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I guess my first question for anybody writing young adult vampire fiction these days would have to be, "How do you do something different from what's already out there?" Because it's such a flooded genre lately. It's everywhere.

It is everywhere. And, honestly, I got really tired of people doing the same story again and again and again. It seems like vampire stories have become "the girl that falls in love with the vampire." I asked myself, "How come nobody ever writes about the vampire himself, anymore?"

I needed to visit the old stories like Dracula, where vampires are really terrible people. I wanted to write about the vampire, but it morphed into something else, because Vladimir Tod is a very unpopular teenager. I was a very unpopular teenager. I realized nobody's written about unpopularity and bullying morphed with vampirism before, and the story just came together that way for me.


So Vladimir Tod doesn't have the traditional vampiric powers where he can hypnotically command, "Lady, come to me."

Oh, he wishes. Seriously, Vlad really wishes he had that power. But all the cool powers like that, Vlad doesn't have. He can kind of float -- well, he says he can hover a little -- but he also doesn't have the stereotypes like... Right in the first book, he's looking into his image in the mirror, and he's mocking, "Who says that vampires can't see their reflection?" He's never had a problem having his picture show up in the yearbook. So little things like that he doesn't have to deal with. But he does have really cool powers, just not that "Come to me, woman."


I noticed in the promos that there's this question posed as to whether Vladimir Tod is a normal teenager or a powerful vampire. Is that something that's actually up in the air -- is he deluding himself to some degree?

No, Vlad definitely walks that line between normal teenager and vampire, because he does have the cool traits of a vampire, but he's still dealing with failing algebra class and getting the girl he likes to pay attention to him, while at the same time being on the run from evil big bad vampires -- and thirsting for blood. Something he feels especially in the third book, but throughout the entire series, is his hunger for human blood.


And he does all this attending a "mundane" school system?

Oh, yes. Only two people in the town, in the first book, know that he's a vampire: his Aunt Nelly who is his guardian, and his best friend, Henry -- and that's only because Vlad bit him when they were eight. But other than that it's a secret. Can you imagine going to school every day with cheeseburgers and be really, really hungry? That's something that he has to deal with on a daily basis is hiding the fact that he's a vampire, but at the same time trying not to be ashamed that he is.


Vlad's not going to night school, so you've got a plot element to get around the vampiric aversion to sunlight.

Sunblock. Vlad wears sunblock. Vampires in my books have varying degrees of sensitivity to sunlight. Some of them absolutely cannot go out in sunlight. One of them -- his name is Ignatius and he comes through in Tenth Grade Bleeds -- he is so allergic to the sun that he can't go out when there's even a little bit of moonlight out, because the sun's light is reflecting off the moon and he's so allergic that he'll catch on fire.


How many books do you propose in this series? Just to the 12th grade?

There will be five books in the series.


So there's no "vampire college?"

No vampire college, even though my minions really, really want there to be one. It'll be Eighth Grade Bites, Ninth Grade Slays, Tenth Grade Bleeds, Eleventh Grade Burns, and Twelfth Grade Kills.


That sounds like an ominous progression.

Oh, it should. But I won't tell you any of the secrets. But there will be a spinoff series, though, and it will be five books as well, called The Slayer Journals. Unless you've read Ninth Grade Slays, though, I can't tell you why it's called that.


I'm assuming it's because there's a slayer involved... and I'm assuming she's not blonde.

No, no, no... (laughs) Definitely not a blonde, definitely a little more fierce than some of the attempts that we've seen recently in literature.


Have you been approached to adapt Vladimir Tod into other forms of media?

I have, but I'm not at liberty to say, because my agent has zipped my lips on the possibilities coming up, but I will say there are potentially some big things coming Vlad's way.


Where does Vladimir Tod fall in the way of things like Twilight and The Vampire Diaries? This is presumably the same audience you're trying to target.

Here's the thing: I think that a lot of people who are reading vampire books today are looking for that romance. And while Vlad does touch on a sweet romance between him and a girl named Meredith, what my readers are looking for is... they're looking for the vampires. They want blood. They want action. They want humor. And that's really what my books are bringing forward that I think a lot of books aren't. Boys in particular tend to be reluctant readers; they get intimidated by the really thick books, romance kind of makes them gag a little, and I tell them, "You know what? Boys will read these books, because these books were meant for boys." Girls love them too, but that's just a nice blessing.


And the next book is out when?

The next book is out February 9, 2010, and that's Eleventh Grade Burns.