2010 Comic Con: Spotlight on Charlaine Harris

Our favorite author, the ever charming and gracious Charlaine Harris, sat down with a sizable crowd Thursday afternoon at Comic-Con to answer fan’s burning questions. Before getting into the Q&A, however, Charlaine was surprised with being given the Comic-Con Inkpot Award for achievement in Science Fiction/Fantasy. Congratulations, it is well-deserved!

Charlaine with her Inkpot Award

After blushingly receiving the award, Charlaine regaled us with tales and tossed us some tantalizing tidbits from the next Sookie book, which will be published in May 2011. Following are some of the highlights from our time together.

• Believe it or not, it took 2 years for Dead Until Dark to get published. Apparently the publishers took a while to warm up to the “blood, sex and tears” concept.
• If she had realized how hard it would be for someone with fangs to say “Sookie Stackhouse” she may have gone with a different name!
• Charlaine’s spiritual beliefs do influence her characters, because “how you feel about God and the universe is a basic part of who you are.”
• “How I write is a disgrace. I’m a ‘pants-er’, meaning I fly by the seat of my pants” in the throes of the creative process.
• At a recent appearance in Portugal (where the Sookie books are very popular) the questioners surprised her by curtsying. That raises the bar for the American fans, eh?
• When asked why Bill levitated in the first book, but hasn’t again thus far, Charlaine admitted that she just never found an occasion where he needed to. There’s no deeper meaning to that!
• For the Harper Connelly fans out there, it’s probably fairly widely known that she is done with that series. However! A Harper Connelly graphic novel is currently being undertaken by the same outfit that does the Laurell K. Hamilton ‘Anita Blake’ graphic novels.
• Interesting note – vampires being able to glamour people into letting them into someone’s home is an Alan Ball invention. They can’t do that in the books.
• Why are lemons poisonous to the fae? Because Charlaine needed there to be something that could get them, and was inspired to make it ‘ridiculous’. Similarly, she made up the point that vamps are dangerously drawn to fae blood in order to create a dramatic tension that explained why the two entities need to avoid each other.
• Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pam) and Chris Bauer (Andy) actually look amazingly like the way Charlaine envisioned those characters.
• She is writing Sookie #11 now, and shared a couple of interesting tidbits with us: although Charlaine confirmed that Sookie will never be a vampire, in book 11 Eric will ask Sookie to consider being turned. Plus Bubba returns! Watch for this book in May 2011.

Charlaine answers a fan question at Comic Con

Next February will bring us The Sookie Stackhouse Companion, a compendium that contains:

• An original novella, telling the story of Sookie’s experience attending Sam’s brother’s wedding with him – and Quinn makes an appearance too! Holla!
• An exclusive interview with Alan Ball
• A new FAQ with Charlaine
• Recipes
• Synopses of all the books
• Secret emails between Eric and Bill. Say what?

Charlaine will be part of the True Blood panel on Friday, and Mel & Liz will be talking to her again on Saturday, so stay tuned for more from Comic Con!