My own private vampire

OK, so when Sandrine suggested this WE charter, I was really excited. At first, that is. Because soon enough, right after the 'Oh, great, I love this show' I thought 'Yeah, but what can I say that hasn't been said already?"I mean, there are hundreds of websites, blogs and Facebook pages about it, so it is a challenge.

I don't know anything about maths- no but really, not a thing, it's sort of sad in a way- I cannot speak a word of German even though I studied it at school for 7 years, I cannot sew a button (although I'm pretty sure I could) but I know about vampires. I do not kid you. I've been into vampires for a loooooooooooong time and I've read quite a lot about them. Too much, maybe, but at least I know my subject. You want proof? Alright: I took an actual class about horror in my second year at university and it was then that I discovered them through Stoker's Dracula (by the way, you have my blessing if you want to read the "sequel", Dracula, the Undead, it's OK, not great, but OK, and it's funny to read the sequel to the original story written by Bram's family) Dracula is a great book, and I urge you all to read it again and forget about Keanu Reeves - just as much as you can forget Brad Pitt as Louis in Interview with the vampire, I mean, Louis was boring enough in the books already, why make him worse?

When it came to choosing my master's thesis subject a couple of years later, instead of picking 'Gender in Virginia Woolf's Orlando', I picked 'Femininity in Anne Rice's The Queen of the Damned. I had the greatest fun doing it, looking for interesting problems in popular culture is always more thrilling than writing about classics, in my opinion.

I tried hard to get in touch with Anne Rice, wrote her e-mails, went to chat rooms to talk to her stalking fans, with no success. I also tried her biographer, Katherine Ramsland, a brilliant philosopher who also happens to teach forensic psychology and guess what, she answered. We started writing to each other and it turned out she was coming to France a couple months later.

We met, clicked instantly and I was honoured to be her interpreter at a vampire conference here, in Paris. She was kind enough to write a preface for my thesis and even mentioned me in her book, Piercing the darkness. Yeah, I'm in a book. I know. You're impressed, aren't you?

So, about True Blood: of course, I love the show. It's smart, funny, sexy, Louis and Lestat are here in the shapes of dull Vampire Bill and oh-so-wonderful Vampire Eric and Alan Ball is like a TV God to me :) But, if you really want to know why I'm really excited about the show, it's because vampire culture is finally being treated in an intelligent manner, and not just aimed at teenagers who'll fantasize that they're vampires. I mean, Buffy was alright, but clearly, Alan Ball has taken the whole vampires on TV to an upper level.

So thanks, Alan, and while I'm at it, thanks for Six Feet Under, as well. And thank you, Alex Skarsgard, for, you know, being that perfect. Can't wait to see you on June 13th.