We recently sat down with the editors of the upcoming Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite, a fangtastic anthology filled to the brim with stories about vampires and old myths getting a makeover! We got to ask Zoraida Córdova, author of the acclaimed Brooklyn Brujas series and the recently released Incendiary, and Natalie C. Parker, author of the beloved Seafire series, all our burning questions surrounding everything supernatural, their favorite vampires and why vampires never go out of style!
Hi Zoraida and Natalie! Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourselves?
Zoraida: Thank you for having us! We love talking about our favorite creatures of the night!
ncp: Zoraida actually IS a creature of the night. Ha! But like she said, thank you for having us! The two of us met at a writing conference about five years ago and we’ve been friends ever since. Getting to work on a project together was probably inevitable, and the fact that it’s a vampire project just sort of raises the stakes.
Let’s do a lightning round to get things started. What is the first book, movie, TV show, or song you associate the words vampire, coffin, and supernatural?
Zoraida: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the glass coffin from Holly Black’s Darkest Part of the Forest, and DEAN WINCHESTER
ncp: Slayer; Snow White; Zoraida
And a little this or that….
- Would you rather be born an immortal or get to choose the immortal life yourselves?
ncp: Choose
Zoraida: Born - Would you either want to be allergic to garlic or never be able to look into a mirror again?
Zoraida: I’m Ecuadorian, I couldn’t do that to my taste buds. I’d rather never look into a mirror.
ncp: No contest. - Would you rather be able to turn into a bat or be able to hypnotize people with your gaze?
ncp: I’m going with bat.
Zoraida: Hypnotize
What types of (fictional) vampires did you grow up with and who was your favorite?
Zoraida: I grew up with Buffy the Vampires Slayer. I was ten and obsessed with everything she did and wore and said. It made me see out more supernatural fiction in the forms of books. That’s how I found the book that inspired me to become a writer which is In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
ncp: I hit my teens right as vampires were having a huge cultural moment. There was Interview with a Vampire and Buffy and From Dusk til Dawn and Kindred: the Embraced. I was into all of it. Vampires were both monstrous and beautiful and I found that tension incredibly fascinating. I don’t think I had a favorite until I was a little older and discovered Caroline Forbes in The Vampire Diaries TV show. She was this vibrant girl who was constantly dismissed and villainized for caring about things and her transformation is still one of the most elegant explorations of the vampire trope I’ve ever seen.
Now about Vampires Never Get Old! How did you two come up with the idea of giving vampires a do-over, anthology style? And how did you go about finding authors for it?
ncp: The genesis of this idea is almost unbelievably simple. Zoraida and I were on a writing retreat and one day she sighed and said, “You know what I miss? Vampires.” I agreed and moments later we’d designed a project that took familiar vampire myths and tropes and recast them through a variety of experiences and ways of being. Once the idea was there, we collaborated on a list of authors who were both expected and unexpected, and who we thought could do something exciting and fresh with vampires.
What was your favorite part of the entire process around the anthology? And what was the hardest?
Zoraida: The moment we started reading the stories from our contributors was really special. I still remember being overcome with emotion when I read Tessa Gratton’s “Seven Nights for Dying” and the chills I got from Rebecca Roanhorse’s “Boys From Blood River.” There are so many moments of light and humor as well as a dash of romance. This brings me to the hardest part of the anthology, which was deciding the order these would go in. At the end of the day, we couldn’t go wrong.
I loved how the anthology took such fresh spins on ancient myths that have survived ages surrounding vampires! There are so many topics, from mirror reflections to vampirism curing everything that get a new take in these short stories and I loved the prompts that started it all. What ancient myths around vampires have baffled you over the years? And which ones do you think are the most plausible?
ncp: The mirror thing MAKES NO SENSE. Why do vampires cast no reflection? They aren’t ghosts. They die and transform, but keep their earthly bodies. Modern mirrors aren’t even made out of silver so…*gestures wildly* It certainly doesn’t make sense that they cast no reflection yet show up in pictures or on video, but it does make for a nice metaphor.
As for most plausible, for me, that’s the blood. It is at once entirely human and entirely monstrous and it makes complete sense that a monster who started off as human would need to consume life in order to live.
The two of you also got to collaborate on one of the short stories in the anthology, “Vampires Never Say Die” (which was so addictive and I want more from Brittany and Theolinda). How did the process of writing this story together look like?
Zoraida: We love Brittany and Theolinda so much! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Our process was very seamless. We let the idea of this ancient vampire and baby vamp brewing for a little while. All we needed was the right entry way into the story of these two friends. We wrote an outline and then alternated between our characters. Their voices flowed so naturally it was eerie. But it was so refreshing to be able to write about an eternal friendship. It certainly puts a new meaning to Best Friends Forever.
Besides Vampires Never Get Old, what are the two of you working on at the moment and can you share a few tidbits with us about those projects?
ncp: I’m wrapping up my high seas, solar punk Seafire trilogy this fall with Stormbreak, which releases Nov 10th. Then, next fall, I’m very excited to be publishing my middle grade debut, The Devouring Wolf. It’s about a community of werewolves where kids all transform for the first time on the same night of the year, but this year, something goes wrong and a bunch of kids don’t change. I’m so excited to be in new supernatural territory with this one!
Zoraida: I had a few releases this year. There’s my new high fantasy series inspired by 15th century Spain, Incendiary, which came out in the spring of this year. It’s about a memory thief who tries to bring down a cruel kingdom. It’s the first in a duology that ends next year. I’m currently wrapping up edits on the sequel.
I’m also saying goodbye to the Brooklyn Brujas series. This trilogy started with Labyrinth Lost and is now culminating with Wayward Witch on September 1st of this year. It’s always hard to say goodbye, but these witch sisters will always be in my mind.
I have two secret projects for 2021 and 2022 but I can’t talk about them yet. Hopefully soon!
Last but not least, do you have any bookish recommendations for us?
Many of our contributors have books coming out this fall! If you loved their short stories, you might love their full length work, out this fall: Night Shine by Tessa Gratton, Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, Each of Us a Desert by Mark Oshiro, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
