Recurring themes
I recently finished a short story called "Vampire Weather" that may be in an anthology coming out later this year or early 2011, if the editors like it. It was only after I finished it that I realised that while in detail and tone it was entirely different, it had some thematic similarity with one of my very first short stories, also about vampires, which was called "Grace". Practically no one ever read that story, and while it was published, I can't remember where, so it's not as if anyone is likely to remark on the similarity. In fact, they might not even notice, because as I said the details and the style are very different. But both are about vampires, and about relatives, and what relatives will do for each other.
Here's the beginning of "Vampire Weather":
“You be home by five, Amos,” said his mother. “I saw Theodore on my way back, and he says it’s going to be vampire weather.”
Amos nodded, and fingered the chain of crosses he wore around his neck. Eleven small silver-washed iron crosses, spread two finger-widths apart on a leather thong, so they went all the way around. His great-uncle told him once that they’d used to only wear crosses at the front, till a vampire took to biting the back of people’s necks, like a dog worrying at a rat.
I don't think of myself as much of a vampire writer, as it were, but writing this it occurred to me I have written quite a bit of short fiction about the old bloodsuckers. There was "Grace", and "Endings" in GOTHIC!, and "Infestation" in THE STARRY RIFT, which incidentally you can hear as a podcast here, and now this new one. Plus some others that reference vampires one way or another.
So it seems that in addition to some recurring themes in my work, I also have occasionally returning vampires . . .
