So confession time: I am, unashamedly, a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have the whole series on DVD, I have the comics (including the ongoing Season 8) and I've been sorely tempted to read a book or two. My affection for Buffy is very complicated however and not centered on Buffy loving Angel (which culminated early in the show anyway) but is more about the many complex relationships that play out over the seven seasons it was on the air (and continue in the comic). Just as I did not read Bram Stoker's Dracula or Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire or Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series (the early years!!!) looking for romance, I also didn't look for it initially in Buffy. For me, vamp stories are equal parts scary/thrilling and mysterious - you have the blood and gore and "gotcha" moments and you also have the endeavor to catch the bad guys or at the very least, outwit them and survive to fight another day. The current crop of vamp novels are not so much about horror however as romance however, and this is particularly true when you look to the teen titles.

My question to the panel this time was partly about Twilight (because you can't talk about modern vamp fiction without Twilight) but also to a larger degree about this new subset of the romance genre, wherein heroines are essentially loving men who want to kill them. Does it mean anything about what kind of boys a girl wants or is it just all part and parcel of the never ending search for Prince Charming? (Albeit a toothier version.) Most directly, what is the vamp romance appeal and is it any different from the Harlequin romances and Forever of the 70s? It is one thing after all to lust after a guy from afar but know he is bad news, it's a whole other deal to spend your time willingly with someone who might accidentally kill you in the heat of passion. Are today's vamp lovers more passive then they should be? Are these books showing girls a take charge guy that can't be denied and preventing them from real world boys who might be worth their time? Is there a dirty secret about passivity hiding in the Twilight series?

Melissa Wyatt: "Aside from the bad boy angle, a large part of the appeal of the vampire has always been the ravishment fantasy. For teen readers in particular who may or may not have made physical steps in sexual exploration, a vampire is a weirdly idealized metaphor for sex without acknowledging that's the subject you're playing with. Ordinary girl, extraordinary guy and the most dangerous form of sex that isn't sex. This is a penetration that will change your life. Add into that the immortality of the vampire and you've got that secret fantasy of a romantically sexual relationship that will never end. It's irresistible, whether we, as adults, like the idea of teen girls thinking in these terms or not.

Do I think girls who love these books are in danger of hunting down their own Edward? I doubt it. I trust girls to know the difference between a real guy and a marble-skinned vampire in a book. What I think these books do is what I like best about books (even though these particular books aren't for me): they provide that safe place to really wallow in feelings and emotions that might scare you or elude you in the real world. And then you can leave all of that there, knowing it's safe, knowing you can come back to it if you need to. The heroine in these books might be lacking for adult readers, but she's a kind of skin for teen readers to fill out. I don't think they're reading Bella the same way someone like me reads her or they wouldn't defend her the way they do on various forums. They're defending themselves and their feelings.

So I think it comes down to what it always comes down to in YA: trust the reader, trust that she knows the boundaries between fiction and real life...and also--though this might sound condescending--don't overestimate the reader. Don't think she reads the way you do or for the same reasons you do."

Zetta Elliott: "I have to say that vampire stories never appealed to me, and watching Bram Stoker’s Dracula on Masterpiece Theatre last year scared the bejeezus out of me…if I relate that to the few episodes of Buffy I’ve seen, I’d say the vampire genre for young adults today seems to focus more on seduction and less on the occult, which is probably a good thing. Probably. Either way, these topics are a way of talking about power, and I do think that fascinates teens; many young readers want to be mesmerized, enchanted, overwhelmed by a feeling they can’t control…at the same time, they want to kick ass, defend the righteous from evil, and be a kind of mutant that can still manage to dominate others from time to time. I haven’t read any of the Twilight books, but because I’d read anything written by Octavia Butler, I have read Fledgling. In that novel, a family of vampires has been experimenting with melanin in order to breed vampires that can better tolerate the sun. Butler complicated things by having her protagonist appear as an 8-year old black girl ~ she’s hundreds of years old, of course, but looks like a child and it was definitely uncomfortable to see her feeding from and giving a kind of erotic pleasure to her adult hosts. They did create an alternate kind of community, but real-world social relations (the constant sexual victimization of children) made it hard for me to take at times."

