Annette Curtis Klause
Annette Curtis Klause broke new ground in young adult literature with The Silver Kiss, a book that is at once "sexy, scaring, and moving," according to Roger Sutton writing in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. A vampire love story, Klause's first novel is a darkly seductive thriller with heart and message.
Born in Bristol, England, in 1953, Klause became fascinated with grisly things at an early age. "My mother read and sang to me," Klause explained. "But my daddy used to sit me on his lap and tell me the plots to gangster and monster movies. I knew all about Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Jimmy Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson before I ever saw any of their movies." Her father also let her speak to Willoughby, an imaginary little boy who lived down his throat.
When she was seven, Klause and her family moved north to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She recalls that her first experience with creative writing occurred when she was incapacitated with a twisted ankle at age eight or nine. Klause wrote a poem about her mother ironing and decided from then on to save all her poems in a notebook. Soon she was writing and illustrating her own books, mostly about a cat and the kittens she has. At age ten she and a neighborhood friend began making up plays and performing them on a tape recorder. "The plays usually involved some kind of humorous mistake," Klause recalled, "like a woman calling up a plant nursery instead of a nursery school for her child."
It was also about this time when Klause wrote her first (unpublished) bit of horror, The Blood Ridden Pool of Solen Goom. Each of the chapters ended with ". . . and more blood flowed into the blood ridden pool of Solen Goom." Increasingly she read fantasy and science-fiction books, in addition to Mark Twain and, as she got older, the beatnik books of Jack Kerouac. "I wanted desperately to be a beatnik," she remembered. She also read her first vampire book at age fourteen: Jane Gaskell's The Shiny Narrow Grin, which was Klause's initial inspiration for her first novel many years later. "I was smitten by the pale young man who appeared in a few suspenseful scenes," Klause related, "and became mesmerized with the whole concept of vampires." Initially, Klause responded to this fascination by writing poetry, which she described as "a pretentious, over-written, dreadful sequence of poems interspersed with prose called The Saga of the Vampire[also unpublished]." These early writings would later become invaluable for Klause when she set out on the journey of her first novel.
Klause's life was distinctly changed when she was fifteen and her father moved the family to Washington, DC, for career reasons. In high school Klause continued writing poetry. After finishing college in 1976, Klause went on to graduate school in library science. She took poetry workshops in college, but poetry was soon replaced by short stories once she graduated and started working in libraries. Klause began sending her work out to magazines, collecting numerous rejection letters. Several of her poems and a short story were published in anthologies and small magazine reviews, but it took several years of concerted effort to find her voice and her audience.
"I finally took a writing workshop with Larry Callen, a well-known children's writer," Klause noted. "I knew I wanted to write for young people. I'm still working through my own adolescence, so it seemed appropriate. I continued with further ones. I still go to the writing group Larry Callen introduced me to, and often chuckle about how an idea or action will affect the people in my group even as I am writing." Klause soon graduated from short stories, and with the help and encouragement of Callen, set to work on a novel. "I wanted to write for teenagers, so I thought back to what I liked to read at that age. In a way, I stole from myself with The Silver Kiss, because I looked at my old writing notebooks and found the vampire poem I had written as a t
“They can't change (...). But Ido believe they have a beast within. In some it's buried so deep they'll never feel it; inothers it stirs, and if a person can't give it a safe voice it warps and rots and breaks out inevil ways. They may not be able to change, but they still can be the beast of their ownnightmares. It's our blessing that we can exorcise those demons. Sometimes it's our curse.”
“I will howl for you, human boy (...). I will hunt you in my girl skin but I'llcelebrate as wolf.”
“The Law is supposed to keep us safe and strong and able to birth healthy children, yet the Law wants us to tear each other apart to find a leader. The Law's a bunch of hypocrisy.”
“We can take it slow," he said. "You can learn to be with me. Find out what I'm all about. You never know, you might like what you find.""Don't hold your breath," she said.He stepped toward her casually, amusement flickering around his lips. She tensed, her eyes checking for a way to run."Or..." His hand lashed out, grabbed her, and whipped her into his arms, where he held her tight. "We can take it fast and rough.”
