This book explores the modern world of vampirism. Based on interviews, it looks at the many expressions of vampirism, from lifestyle vampires, who adopt the culture and admire the gothic image, to 'real' vampires who believe they are a separate race and need to consume blood and psychic energy in order to survive.

This book, about real vampires and the communities they have formed, explores the modern world of vampirism in all its amazing variety. Long before Dracula, people were fascinated by vampires. The interest has continued in more recent times with Anne Rice's Lestat novels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the HBO series True Blood, and the immensely popular Twilight. But vampires are not just the stuff of folklore and fiction. Based upon extensive interviews with members of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance and others within vampire communities throughout the United States, this fascinating book looks at the details of real vampire life and the many expressions of vampirism as it now exists. In Vampires Today: The Truth about Modern Vampirism, Joseph Laycock argues that today's vampires are best understood as an identity group, and that vampirism has caused a profound change in how individuals choose to define themselves. As vampires come "out of the coffin," as followers of a "religion" or "lifestyle" or as people biologically distinct from other humans, their confrontation with mainstream society will raise questions, as it does here, about how we define "normal" and what it means to be human.

The true story of Susan Walsh, a young reporter who mysteriously disappeared while writing about downtown Manhattan's "vampire" underground furnishes an exploration into a real-life vampire world that has its own rituals, rules, boundaries, and penalties. Reprint. AB. BAKER & TAYLOR Bks

From Bram Stoker to present day Hollywood, the mythology of vampires has fascinated, horrified, and even titillated us. Shedding light upon the underground world of real vampires, Guinn takes a candid, in-depth look at people who appear ordinary but claim to be vampires. Written from personal interviews with actual vampires, Something in the Blood documents vampires' true natures and discloses their lifestyles and techniques.

Preliminary Material --Introduction /Peter Day --Legend of the Vampire --Getting to know the Un-dead: Bram Stoker, Vampires and Dracula /Elizabeth Miller --"One for Ever": Desire, Subjectivity and the Threat of the Abject in Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla /Hyun-Jung Lee --Sex, Death, and Ecstacy: The Art of Transgression /Lois Drawmer --The Name of the Vampire: Some Reflections on Current Linguistic Theories on the Etymology of the Word Vampire /Peter Mario Kreuter --The Discourse of the Vampire in First World War Writing /Terry Phillips --"Dead Man Walking": The Historical Context of Vampire Beliefs /Darren Oldridge --Vampire Dogs and Marsupial Hyenas: Fear, Myth, and the Tasmanian Tiger's Extinction /Phil Bagust --Vampires for the Modern Mind --Vampire Subcultures /Meg Barker --Embracing the Metropolis: Urban Vampires in American Cinema of the 1980s and 90s /Stacey Abbott --Piercing the Corporate Veil - With a Stake? Vampire Imagery and the Law /Sharon Sutherland --The Vampire and the Cyborg Embrace: Affect Beyond Fantasy in Virtual Materialism /James Tobias --Looking in the Mirror: Vampires, the Symbolic, and the Thing /Fiona Peters --"Death to Vampires!": The Vampire Body and the Meaning of Mutilation /Elizabeth McCarthy --The Un-dead: To be Feared or/and Pitied /Nursel Icoz --"You're Whining Again Louis": Anne Rice's Vampires as Indices of the Depressive Self /Pete Remington.

Stories about hungry vampires hunting for a meal of fresh blood have been around for thousands of years. This eBook can take young readers on a trip through time to learn about ancient and medieval lore about vampires. Then explore how vampire stories have changed over time until these bloodthirsty monsters became the lonesome and tortured creatures often seen in today's popular culture.

Before Twilight was a twinkle in Stephenie Meyer's eye and before True Blood was running through Charlaine Harris's veins, a select band of highly successful and original writers were terrorising the literary world with their Vampire tales - here are eight of them, chosen for their impact and importance.