Giving Up The Bite

Is vampire fiction losing its popularity?

I'm not talking with the readers of vamp fic, but the writers. Clearly, authors like Laurell K. Hamilton and Katie MacAlister are still very much in love with telling tales about bloodsuckers, but according to an interview with Poppy Z. Brite that I stumbled upon recently and Anne Rice's notorious Amazon.com defense, some authors are just plain tired of of writing about vampires. Or maybe their just tired of those characters. I'm not sure. But what's clear is that they've moved on to other, non-vampy works.

Why?

Well, I'm not exactly sure.

I love writing vamp fiction, live for it, look forward to tapping at my keyboard and pouring out every blood-drenched word. In fact, I don't believe I'll ever give it up. A recent conversation with Stacy Boyd, an editor with Harlequin Silhouette, has given me great hopes that my own vampy tales may soon grace the shelves. Stacy commented on the popularity of vampire fiction and noted that people like Laurell K. Hamilton have (forgive the pun) pumped new blood into the genre. The readers are buying it, (and this one) gobbling it up, in fact--so what causes two of the biggest names in vamp fic to give up the ghost?

I don't know, but it (...wait for it...) bites.