Seduced: Interview with David Conlin McLeod
Featured Article in Dark Recesses Press Magazine (New Issue Coming Soon!)
Visit www.darkrecesses.com And get the whole issue and check out this article and more- like cool horror fiction submissions and cool artwork! Definitely worth a look!
This interview was conducted March 14th, 2006 with Kristin Johnson, author and book reviewer for www.myshelf.com
Seduced: Interview with David Conlin McLeod
Are you seduced by vampires? Horror writer David Conlin McLeod is too. His vampires—Moon, Tsigane, Whitworth, Colette Paul-Michelle, Madame Tatiana—lure us with the vivid personalities David creates for them. Perhaps this is why David—who this author first met while reviewing his trilogy-starter book, Dancing With the Moon, for MyShelf.com—has produced four spellbinding books since May 2003, when the vampire double feature Two Past Midnight debuted a month before Dancing With the Moon. The Audition followed on September 2004 while David prepared to launch Chasing Shadows: Tales of East River, the prequel to his trilogy. Chasing Shadows saw daylight in July 2005. Now, David has written the sequel to Dancing With The Moon and is working on several other novels. Kristin Johnson caught a few moments in the daylight with David and discussed the allure of vampires.
Kristin: What do you find seductive about vampires? In your book The Audition, Madame Tatiana seduces underdog dancer Paige...or attempts to.
David: It has always been something of a traditional quality that vampires have this seductive nature... and it makes sense that seduction and vampires go hand in hand. Vampires need that seductive quality in hopes of drawing in their victims. It's my humble opinion that most vampires prefer to be subtle in their actions, cautious, meticulous, and also discreet. They would be better served using their sex appeal and sexuality as a weapon than getting into real confrontation. Ultimately they want to feed, not fight. Fighting jeopardizes their survival.
Kristin: Yes, we saw that in your book Dancing With The Moon when the vampire Whitworth attacks Colette Paul-Michelle and her granddaughter Amy as well as the Gypsy vampires Moon and Tsigane. While Whitworth hoodwinks many, as he loses control, all the vampires get into battle and a fight for survival.
In contrast, Madame Tatiana fights through the mind...by offering Paige her dreams of being a professional dancer. Is Paige at all seduced by Madame Tatiana?
David: I think in some sense, Paige is very seduced by what Madame Tatiana offers her—all her dreams come true. And in another sense she sees this Madame Tatiana as a beautiful vision of everything she'd hope to become. Yet Paige is unaware of Tatiana's dark side so to speak. Paige is still a very young girl who sees Tatiana only as a ballerina of experience and refinement and beauty. What Paige doesn't see until much later is that behind all that beauty and ballerina refinement is someone who is by nature a predator—one who is seducing her prey by using Paige's dreams against her. In some of The Audition I do throw out some tidbits and hints of sexual tension, sexual attraction, and questions of sexuality with Madame Tatiana. She was a sexual person in mortality and that translated into her vampiric nature. I am not sure how well I was able to capture that in the story though.
Kristin: I think you do it very well just by hinting. Pedophilia is highly controversial, and it's somewhat present in Dancing With The Moon. There's a scene with the vampire Lady Robespierre at Whitworth's manor where Amy is enslaved. It seems like the roots of The Audition are in that scene.
David: I know from many of my female fans that a lot of those "enslavement" scenes in Dancing With The Moon between Amy and Lady Robespierre disturbed them and made them uncomfortable.
Kristin: Was that your intent, to show the dangers kids face?
David: Those scenes were very uncomfortable for me to write personally. I didn't actually want to write them at first. But I did have very clear intentions about the messages I wanted to have come across. I wanted to illustrate a young girl's innocence being challenged... I wanted to show the true nature of the worst sort of predator there is... and I wanted to show that despite the worst possible situations between a young girl and horrible predator like Lady Robespierre, "Innocence can still survive and a purity of soul can still persevere."
Kristin: Good message, and that's the one we get in The Audition as well.
David: It's the theme in all my work essentially. But I have to admit, getting that message out in Dancing With The Moon disturbed some fans with how it was presented. I left a lot of strong, lingering images in peoples' minds over the "enslavement of Amy". I look back on it and kind of regret how I went into those scenes. But then again...that sort of evil should be hated and despised. You shouldn't feel safe or comfortable with sexual predators and so on. There shouldn't be any elements in those scenes that should communicate safety or comfort. I tried to write those scenes with sensitivity and understanding. In the end though of Dancing With The Moon, you should come away from the book knowing that Amy is by far much stronger than how she was presented in the beginning.
