“Mon Dieu, a global consciousness, ” I said. “So I’m going to be blamed one way or another for everything?”(Anne Rice, 52) asks Lestat in Anne Rice’s Prince Lestat. It is at this moment that Lestat learns that he is responsible for the possible destruction of all vampires.
Anne Rice finally wrote another book in her Vampire chronicles series. And all old school goths rejoiced. I’m sure a lot of new goths did too. I’ve found that a lot of my friends all read Anne Rice when they were teenagers. And they all still have a strong affinity for her books. Her stories are lengthy which allows us to bond with her characters; taking place in top tourist cities: New Orleans, San Francisco, and Paris. She loves the Victorian period, her Old World characters are always wealthy and living in large mansions. Her vampires are outsiders, which certainly appealed to me. Additionally, she had queer characters, which were the first ones I encountered in fiction. (I was 13.) And her characters were just queer; her books were not about teaching us—they were stories with some vampires, witches, and humans who just happened to be queer.
I’ve yet to read this new Vampire book, Prince Lestat, but it has certainly been moved up in my list of books to read. Anne Rice did a book signing at Books Inc at Opera Plaza. I went with my friend Santino and his boyfriend.
The line was quite long, to the end of the block.
We purchased our books inside and then got in line outside.
We then waited close to two hours outside before making it into the store.
Book signing rules at Books Inc
We slowly moved past the mountain of Prince Lestat books.
And then the mountain of earlier Vampire chronicle books.
At long last, it was my turn to have my book signed!
That was my initial moment of meeting her, I’m quite happy, as you can see.
As she signed my book I felt a bit awkward standing above her just watching and silent. So I said out loud, “I saw you in New York.” But I didn’t qualify that with, at the Barnes and Noble Vampire Lestat blood drive (I worked at that store and received a shirt that proclaimed I donated blood to the Vampire Lestat’s blood drive). So I probably sounded a bit like a creeper, following her. ugh. I was just so excited and nervous and found myself staring as she signed my book. In all, it was probably only a minute, but it felt like a short eternity.
Here we are with our personalized, autographed copies!! All in all, it was two and a half hours in line for our books to be signed. It was definitely worth it.
Here are the people still waiting in line after we had our books signed.
All these people waited to get Anne Rice to sign their books. She wasn’t speaking, just signing. I appreciated the ritual of waiting to see the celebrity author. I enjoyed seeing so many people dressed in solid black with dyed hair. We all love Anne Rice as an author, and we all love her enough to wait over two hours to get our books signed by her.
Doug Henderson is a tremendously funny writer. Utilizing the authorial voice, he writes with subtle humor. His book, The Cleveland Heights LGBT Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. His characters are likeable and they make you reflect on yourself and other people. Full disclosure—Doug is a good friend who inspired me to start writing again and was the catalyst for this blog. I’ve read his novel multiple times in various forms. And each time I’m eager to reread it—I never tire of his world and only want more.
What is The Cleveland Heights LGBT Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club about?
A group of gay friends that play Dungeons & Dragons every Thursday and everything is fine until a new guy joins the group and Ben, the protagonist, gets a crush on him. Things start into motion that take the group into all different directions. There’s gay D&D, there’s heavy metal, a competing vampire role playing club, a kiss-in.
I have been going through my old books to see what I find. This is the third entry; I’m slowly combing through all my books. Sometimes it’s as boring as a muni pass or a receipt for the book I’ve found it in. Sometimes it’s something more, something I’d long forgotten, something that reminds me of who I used to be, and who I used to want to be.
This project is really fun but sometimes it’s a bit sad. It reminds me of things I’d forgotten, things I meant to forget. I’m not referring to this particular entry, just this project in general. We store things away to hide them because we can’t throw them out and yet we don’t want to see them anymore. And one day we find them and all those emotions reappear just as that item has.
Goth Grammarist 