Episode 05: Pretentious Dishevelment

On the morning of June 02, 2013, a young mother woke up from a dream and began to write. Just over two years later, that book was published and soon became a phenomenon. It’s been ten years since Twilight was published, so take a trip back in time to 2005 and see what we remember, what do we have to … Read More

Episode 04: Blood Is The Drug

In 2013, director Jim Jarmusch released a film that looked like the Bloodsucking Feminists’ – not to mention fangirls everywhere – dreams come true: a Tom Hiddleston vampire movie. With a stellar cast and beautiful visuals, it’s a veritable feast of a film. But look a little deeper, beyond the big hair and big drama, and you’ll find cultural appropriation, … Read More

Episode 03: Isn't It Byronic?

Get ready as we throw so much shade on Lord Byron even a vampire would curse the night as we touch on the last of our “big three”: The Vampyre by John William Polidori. A short episode for a short story, we’ll discuss syphilis, the pains of being Lord Byron’s doctor, that night in Geneva in the year without a … Read More

Episode 02: Undead, Oversexed, and Over Here

After seven years of research (and one nightmare caused by too much crab meat covered in mayonnaise), Bram Stoker wrote and published the seminal work Dracula. An epistolary novel, Dracula tells the story of the titular vampire’s attempted move to England from the point of view of his lawyer, his victims and their friends. Join us as we discuss the … Read More

Voyages with Vampires: Whitby

One of the stranger dreams I have is to write a book/do a travel vlog series documenting vampire-related cultural tourism around the world. Many of these sites relate to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (from Poenari Castle, home of Vlad the Impaler, to Whitby, where Dracula first landed on English soil), while others are tied to the folklore of the vampire and … Read More

Voyages with Vampires: Le Musée des Vampires

One of the stranger dreams I have is to write a book/do a travel vlog series documenting vampire-related cultural tourism around the world. Many of these sites relate to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (from Poenari Castle, home of Vlad the Impaler, to Whitby, where Dracula first landed on English soil), while others are tied to the folklore of the vampire and … Read More

Pre-Twilight of the Vampires

You kids and your Moroi and your Cullens and all your vampire schools… *shakes stake* Did you really think you invented vampires in high school? When I was in high school vampires had been there for years! And I’m not just talking about all the Buffy the Vampire Slayer books either! *shakes stake again* Get outta my coffin! Seriously though, … Read More

Dracula, Riddled Vampires & Baby Eating

If you’ve been watching NBC’s interesting if inconsistent adaptation of Dracula, loosely based on the novel (and I do mean loosely in the strongest possible way), you will have once again seen an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s oft-imitated classic that turns the relationship between the Count and Mina Murray into one of romance. It’s a favoured trope amongst those who reimagine the tale, although it would be preferable for further adaptations to make the story as gloriously queer as NBC have, because, among other reasons, there’s an evident appeal to the idea of a soulless villain who is redeemed by love.


That doesn’t happen in the book, of course. The overriding metaphor of vampirism as a stand-in for rape and disease does leave the mood a little less romantic.