Posts by sarahlthomson

Hooray!

Posted by sarahlthomson on Jan 20, 2012 in Book: Mercy: The Last NE Vampire | 0 comments

Mercy makes the Voice of Youth Advocates’s Top Shelf list–their best middle grade fiction of 2011. Thanks, VOYA! Check out their February issue for the full list.

30 Odd Minutes with Vampires

Posted by sarahlthomson on Jan 18, 2012 in Book: Mercy: The Last NE Vampire | 0 comments

They say you can still smell Mark Twain’s cigars here in his billiard room. Could his ghost be smoking them?

I went for a little wander at ghostvillage.com, a site collecting information on paranormal occurences. I was pleased to see that they had a long, well-researched entry on Mercy Brown, and even more pleased that the writer had interviewed Michael Bell, folklorist and author of Food for the Dead. If you want to know more about the history and folklore of the New England vampire tradition, this is the resource to check out.

This is an interesting and spooky site–if you’re up for a little wander among ghostly photographs, unexplainable phenomena, and haunted hotels, it’s worth a visit! And for other ghosts and spooky occurrences from Southern New England, you can listen to author Jeff Belanger chat with some experts about whether Nicholas Cage is a vampire, haunted kitchens, the ghost of Mark Twain (or just his cigars), and Mercy herself, at 30 Odd Minutes. The expert interviewed implied that Mercy’s corpse, taken out of her grave, had fangs–not something I have ever heard elsewhere, and not really consistent with the tradition of New England vampires. But the liquid blood in her heart–yes, that was confirmed by the newspaper at the time.

We Wish You a Morbid Christmas

Posted by sarahlthomson on Dec 22, 2011 in Children's Literature | 0 comments

Here is a little holiday tidbit for you. It’s not to do with vampires, precisely, but it has ghosts and death in it, so I figure it’ll fit right in.

“Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it.” –Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Well, Charles, I can now tell you why doornails are dead. A nail that is driven entirely through a piece of wood (so that the pointed end sticks out) and then has that pointed end hammered down to hold the nail in place, is called “dead.” In the old days, hinges were always put on door with dead nails, to hold them extra firmly since they got so much use. There you go. Doornails are dead.

Happy holidays to all!

Thanks, Santa!

Posted by sarahlthomson on Dec 21, 2011 in Book: Mercy: The Last NE Vampire | 0 comments

Mercy is one of Barnes & Noble’s Best Young Adult Books of 2011!

Who knew Santa could fit that into his sleigh!

Amy Benfer, the B&N reviewer, says of the ten books on this list:

“They are simply good books. They are books for people of all ages who appreciate what makes a story work on the page: fresh storytelling, a distinctive voice, and compelling use of language.”