In a most charming interview with Senior Editor Rome Quezada of the Science Fiction Book Club, Charlaine Harris discusses the Sookie Stackhouse series, Alan Ball, and books & authors that should be on everyone’s “To Read” list.
Mr. Quezada wishes the Sookie series a Happy 10th Anniversary, to which Mrs. Harris graciously gives thanks, and they proceed to talk about its amazing success. Saying she lives in a small town, Harris actually feels “divorced” from all the hoopla. It didn’t hit her until recently, when she received a wall plaque highlighting all of her bestsellers, how amazing this whole thing really is.
The astounding success of the HBO show True Blood has increased foreign book sales, and Harris has enjoyed reading e-mails from all over the world that tell her how much her books are enjoyed. She finds the demographic abroad to be slightly different from that in the States, sharing that it surprised her to find that in Poland, for example, most of her fans were teenagers. She thought to herself at one point, ”It’s just so strange to me to think of people enjoying the adventures of a small-town Southern barmaid”.
When asked what, if anything, she has hoped to accomplish by writing the Southern Vampire Mysteries, Harris responds:
“First and foremost, I hope I’m writing a good adventure story, because that’s my goal. But I’m also trying to say something about exclusionism. I’m no preacher but I like to put in a good word for accepting people as they are.”
Discussing Alan Ball and True Blood, Harris says she does think, “…they got the spirit of the books exactly right”. She feels Alan Ball, being a fellow Southerner, “gets” her, and the “mixture of comedy and horror” that her writing expresses. All in all, she just likes him and thinks he’s a genius. As do we all!
Harris shares with us some of her current favorite authors and books:
Justin Cronin – Passage
Patrick Rothfuss – Kingkiller Chronicles: The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear
Joan Frances Turner – Dust
And the unreleased Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, for which she wrote a positive blurb: ”This non-gamer loved every page of Ready Player One.”
Watch the video, and see for yourself what a classy, intelligent Southern Belle Charlaine Harris is.
Thanks for the scoop, John! Remember, Truebies, we welcome your contributions!
Contribution credit: John
Sources: Science Fiction Book Club – SFBC Club Favorites: Charlaine Harris
Amazon.com – Ready Player One
(Photo credit: Science Fiction Book Club)