Kristin: Yes. And the same is true with The Audition and Chasing Shadows: Tales of East River, your prequel to Dancing With The Moon. The vampires are active and seductive there too, along with the unknown darkness that enters people's minds – Amy's father Adam and Chandra Sheridan, mother of Amy’s friend Robyne.
David: There were different elements of seduction in that book definitely. The seduction in Chasing Shadows bordered along the lines of deep temptation. The temptations and seductions there were appealing to everyone's darker natures.
Kristin: Don't vampires appeal to our darker natures? Isn't that their chief fascination?
David: Every person has a dark side – some hide it better than others, and some embrace it. Some choose to fight it back. Chasing Shadows explores those conflicts.
Kristin: Speaking of dark sides, even "good guys" like Moon, Tsigane and Colette seduce us, because they fight with their natures.
David: You bet. The real appeal of vampires I think is that they can do all these things we cannot or are unwilling to do. They live forever... can make anyone fall in love with them...they can shrug off physical pain, they can walk with impunity and not be held accountable for their actions to some extent. They are allowed to be sexual creatures and do all those things we are inhibited to do- or afraid to do. And of course vampires are allowed to be dangerous without fear—at least in the realm of fiction.
Fiction allows us to taste some of the danger and risk and so on without the fear of retribution. I sort of dabble with retribution in my fiction. I make it clear that not even vampires are above divine retribution or some higher law. Their perversions and carefree lifestyles do come at a high price. The fiction I write does have a strong link to our reality. Anyone who reads my work will hopefully draw the connections and see how seductiveness plays against the idea of consequence and retribution. Even among vampires nothing is taken or given for free.
Kristin: Including life. Colette's life is "taken" accidentally when she's transformed into a vampire. And Tsigane might have an immortal existence but she struggles with the seductions of her nature when she gives Amy a glimpse of the Amy who can exist without the brain damage caused by Amy's cruel father. Tsigane is normally carefree about her nature but she experiences twinges of conscience with Amy.
David: Tsigane is a very important character to me—one I am exploring more into as I write the sequel to Dancing with the Moon. There is more about seduction with Tsigane.
Kristin: Could you talk a bit about the Dancing With The Moon sequel?
David: The sequel I am working on, technically Book 2 of the [Dragon’s Tear Chronicles] series, is tentatively titled While The Wolves Cry. This book has become a major project for me- and one I have been spending now 2 years agonizing over. You will see loads of development in Amy of course, but you will also see the real conflicts eating away at Colette, and you will also be introduced more to the Dragul-Mirov and learn more about the history of the "Dragon's Tear" necklace and where it came from and what it does. It actually has a nice tie-in to this talk of seduction. And it really focuses on Tsigane and Moon in a very potent sort of way. The hint here is that the "Dragon's Tear" in its search for innocence, draws out certain qualities in Moon and Tsigane and tests their strength of character. In a very real sense, the relic draws out and plays with Tsigane's seductive nature, pits it against Moon's temptations.
Kristin: As you said, even vampires don't get a free lunch. They seduce each other, or resist seduction...especially the vampires who suddenly are transformed, like Moon and Colette.
David: Exactly. Moon and Colette still have humanity lingering and clinging inside of them.
Kristin: Doesn't Tsigane in a way? And even Madame Tatiana?
David: True. Moon was "re-born" into a vampire back in the 11th century A.D., but he still clings to some semblance of what his past mortal life was before the vampire curse.
With Tsigane, she is a special case. Moon saw qualities in his mortal life that were desirable. With Tsigane (without delving too deeply into unpublished plot here) there isn't. At least there are qualities in Tsigane's mortal personality that she chooses to neglect or shove aside. She has not had the confidence in all her years of existence to accept who she was as a mortal. She found vampiric life to be the escape she needed and something far more desirable than her past. With Moon, the future and past are constantly helping and hurting him too...but he finds himself more able to make adjustments. Tsigane simply divorces herself from her past.
With Tatiana...Hmmm. I think her actions are defined by how she suffered with her past- both as mortal and as vampire. I think she uses her suffering as a sort of fuel to impose suffering on others.
Kristin: And she is seduced by people who are suffering like Paige.
