Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2000 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspapers Partnership, LP
It was dark. Rainy. Just two weeks before Halloween. When, from the cold heart of the Lamar High School library, came a harrowing howl.
Ow wow woo woo. Ay ay ay oooooooooooooh!
It was the wolf girl. Well, wolf woman. Also known as vampy teen fiction writer Annette Curtis Klause.
"I thought maybe we could all have a group howl," said Klause, throwing back her red curly hair to demonstrate, silver claw necklace shimmering under fluorescent library lighting. "I've found that howling makes you feel good. It's a cathartic experience, really."
Needless to say, no one in the audience could match the creator of Vivian Gandillon, teen she-werewolf in Klause's 1997 book, Blood and Chocolate. They're just lucky she didn't bring out the fangs.
It was, after all, Klause's sexy teen vampire book, The Silver Kiss, that sent little shocks through the young adult fiction world 10 years ago with its honest portrayal of teen issues - including sensuality.
"I'm trying to write the real books," said Klause, in Houston recently for the Houston Public Library's Teen Read Week. "A couple of kids today have commented on that - that I've included the sexy stuff."
Kisses are Klause's fictional piece de resistance - from Zoe's toothy clinches with dreamy teen vampire Simon in The Silver Kiss to Vivian's hungry pounces on the woefully human "meat-boy" Aiden in Blood and Chocolate.
But what keeps the pages turning is Klause's uncanny grasp on the issues and frustrations a lot of teens have in the so-called "adult world." At times, it seems like Klause herself is secretly a teen-ager in 47-year-old's clothing.
The Bristol, England, native moved to Washington, D.C., with her family when she was 15, by which time, she was already considered a little "strange," a little "weird," not to mention a little "geeky." Maybe because from the time she learned to read, Klause devoured science fiction and fantasized about the netherworld. Or the fact that she kept her dark poetry in booklets, bound together by tape, from the time she was 8.
"When I was a teen-ager, I discovered Jack Kerouac and decided I wanted to be a beatnik," she told a group of Lamar creative writing students, many of whom are aspiring writers. "But beatniks were passe, so I had to settle on being a hippie."
Klause went through many phases in life - including the unlikely pursuit of a master's degree in library science - but she never stopped writing.
In 1990, after decades of squirreling her thoughts into a cubby hole, the petite librarian with a penchant for punk rock unleashed her steamy prose and blood-sucking plots on teen audiences.
Fans of The Silver Kiss and her other two novels, Alien Secrets and Blood and Chocolate, might say it was well worth the wait.
"I love the whole premise of vampires," said Brandy Monk, a Lamar sophomore waiting in line for Klause to autograph her copy of The Silver Kiss. "The love, the drama and all that."
Klause may have been a bit ahead of her time with The Silver Kiss, penned years before Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the screen. However, her love of writing about the supernatural for young adult audiences couldn't be more timely in today's teen-scream market.
Blood and Chocolate has been optioned by MGM for feature film production. Jennifer Love Hewitt - much to Klause's horror (she's way too tiny to be leggy werewolf Vivian) - was actually reading for the role in an early run-through.
And now, back at Klause's home in the quiet Maryland suburbs (where she lives with husband and cats), the diva of the undead is working on yet another potentially ground-breaking idea.
"I haven't finished it, so I tend not to talk about it," said Klause of her latest book-in-progress. "But it's a historical, set 100 years ago."
Klause's The Silver Kiss was on the recommended reading list for the Houston Public Library's Teen Read Week. Her two-day visit to Houston last week included stops at Lamar and Scarborough high schools, as well as several HPL branches.
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