From Vampires To Fairies:
The Literal Transformation of
Author Laurell K. Hamilton
by Randy L. Garsee
She's wanted to write since she was 14 and it's all she's ever wanted to do. Laurell K. Hamilton has written her way into the hardened hearts and maniacal minds of horror readers everywhere through her “Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter” series. If you haven't been there it's a surreal place where monsters and humans share an uncomfortable, bloody and, often, murderous co-existence.
"It's like if you got up tomorrow and everything that went bump in the night was real: vampires, zombies, ghouls," Hamilton explained, describing the modern day setting of the Anita Blake series. "The vampires have rights. They're people. You can't just shoot them, or stake them, because they're vampires."
The zombies, in particular, create some constitutional quandaries that would leave most of America's judicial authorities giggling in straitjackets.
"They are fighting things in court, like, 'Do you have to give back the money now that Daddy's declared legally alive? Are you a widow or a bigamist now?'" Hamilton said and smiled, clearly having fun injecting our reality with her dark imaginings. "When you see zombies shambling down the street in Anita's world, you call the police department. They believe you and they send someone."
Anita's world is mostly set in St. Louis, where Hamilton lives. "St. Louis is an underused location for both books and movies," she said. Hamilton is originally from Minneapolis and lived for a while in California before settling down in St. Louis. "I sort of fell in love with the town. It's got a city feel and yet you're never 20 minutes away from the country. I have the best time driving around and saying, 'Okay where are the bodies going to be in this book?'"
Hamilton has full, dark, red wavy hair that drapes over her shoulders and she wears very red lipstick. Blood red, you might say. A Celtic cross clings to her throat. A second necklace also has something hanging on it, but it's hiding somewhere behind the low-cut blouse and will remain a mystery. Hamilton, who is in her early 30's, is not exactly a bombshell, but she's certainly not unatrractive either. She carries a certain sensuality. And when she talks about her work, she peers at you with dark golden eyes through round, wire-rimmed glasses.
"I'm an eye contact junkie," she confesses. "Usually the first thing I notice is the color of a person's eyes."
I blink.
Hamilton has found immense success with the Anita Blake series as well as the Dark Fey series, but it's sometimes been a long drive on the publishing autobahn with roadblocks along the way.
"When I originally marketed the [Anita Blake] series, I had at least one editor reject it because she said the monster being out of the closet made it not horror, made it not scary," she said, explaining just one in a long string of editorial confrontations in her career. Another involved a location for one of the Anita Blake novels.
"One [of the novels] is set in Albuquerque and another is set in Branson, Missouri, which is much more rural. On that one I had one scene where I describe how black it gets at night without city lights. My copy editor, who had literally never been out of New York, wrote in the margin, 'It never gets that dark,'" Hamilton said and laughed. "Of course it doesn't get that dark in the city. It was very fun to explain to her that, without electricity, yes, it does get dark."
Still, behind those wire-rimmed glasses and dark golden eyes, a transformation took place in the writing mind of Laurall K. Hamilton. If you haven't read it already, then brace yourself, dear reader, for the Dark Fey series.
"The first book is called 'A Kiss of Shadows,'" she said. "I'm doing with the Fey, the fairyfolk, what I do with the vampires."
Hamilton explained the story behind the series. "For me, it is again, altered history. It's modern, set now and today. The fey were kicked out of Europe at the end of the last great fairy-human war. [After their defeat], they were given the choice of mainstreaming into the culture or inter-marrying with humans and losing their identity as a culture. Some of them didn't want to do that. [Then-U.S. President Thomas] Jefferson was a fairy-phile and he invited them to come to America. They moved into the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois."
The Dark Fey series is divided between Los Angeles and Cahokia, Illinois, which is near St. Louis. Hamilton describes the series as mystery, romance and political intrigue. Also in the series, another strong female character with a knack for detective work. "We have the main character who is actually Princess Meredith Nicessus who is in line to both the good and bad thrones. Princess Meredith is hiding from her relatives, who are plotting to kill her. She's a detective when the series begins in L.A."
It may sound like the Dark Fey series slides easily on the fantasy shelves at the bookstore, but categorizing the series became an exasperating experience for Hamilton.
"It's going to be marketed as dark fantasy and, uh," she said, then her eyes darted down to the tabletop, she hung her head for a second, and said, "And, actually, erotic fantasy."
"Really," I said.
"Really," she replied. "And I debated with them on this word. I said, 'What do you mean by erotic fantasy?' To me that sounded a bit more than I sent the book in as. And they said erotic meant a high sensual content. And I thought about it for a few days and I said, 'Okay, I'll give you that one. By your definition, it is [erotic fantasy.]'
"I'm a very sensory-oriented writer," she said as she fidgeted and gave a couple of deep nods. "But I am kind of wondering what my grandmother's going to say about 'erotic' above the title."
"You're not comfortable with the erotic label, are you?" I asked.
"No, I'm not," she admitted. "But I think [the publisher] sees it as tittillating, that it's going to get other readers, but it's always a double-edged sword. If you put something like erotica above the title, some people aren't going to pick it up just because of that."
As for her choice of subjects, Hamilton said, "I am writing it the way I want to see it. If other people would write the way I want to read it, I wouldn't feel compelled."
Hamilton still finds writing "fun" and encourages readers to join her, whether in vampire tales or erotic fantasy.
"I love what I'm doing," she said. "It's still very much 'Come. Come join me. Come play.' And that sense of play and fun I think still comes out in the writing. It shows that I'm still having a great time."
A few of Hamilton's books are listed below. But keep an eye for this amazing talent. Her novels often debut high atop the New York Times' list of bestsellers.
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