David: It's actually funny...I wrote all these characters, and should know them inside and out, but it's like they are very much mysterious entities to me still. Tatiana is seduced by those who are basically succeeding where she had failed. In Paige, Tatiana saw a strong personality faced with dreams she couldn't reach at the time. She saw an opportunity to snatch Paige up and make use of her and do with her what she was unable to do herself. Tatiana also basically is lured by Paige's willingness to do anything to reach her personal goals. Tatiana uses this determination Paige exhibits to try and win herself a slave. Tatiana is there to corrupt and steal a dream she herself was never allowed to enjoy.
Paige had the will and drive to be a ballerina and a pretty good one- Tatiana never did. So rather than see yet another person succeed where she has failed, Tatiana chooses to test Paige's will and drive and try and seduce her into becoming a slave. Using Paige's will and determination against her. Basically if Paige wants to find her dream, Tatiana proposes that she work through Tatiana's "Auditions" to go out and get it- if she's so willing to do whatever it takes to get it.
Kristin: And Paige is seduced by that, but ultimately it's Tatiana who's conquered.
David: Yup. Because Paige is able to see that she and no-one else can achieve her dreams for her. The power she needs to achieve her goals are inside of her- not with Tatiana. Paige's strength can overcome Tatiana's seductions and temptations. "The Audition" is one of those stories where although it is for more mature readers, has a message I hoped more young girls and teens could hear more often. Young teenaged girls need to hear the message that they have that strength inside them to persevere.
Kristin: A great message and one that's present in Chasing Shadows. Could you wrap up with a "tease" about Chasing Shadows? A seduction if you will.
David: Sure. Chasing Shadows: Tales of East River is the story of a small town plagued with dark seductions, temptations, and underlying hints and shades of darkness... it is the story of ordinary people like you and me dealing with the skeletons in their closet, the bogey-men under their beds, and the hidden evils that lie deep inside them. And it is up to Amy Cavanaugh and her best friend Robyne Sheridan to find the light in this town and drive these harmful shadows back where they belong. This book is by far my greatest work—one I hold very dear, because it is very much a coming of age story for Amy and Robyne, but also a great story of struggle and perseverance.
It is also a tribute in my mind to the works that have inspired me. You will definitely see elements and style similarities between this book and Stephen King's It, “The Body," a.k.a. the story that inspired “Stand by Me,” Needful Things, and Salem’s Lot.
Kristin: There are also similarities between your work and the great classic vampire tales. Thank you for this interview with the vampire's creator.
David: You are totally welcome. I am honored to have had this opportunity.
Visit www.darkrecesses.com And get the whole issue and check out this article and more- like cool horror fiction submissions and cool artwork! Definitely worth a look!
This interview was conducted March 14th, 2006 with Kristin Johnson, author and book reviewer for www.myshelf.com
Seduced: Interview with David Conlin McLeod
Are you seduced by vampires? Horror writer David Conlin McLeod is too. His vampires—Moon, Tsigane, Whitworth, Colette Paul-Michelle, Madame Tatiana—lure us with the vivid personalities David creates for them. Perhaps this is why David—who this author first met while reviewing his trilogy-starter book, Dancing With the Moon, for MyShelf.com—has produced four spellbinding books since May 2003, when the vampire double feature Two Past Midnight debuted a month before Dancing With the Moon. The Audition followed on September 2004 while David prepared to launch Chasing Shadows: Tales of East River, the prequel to his trilogy. Chasing Shadows saw daylight in July 2005. Now, David has written the sequel to Dancing With The Moon and is working on several other novels. Kristin Johnson caught a few moments in the daylight with David and discussed the allure of vampires.
Kristin: What do you find seductive about vampires? In your book The Audition, Madame Tatiana seduces underdog dancer Paige...or attempts to.
David: It has always been something of a traditional quality that vampires have this seductive nature... and it makes sense that seduction and vampires go hand in hand. Vampires need that seductive quality in hopes of drawing in their victims. It's my humble opinion that most vampires prefer to be subtle in their actions, cautious, meticulous, and also discreet. They would be better served using their sex appeal and sexuality as a weapon than getting into real confrontation. Ultimately they want to feed, not fight. Fighting jeopardizes their survival.
Kristin: Yes, we saw that in your book Dancing With The Moon when the vampire Whitworth attacks Colette Paul-Michelle and her granddaughter Amy as well as the Gypsy vampires Moon and Tsigane. While Whitworth hoodwinks many, as he loses control, all the vampires get into battle and a fight for survival.
In contrast, Madame Tatiana fights through the mind...by offering Paige her dreams of being a professional dancer. Is Paige at all seduced by Madame Tatiana?