Lorie Ann Grover: "I don’t typically read horror, so I can’t comment on the general trend in the vamp books, but I have read the Twilight series. Awhile back, Martha Brockenbrough, author and MSN Cinemama, wrote an article with my opposing point of view: Does Twilight Suck the Brains Out of Teens? She fell on the yes side, and I fell on the no. Going back and reading my entry, I still agree with my position. Edward’s the hot, superhero in teen lit who raises the bar for today’s boyfriends. His looks aside, here's a quote:

“Note how completely enamored Edward is of Bella. He sees her weaknesses and finds her humanity endearing. He listens to every word. He never pressures her for sex. She pursues him. Into that perfect mix, pour danger, that alluring trademark of any great hero, just enough for tension to vibrate. We cheer as he denies himself because of his passion for her.”

Is Bella a passive role model for teen girls? I still say she can be seen as a positive role model. She isn’t consumed about her appearance. She’s strong in school and anticipates college. She thinks of others, acting with generosity to family and friends. She solves crises through her actions. So she’s attracted to a dangerous boy. She weighs her possibilities and acts.

In 2007, we hosted Stephenie Meyer at readergirlz. Next month we are featuring Graceling by Kristin Cashore. Katsa is a very different heroine, but the sparks fly when she crosses Po. Who doesn’t like a little romance? I obviously do."

Margo Rabb: "I'm going to talk about one vampire in particular, because since reading Twilight I've been thinking a lot about why it’s struck a chord with so many girls and women, why girls are trembling and screaming at Stephenie Meyer events, and why everyone is falling for Edward. My theory is that the appeal of Edward is about sex—or more accurately, the lack of it.

What's not dreamy about a man who falls desperately and irrevocably in love with you at first sight, disavows all other women in existence, protects you from all danger, and pledges his eternal devotion to you (which really is eternal because he's immortal), and yet who can't have sex with you? (Or at least not until book 4 and 2000 pages later. And the potential-for-death-by-vampire-bite thing just adds a nice little thrill, but I don't think any reader really believes Edward is going to kill Bella.) As girls and women, at some point in our lives, many of us come to realize that many boys and men essentially just want to have sex with us. Yes, some may fall in love with us, or fall in like with us, but a lot of them (an awful lot) simply just want to get us in bed. With the rise of Sex and the City and Gossip Girl and hook-up culture, we’re supposed to pretend that hook-ups and sex-without-love is okay for everyone. And for me, as a teen and young woman, it wasn’t. I wanted more. I wanted love also.

I don’t want to sound like a puritan, because I love Sex and the City, and I think if women want to have sex without love, that’s great. But I think culturally, the pendulum has swung too far the other way, so that many girls and young women grow up thinking that we’re not supposed to ask for love anymore—that it’s too much to ask, or that they’re afraid to ask and learn the answer. And I think that’s led to a lot of girls and women disrespecting themselves, denying how they’d really like to be treated and cared for.

Edward Cullen is the Yeti of teen boys (even if he’s really 107.) There isn't a guy out there who is as devoted and protective and, when you're 17, will pledge to love you forever and never waver in that love or devotion. The good thing about Edward is that if he makes girls and women step back and ask for more, or question the lack of respect they may be getting, then that’s good. The bad thing is that it can be hard to translate the fantasy into reality, especially when Bella’s entire focus is on Edward and nothing else. In an ideal world, Bella would go to college and graduate school and become an astrophysicist and tell Edward she’s not ready to marry him until she finds her own way in the world first. But…Stephenie Meyer is probably not going to be taking revision suggestions from me anytime soon."

Sara Ryan: "Appropriately (for some values of appropriate) I am typing more slowly than usual, since one hand is occupied by pinching my nostrils together to stop a nosebleed.

I'll confess to so far not having consumed many of the vampire-centric YA novels of the present moment. And to many of my friends' ongoing dismay, I have also not watched Buffy. So clearly, I'm operating at a distinct literary and pop cultural disadvantage when attempting to think about the appeal of vampires in YA.

I can, though, observe from reviews and commentary that very few current vampire books seem to be purely vampire books. Instead they're mashups with other YA subgenres: vampire plus school story, vampire plus girl-who-doesn't-fit-in. One way to think about vampires in YA is simply as a strategy for "adding interest" to a narrative -- like a fabulous cloak thrown over your story to tie it all together and keep it looking fresh.

