by Dr Gennie Dyson of a new vampire novel, Adrian L. Jawort’s Moonrise Falling, centred on Native American culture has aroused my interest–I must read this!

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