David: I think in some sense, Paige is very seduced by what Madame Tatiana offers her—all her dreams come true. And in another sense she sees this Madame Tatiana as a beautiful vision of everything she'd hope to become. Yet Paige is unaware of Tatiana's dark side so to speak. Paige is still a very young girl who sees Tatiana only as a ballerina of experience and refinement and beauty. What Paige doesn't see until much later is that behind all that beauty and ballerina refinement is someone who is by nature a predator—one who is seducing her prey by using Paige's dreams against her. In some of The Audition I do throw out some tidbits and hints of sexual tension, sexual attraction, and questions of sexuality with Madame Tatiana. She was a sexual person in mortality and that translated into her vampiric nature. I am not sure how well I was able to capture that in the story though.
Kristin: I think you do it very well just by hinting. Pedophilia is highly controversial, and it's somewhat present in Dancing With The Moon. There's a scene with the vampire Lady Robespierre at Whitworth's manor where Amy is enslaved. It seems like the roots of The Audition are in that scene.
David: I know from many of my female fans that a lot of those "enslavement" scenes in Dancing With The Moon between Amy and Lady Robespierre disturbed them and made them uncomfortable.
Kristin: Was that your intent, to show the dangers kids face?
David: Those scenes were very uncomfortable for me to write personally. I didn't actually want to write them at first. But I did have very clear intentions about the messages I wanted to have come across. I wanted to illustrate a young girl's innocence being challenged... I wanted to show the true nature of the worst sort of predator there is... and I wanted to show that despite the worst possible situations between a young girl and horrible predator like Lady Robespierre, "Innocence can still survive and a purity of soul can still persevere."
Kristin: Good message, and that's the one we get in The Audition as well.
David: It's the theme in all my work essentially. But I have to admit, getting that message out in Dancing With The Moon disturbed some fans with how it was presented. I left a lot of strong, lingering images in peoples' minds over the "enslavement of Amy". I look back on it and kind of regret how I went into those scenes. But then again...that sort of evil should be hated and despised. You shouldn't feel safe or comfortable with sexual predators and so on. There shouldn't be any elements in those scenes that should communicate safety or comfort. I tried to write those scenes with sensitivity and understanding. In the end though of Dancing With The Moon, you should come away from the book knowing that Amy is by far much stronger than how she was presented in the beginning.
Kristin: Yes. And the same is true with The Audition and Chasing Shadows: Tales of East River, your prequel to Dancing With The Moon. The vampires are active and seductive there too, along with the unknown darkness that enters people's minds – Amy's father Adam and Chandra Sheridan, mother of Amy’s friend Robyne.
David: There were different elements of seduction in that book definitely. The seduction in Chasing Shadows bordered along the lines of deep temptation. The temptations and seductions there were appealing to everyone's darker natures.
Kristin: Don't vampires appeal to our darker natures? Isn't that their chief fascination?
David: Every person has a dark side – some hide it better than others, and some embrace it. Some choose to fight it back. Chasing Shadows explores those conflicts.
Kristin: Speaking of dark sides, even "good guys" like Moon, Tsigane and Colette seduce us, because they fight with their natures.
David: You bet. The real appeal of vampires I think is that they can do all these things we cannot or are unwilling to do. They live forever... can make anyone fall in love with them...they can shrug off physical pain, they can walk with impunity and not be held accountable for their actions to some extent. They are allowed to be sexual creatures and do all those things we are inhibited to do- or afraid to do. And of course vampires are allowed to be dangerous without fear—at least in the realm of fiction.
Fiction allows us to taste some of the danger and risk and so on without the fear of retribution. I sort of dabble with retribution in my fiction. I make it clear that not even vampires are above divine retribution or some higher law. Their perversions and carefree lifestyles do come at a high price. The fiction I write does have a strong link to our reality. Anyone who reads my work will hopefully draw the connections and see how seductiveness plays against the idea of consequence and retribution. Even among vampires nothing is taken or given for free.
Kristin: Including life. Colette's life is "taken" accidentally when she's transformed into a vampire. And Tsigane might have an immortal existence but she struggles with the seductions of her nature when she gives Amy a glimpse of the Amy who can exist without the brain damage caused by Amy's cruel father. Tsigane is normally carefree about her nature but she experiences twinges of conscience with Amy.
David: Tsigane is a very important character to me—one I am exploring more into as I write the sequel to Dancing with the Moon. There is more about seduction with Tsigane.
Kristin: Could you talk a bit about the Dancing With The Moon sequel?