And certainly their now-traditional sexual allure is an important aspect of vampiric popularity. The metaphors are so obvious they hardly seem worth noting: penetration is followed by transformation. After the bite, nothing will ever be the same again. But of course, in real life, that transformation is elusive. A girl who'd never finished a book until she read Twilight told me she wanted a boyfriend like Edward. Then she hastily added: "I mean, I have a boyfriend, but..."

I'll confess again -- the recent vampire narrative I've found most compelling was a movie, not a book. (It was based on a book, but I haven't read the book yet.) The movie: Let The Right One In. In a bleak Swedish winter in the early eighties, a lonely young teen meets another teen, dark and mysterious, who doesn't seem cold in the bitter night. Does it sound familiar? It's less so than you might think; the lonely teen is a boy, Oskar, viciously bullied, and the mysterious other teen is a vampire. The vampire, Eli, solves Oskar's Rubiks cube with dizzying speed, and he wonders if Eli can solve his other problems as well. What I admire most about the film is its unblinking focus on the brutal consequences that life with a vampire would actually entail: murder and secrets, power and the cost of its use."

Beth Kephart: "I will be entirely honest and confess that I have not read more than a handful of pages of the Twilight series or its near cousins. I’ve stood in bookstores paging through, I’ve read the countless reviews, I’ve listened to those who love these books tell me why, but I have not fallen under their spell; for better or for worse, I look for a different kind of storytelling, a different approach to language. Frankly, I don’t know if the books are preventing girls for falling for real-world boys; do books, in the end, have that much power? Generalizing about kids gets us nowhere, but I will generally say that the young people with whom I correspond on a regular basis are smart and in full, never-passive possession of their own minds and hearts. That they talk with equal intelligence about Jane Austen as they do about Bella. That what they seem to cherish is the idea of being transported, briefly, into another world. Aren’t vampire stories ultimately about the mystery and power of The Other? Aren’t they about some of which we’ve lately been talking about here—books that slide readers into the point of view of people who are not like themselves? I’m not here to defend Twilight or its ilk, for I’m not in full possession of the facts. But I am here to suggest that, while books do affect us in ways myriad and mysterious, readers, in the end, have minds of their own."

Kekla Magoon: "I read Twilight. For me it was sort of like a train wreck you can't look away from. I did not love the writing, nor the story, but there was some X factor that made me want to keep reading. I can't put my finger on what it was, but I managed to finish the first book. However, I was extremely bothered by Bella's passivity, and especially her constant need to be rescued--often because she recklessly puts herself in harm's way. I'm a sucker for the bad boy fantasy as much as the next girl, but flirting with danger is very different from willingly and knowingly throwing yourself into the fire and not caring if you get burned. I'm not even sure where I personally draw the line on that, but I think it has something to do with self-esteem. Is "it's okay to sacrifice yourself for the sake of a man" the correct message to be sending teenage girls? They're still forming their identities; is it wise to model for them how much easier it is to let someone else define you?

I'm romantic about the idea that love conquers all, but perhaps not at the expense of individuality. I like the occasional cheesy genre romance, and a good dose of chivalry never hurt anyone, but I really believe there is a way to make romance exciting without taking away women's intelligence and agency. Sure, we all like to be saved sometimes, but isn't it also fun to do the saving? I love being whisked away into a fantasy, but I want to emerge feeling victorious, not victimized. I want to descend into the illusion of control, if only through the eyes of a character.

I'm certainly not opposed to vampire stories, or even to vampire romances. (I don't know enough about the latter to generalize.) I enjoyed Thirsty by MT Anderson and Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. Anderson's story is quirky and thoughtful, while Rice creates an intriguing, disturbing world where morality is overturned. The mystique of vampires can't be denied. There's fun to be had there. I would eagerly read a vampire-human romance that gives characters more depth and allows the sinister side of vampire life to play out, but one that puts the characters on more equal footing than Twilight does.

