How did a religious studies scholar become interested in modern-day vampires?
Laycock: While I was teaching high school in Atlanta, I found out about the Atlanta Vampire Alliance, which was conducting a 1,000-question survey for people who claim to be vampires. I found it interesting that people were defining their identities through survey data, so I wrote a paper about it and presented it at the American Academy of Religion in San Diego. Two journals approached me about publishing the paper, and then a representative from Praeger asked me to write a book. They knew what I didn’t: thanks to the Twilight series, it’s a seller’s market for vampires. Your book describes several different types of vampires. First there are lifestyle vampires, who admire the aesthetic. They may like vampire movies or writer Anne Rice, and they may own a set of prosthetic fangs or wear Victorian costumes to nightclubs. But at the end of the day, they know they’re no different from anyone else because they don’t feed. Real vampires, on the other hand, believe that their physical, ment
