Tags
Alexander Skarsgaard, Ann Rice, Dracula, Eric Northman, Gary Oldman, Interview with the Vampire, Interviews, Jonathan Rhys Myers, Megan Cashman, The Dark Proposal, Vampire, Vampire Month
Our second Vampire month contributor is Megan Cashman, a New Yorker and former journalist turned author. She is the author of The Dark Proposal.
1) What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?
As a kid, I used to write about kids at school, and their everyday experiences. I was in first grade when I started doing all this, and I think I did it because even then I had fun creating characters. 
2) When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?
I wanted to write a book even as a young kid. It took a long time to take that step because I had other aspirations. But when I was one of many unemployed people in the world, I decided it was a good time to finally write that book.
3) What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?
My strength is that I have good insight as to what makes people tick. I also think I write scenes that provide good visuals for my readers. My weakness is when I think I may be boring my readers, so I end up cutting parts out that may be necessary for them to understand something. I also tend to be very wordy, so I have to do a lot of editing. I try to overcome my weakness by crafting a paragraph or sentence in a way that doesn’t sound very wordy or boring to a reader. I have to keep my readers in mind when I consider cutting out words.
4) Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?
I was born and raised on Staten Island, NY. It hasn’t inspired my work yet, but The Dark Proposal takes place a great deal on Staten Island. I have some future ideas that are inspired by other places I’ve lived or visited.
5) Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?
That’s hard to tell because there have been so many. I do wish to write as well as Khaled Hosseini, because his two books The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns are written so beautifully. They also draw you in from the very first sentence, so I hope to do the same with my books
6) What drove you to write about Vampires?
They are so appealing! Their immortality, their seduction, their longevity, their power, their arrogance and their fears. There’s something about a creature that lurks in the shadows that makes it more appealing than other paranormal creatures, even though they have their merit too.
7) What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?
It depends because there are so many different kinds of vampire stories out there. For some, vampires are the most seductive creatures. For others, they are the most frightening. But others see vampire stories as an opportunity to tell other stories as well. The film, Byzantium, comes to mind.
8) In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?
Oh boy, that’s tough. Dracula is what really brought the creature into the mainstream. Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire humanized it, and influenced vampire stories today. It’s so tough to decide.
9) What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?
I actually found Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula to be both sexy and well dressed. I think the accent helped. But hey, even Alexander Skarsgaard as Eric Northman is good competition for Oldman. Oh jeez, how can I forget Jonathan Rhys Myers as Dracula?
10) How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?
I think Daniel Bertrand, the boyfriend to my main character, will be tough competition for all three. However, once his true nature is revealed, his sexiness plummets quickly.
11) Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.
The Dark Proposal is about a college graduate named Claire McCormick who thought she had the perfect boyfriend in Daniel Bertrand, until he reveals that he is a bloodthirsty vampire with the intent on making her one too. Frightened, she desperately tries to rid herself of him, only to painfully learn that he is too malicious to defeat. She struggles to come to terms with reality as she discovers how unstable the vampire world is in the modern age, and how some of them don’t realize how cruel Daniel is even to them. It is the first book in a trilogy, called The End of Eternity. I am working on the sequel right now, and plan to have it out later this year.
Megan Cashman is a former freelance journalist living in New York City. Always asking, “what if?” she turning toward fiction writing in order to explore our world, and many other worlds. Always analyzing and daydreaming, Megan looks forward to sharing her worlds with many others.
Blog: megancashmanbooks.wordpress.com
Twitter: @MeganCashman
Facebook: Facebook.com/megancashmanbooks
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6519000.Megan_Cashman
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009AL4RKE
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/276775
Gary Oldman also did an amazing job as Dracula, the moment in the movie that he introduces himself to Mina is a total swoon, it is also my favourite Dracula movie, I have seen it more times that I can count and know it by heart.
![[Guest Post] What is Horror? by Rebeka Harrington](https://dalascelles.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/bram-stokers-dracula-dracula-mina.jpg)
certainly never read it. That stuff was for girls, after all. When I were a lad my reading was all fantasy and SF, cool stuff with lasers and swords and demons and stuff. Romance was not in the picture. After all, I would hardly consider the sort of relationships that Conan had as ‘romance’, more reinforcing an unhelpful misogynistic male stereotype, and Elric of Melnibone was too obsessed with his own self destructive angst to worry about such things. Typical teenage boy stuff.
Of course, there is the inevitable love triangle which seems unavoidable in stories where the primary character is female. The one here is entertaining as it involves both the rogueish Hubert – the blast from the past who the main character never trusted then and certainly doesn’t now – and the stiff and proper Agent Mallory – whose overly formal demeanour disguises some interesting flaws and dark secrets, of which his opium addiction is only a minor one. The triangle is also suitably kept in the background rather than being the focus of the story as it becomes very clear that Eleanor’s true love is actually Egypt itself and, in particular, her quest to find out what happened to her mother and how it ties in with the rings of Anubis. This drive, along with her being a slightly older heroine than normal at 30 years old and having a dubious past, serve to make her a very interesting character who manages to be strong and feminine without resorting to unrealistic clichés. This allows her to carry the book and makes all her responses realistic and believable.
So, in a film which boasts 
Lurking Musings 