David: The sequel I am working on, technically Book 2 of the [Dragon’s Tear Chronicles] series, is tentatively titled While The Wolves Cry. This book has become a major project for me- and one I have been spending now 2 years agonizing over. You will see loads of development in Amy of course, but you will also see the real conflicts eating away at Colette, and you will also be introduced more to the Dragul-Mirov and learn more about the history of the "Dragon's Tear" necklace and where it came from and what it does. It actually has a nice tie-in to this talk of seduction. And it really focuses on Tsigane and Moon in a very potent sort of way. The hint here is that the "Dragon's Tear" in its search for innocence, draws out certain qualities in Moon and Tsigane and tests their strength of character. In a very real sense, the relic draws out and plays with Tsigane's seductive nature, pits it against Moon's temptations.
Kristin: As you said, even vampires don't get a free lunch. They seduce each other, or resist seduction...especially the vampires who suddenly are transformed, like Moon and Colette.
David: Exactly. Moon and Colette still have humanity lingering and clinging inside of them.
Kristin: Doesn't Tsigane in a way? And even Madame Tatiana?
David: True. Moon was "re-born" into a vampire back in the 11th century A.D., but he still clings to some semblance of what his past mortal life was before the vampire curse.
With Tsigane, she is a special case. Moon saw qualities in his mortal life that were desirable. With Tsigane (without delving too deeply into unpublished plot here) there isn't. At least there are qualities in Tsigane's mortal personality that she chooses to neglect or shove aside. She has not had the confidence in all her years of existence to accept who she was as a mortal. She found vampiric life to be the escape she needed and something far more desirable than her past. With Moon, the future and past are constantly helping and hurting him too...but he finds himself more able to make adjustments. Tsigane simply divorces herself from her past.
With Tatiana...Hmmm. I think her actions are defined by how she suffered with her past- both as mortal and as vampire. I think she uses her suffering as a sort of fuel to impose suffering on others.
Kristin: And she is seduced by people who are suffering like Paige.
David: It's actually funny...I wrote all these characters, and should know them inside and out, but it's like they are very much mysterious entities to me still. Tatiana is seduced by those who are basically succeeding where she had failed. In Paige, Tatiana saw a strong personality faced with dreams she couldn't reach at the time. She saw an opportunity to snatch Paige up and make use of her and do with her what she was unable to do herself. Tatiana also basically is lured by Paige's willingness to do anything to reach her personal goals. Tatiana uses this determination Paige exhibits to try and win herself a slave. Tatiana is there to corrupt and steal a dream she herself was never allowed to enjoy.
Paige had the will and drive to be a ballerina and a pretty good one- Tatiana never did. So rather than see yet another person succeed where she has failed, Tatiana chooses to test Paige's will and drive and try and seduce her into becoming a slave. Using Paige's will and determination against her. Basically if Paige wants to find her dream, Tatiana proposes that she work through Tatiana's "Auditions" to go out and get it- if she's so willing to do whatever it takes to get it.
Kristin: And Paige is seduced by that, but ultimately it's Tatiana who's conquered.
David: Yup. Because Paige is able to see that she and no-one else can achieve her dreams for her. The power she needs to achieve her goals are inside of her- not with Tatiana. Paige's strength can overcome Tatiana's seductions and temptations. "The Audition" is one of those stories where although it is for more mature readers, has a message I hoped more young girls and teens could hear more often. Young teenaged girls need to hear the message that they have that strength inside them to persevere.
Kristin: A great message and one that's present in Chasing Shadows. Could you wrap up with a "tease" about Chasing Shadows? A seduction if you will.
David: Sure. Chasing Shadows: Tales of East River is the story of a small town plagued with dark seductions, temptations, and underlying hints and shades of darkness... it is the story of ordinary people like you and me dealing with the skeletons in their closet, the bogey-men under their beds, and the hidden evils that lie deep inside them. And it is up to Amy Cavanaugh and her best friend Robyne Sheridan to find the light in this town and drive these harmful shadows back where they belong. This book is by far my greatest work—one I hold very dear, because it is very much a coming of age story for Amy and Robyne, but also a great story of struggle and perseverance.
It is also a tribute in my mind to the works that have inspired me. You will definitely see elements and style similarities between this book and Stephen King's It, “The Body," a.k.a. the story that inspired “Stand by Me,” Needful Things, and Salem’s Lot.
Kristin: There are also similarities between your work and the great classic vampire tales. Thank you for this interview with the vampire's creator.
David: You are totally welcome. I am honored to have had this opportunity.
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