“Gabriel pulled her over his body to lie on the bed beside him. His kisses pressed her down into the oblivion of the mattress as her hands explored his chest, his shoulders, his face."I want to lay my kill at your feet," he said, more growl than words, and held her tight by her hair as he marked her neck with his teeth.She writhed against him. She wanted to bite him, she wanted to rip the flesh from his back, but most terrible of all, she didn't want him to stop. Her back arched, her body shattered, she howled.”
“I want to lay my kill at your feet.”
“Soon the cold would force them inside, so they clutched at lost summer.”
“what red lips you have," he said in her ear. Did she dare say it? "All the better to kiss you with, my dear," she replied. And then their lips met.”
“Jamás te hubiese hecho daño, no podría te quiero""No puedes obligarle a amarte si ha elegido a otra. Debes dejarle ir. No debes confundir el deseo de dominar y proteger con el amor""Quise ser lo q no soy y ahora no consigo ser lo que debería. Soy un monstruo""Se quien soy, como se atreve a decir que no lo sé. Me encanta ser licantropa. Adoro la dulce transformacion y la belleza que me da en medio de la noche. Cuando salgo a cazar, cazo animales salvajes,según las leyes de la diosa. No mato animales domésticos solo para divertirme""Según la historia de los humanos estamos malditos""Soy una loup garou, una volkodlak una metamórfica. No me convierto exactamente en una loba sino en algo parecido""Cuando un lider muere por el diente de un lobo, el vencedor liderea la manada. Cuando un lider muere por el diente del destino, se convoca la Ordalía, porque solo puede liderear lo más ágiles y fuertes""Ya no hay tierras salvajes donde escondernos. No podemos correr en manadas por las montañas donde los viajeros desaparecen durante meses, no hay selvas negras que lleve días sin recorrer y hace muchos siglos desde que reinábamos en pequeños reinos en el centro oscuro de Europa donde nos veneraban como dioses. Hay homo sapiens por todas partes, son más numerosos que nosotros, y el homo lupus debe convivir con ellos""Aunque no puedan transformarse, son la bestia de sus propias pesadillas. Es una bendicion para nosotros poder exorcizar estos demonios. A veces es nuestra maldicion""Que dice la leyenda? El hombre lobo puede morir por la bala de plata que dispara quien le ha amado...""Cuando amamos a alguien queremos que sea nuestra pareja en forma humana y de lobo”
“He was raw and sharp and rich and throbbing with life. He was sweet blood after a long hunt. How could she have mistaken Aiden's kisses for this? They had been delicious and smooth like the brief comfort of chocolate, but they had never been enough.”
“Why me?" she asked, holding on to him."Because you cared," he whispered. "You cared so much for your people, it broke your heart to see the pack in ruins. You cared so much for your mother, you risked your life for hers. You cared enough to save someone who wanted you dead. And because you walk like a queen.”
“Vivian, I'd like to give you my heart, but since that might be inconvenient I've brought you someone else's.""Rafe you jerk, this is a sheep's heart.”
“The Amoeba?" she asked Aiden."The gang," he said, tossing his hand to indicate all around. "Mypeople. A large amorphous mass that keeps on changing size, hasn'tmuch apparent use, sometimes makes you sick, and occasionally breaksoff into smaller parts that act exactly like the parent.”
“In his wolf-skin he was as strong as any of them, but he was a gentle person in many ways. He'd feel so bad about failing he'd probably step aside for someone else without a fight.”
“Three cheers for Sheriff Wilson.- Bucky Dideron”
“Puck shook her head ruefully. "We haven't even solved the first problem, and I'm worrying about the next one. I must be an idiot.""No," Hush said, wiggling an impossible finger at her. "Only kindness. Very much kindness.”
“In fear I hurried this way and that. I had the taste of blood and chococlate in my mouth,the one as hateful as the other”
“Life is an illusion that last too little.”
“I had the taste of blood and chocolate in my mouth, one as hated as the other.”
“Believe this," he whispered, and kissed her with the sharp, sleek kiss, the silver kiss, so swift and true, and razor sharp, and her warmth was flowing into him.”
“I mean, how would anyone learn anything if they weren't curious? How would scientists make discoveries? -- We all have the right to be different, don't we?”
“I'd like to give you my heart, but since that might be inconvenient, I've brought you someone else's.”
“When a boy's first romantic interlude is with Phoebe the Dog-Faced Girl, he feels a need to get out into the world and find a new life.”