Mayra Lazara Dole: Mayra has not read much in the vamp genre and so she asked a few folks who were more well versed to chime in with their responses. Here is what they had to say:

Sandra Castillo (English Professor): "As for vampire stories: it is not about submission. It is about immortality and how each writer takes this premise and ultimately reinvents the vampire myth with his/her own twists, ultimately making it his/her own. As for Twilight, what is most interesting about the story is not that it is a romance--it is the tone, the mood of the book, much like the Shipping News, what is most captivating, aside from the wounded main characters, is the place where such stories are anchored and how the environment enables the writer to reveal his/her characters to the readers. The vampire Edward is the Green World Lover of women's literature. In this regard, Stephanie Meyer is following a long literary tradition. In the Twilight saga, Edward is an archetype, representative of nature and the wilderness. For Bella, he represents a means of escaping social conventions and the accepted role that a woman must play in a male-dominated world. As such, he becomes an escape from socially prescribed notion/ limitations, which she vehemently rejects. As such, I just don't think that the novel can be so easily dismissed as a teen-age love story and leave it at that. There is an interesting dynamic going on here, (the psyche in conflict), particularly because this Green Lover formula seems to inform the plot of Twilight as Meyer is obviously using seduction as a device to explore the concept of aggressor/victim. And Meyer certainly plays with these roles, begging the question who is the victim who is the aggressor, particularly as it pertains to Edward & Bella. I mean, sure, Edward exists outside of social constraints, but he is not the demon lover of Stoker's Dracula. He is not a destroyer. In fact, he is constantly telling Bella that he does not want to be a monster. So, I think Meyer understands that she has dressed Edward for the part--perhaps what is most curious is that he is actually a much more feminine character than Bella. OK, so maybe this is a bit too Jungian, but I would suggest that Meyer (consciously or not) plays on the notion that the human psyche is androgynous: both masculine and feminine (Animus and the Anima) and her main characters (Edward and Bella) are simply playing out this age-old literary conflict."

Helaine Becker (Author): "I think Vampire books are erotica for the immature. Like 13 year olds whose bodies are first giving them the glimmer of what sex is going to be like, but aren't ready yet for the real thing. In its way, its safe sex, no penetration, the price is immortality, aw shucks. I loved vampire stuff as a teen, now find it just stupid. Did read Twilight out of curiosity as a kids/YA writer, found Meyers managed to pace the story well to keep the pages turning, but it was pro forma juvenile fantasy of the zipless f***. without an actual f***. Or an actual human. Now that wolfboy, he was HOT.

Analyzing Twilight etc from a writerly point of view, the characters were cardboard, the protagonist was not an active agent, the language was repetitive and stilted, there was a lot of telling and not as much showing, motivations were not clearly grounded, there were no subplots and the thematic underpinnings were non-existent. However, Meyers gift for storytelling and pacing made the books extremely engaging; I found them hard to put down even as I rolled my eyes in disgust or hooted in laughter. As a writer, I was trying to find what exactly made the story so compelling, and in the end, I think that her bang-on understanding of a very particular erotic impulse, one that shares a lot with mainstream romance, but is ever just so slightly skewed to really target that young girl blooming kind of sexual desire and tension, made the books so compelling. For older readers like me, it still appealed if only because it spoke to something I remember feeling once. BTW - Cirque du Freak is an excellent example of a boys vamp book series with all kinds of writing "flaws," but just has that certain something that boys enjoy."

Royce Buckingham (Author): "I hate that Twilight is about a 100 year old man who pretends to be 17 and goes to high school to pick up lovelorn teenage girls who have nothing but contempt for nice boys their own age. I did find the author's 1st person style engaging. I did not miss the tone, however--it was repetitive and maudlin, like a romance novel, which is essentially what the book was. Note that the protagonist never does anything, but merely lets things happen to her. This is generally considered poor character development. Incidentally, it is also a poor example for the zillions of teen girls who admire her for being unresourceful and passive and saved by an older man because they (and I quote the teen girls I've spoken with here) "identify with her." My thinking is in line with that of Stephen King, who also gave the book a bad review. Incidentally, I prosecute men who prey on girls in my day-job as a prosecuting attorney, and this story jumps out at me as exactly that kind of analogy."

And with a couple of alternate recommendations, "Larry d' Librarian" writes, "with me it is the immortality and the cessation of the aging process that is the appeal of the vampire legend. The historian by Elizabeth Kostova is a great literary look at the legend. Let the Right One in is a fantastic swedish retelling set in the 80's in a housing project movie based on novel." And Michael Sedano (one of La Bloga's founders) chimes in with: "I enjoyed the humor and outlandish plotting in the Felix Gomez chicano vampire detective series by Mario Acevedo."