Annette Curtis Klause

Author profile

born

January 01, 1953 in Bristol, England, The United Kingdom

gender

female

website

http://humanoddity.blogspot.com/

genre

Science Fiction & Fantasy

About this author

edit data

Annette Curtis Klause broke new ground in young adult literature with The Silver Kiss, a book that is at once "sexy, scaring, and moving," according to Roger Sutton writing in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. A vampire love story, Klause's first novel is a darkly seductive thriller with heart and message.

Born in Bristol, England, in 1953, Klause became fascinated with grisly things at an early age. "My mother read and sang to me," Klause explained. "But my daddy used to sit me on his lap and tell me the plots to gangster and monster movies. I knew all about Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Jimmy Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson before I ever saw any of their movies." Her father also let her speak to Willoughby, an imaginary little...more Annette Curtis Klause broke new ground in young adult literature with The Silver Kiss, a book that is at once "sexy, scaring, and moving," according to Roger Sutton writing in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. A vampire love story, Klause's first novel is a darkly seductive thriller with heart and message.

Born in Bristol, England, in 1953, Klause became fascinated with grisly things at an early age. "My mother read and sang to me," Klause explained. "But my daddy used to sit me on his lap and tell me the plots to gangster and monster movies. I knew all about Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Jimmy Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson before I ever saw any of their movies." Her father also let her speak to Willoughby, an imaginary little boy who lived down his throat.

When she was seven, Klause and her family moved north to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She recalls that her first experience with creative writing occurred when she was incapacitated with a twisted ankle at age eight or nine. Klause wrote a poem about her mother ironing and decided from then on to save all her poems in a notebook. Soon she was writing and illustrating her own books, mostly about a cat and the kittens she has. At age ten she and a neighborhood friend began making up plays and performing them on a tape recorder. "The plays usually involved some kind of humorous mistake," Klause recalled, "like a woman calling up a plant nursery instead of a nursery school for her child."

It was also about this time when Klause wrote her first (unpublished) bit of horror, The Blood Ridden Pool of Solen Goom. Each of the chapters ended with ". . . and more blood flowed into the blood ridden pool of Solen Goom." Increasingly she read fantasy and science-fiction books, in addition to Mark Twain and, as she got older, the beatnik books of Jack Kerouac. "I wanted desperately to be a beatnik," she remembered. She also read her first vampire book at age fourteen: Jane Gaskell's The Shiny Narrow Grin, which was Klause's initial inspiration for her first novel many years later. "I was smitten by the pale young man who appeared in a few suspenseful scenes," Klause related, "and became mesmerized with the whole concept of vampires." Initially, Klause responded to this fascination by writing poetry, which she described as "a pretentious, over-written, dreadful sequence of poems interspersed with prose called The Saga of the Vampire[also unpublished]." These early writings would later become invaluable for Klause when she set out on the journey of her first novel.

Klause's life was distinctly changed when she was fifteen and her father moved the family to Washington, DC, for career reasons. In high school Klause continued writing poetry. After finishing college in 1976, Klause went on to graduate school in library science. She took poetry workshops in college, but poetry was soon replaced by short stories once she graduated and started working in libraries. Klause began sending her work out to magazines, collecting numerous rejection letters. Several of her poems and a short story were published in anthologies and small magazine reviews, but it took several years of concerted effort to find her voice and her audience.

"I finally took a writing workshop with Larry Callen, a well-known children's writer," Klause noted. "I knew I wanted to write for young people. I'm still working through my own adolescence, so it seemed appropriate. I continued with further ones. I still go to the writing group Larry Callen introduced me to, and often chuckle about how an idea or action will affect the people in my group even as I am writing." Klause soon graduated from short stories, and with the help and encouragement of Callen, set to work on a novel. "I wanted to write for teenagers, so I thought back to what I liked to read at that age. In a way, I stole from myself with The Silver Kiss, because I looked at my old writing notebooks and found the vampire poem I had written as a t(less)

32 posts
Annette Curtis Klause's Blog

Annette Curtis Klause isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but she does have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from her feed.

Magick 4 Terri

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:" read more »

View more on Annette Curtis Klause's website »

0 comments

•

Published on November 30, 2011 15:20 • 17 views

View all 32 posts »

combine editions
Books by Annette Curtis Klause

Average rating: 3.71 · 26,668 ratings · 2,252 reviews · 7 distinct works

	Blood and Chocolate 3.76 avg rating — 17,665 ratings — published 1997 — 23 editions	My rating:
	The Silver Kiss 3.59 avg rating — 7,459 ratings — published 1990 — 24 editions	My rating:
	Freaks: Alive, on the Inside! 3.62 avg rating — 521 ratings — published 2006 — 6 editions	My rating:
	Alien Secrets 3.40 avg rating — 279 ratings — 9 editions	My rating:
	Welcome to Bordertown by Ellen Kushner (Editor), Holly Black (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Terri Windling (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 4.03 avg rating — 540 ratings — published 2011 — 10 editions	My rating:
	The Restless Dead by Deborah Noyes (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Herbie Brennan, Nancy Etchemendy 3.47 avg rating — 263 ratings — published 2007 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Sideshow: Ten Original Tales of Freaks, Illusionists and Other Matters Odd and Magical by Deborah Noyes (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Aimee Bender (Goodreads Author), Matt Phelan 3.48 avg rating — 64 ratings — published 2009	My rating:

More books by Annette Curtis Klause…

Upcoming Events

No scheduled events. Add an event.

Quotes by Annette Curtis Klause

“I'd like to give you my heart, but since that might be inconvenient, I've brought you someone else's.”
― Annette Curtis Klause, Blood and Chocolate

tags: threat

140 people liked it

“Why me?" she asked, holding on to him.

"Because you cared," he whispered. "You cared so much for your people, it broke your heart to see the pack in ruins. You cared so much for your mother, you risked your life for hers. You cared enough to save someone who wanted you dead. And because you walk like a queen.”
― Annette Curtis Klause, Blood and Chocolate

tags: desire , love , reasons-why

87 people liked it

“He was raw and sharp and rich and throbbing with life. He was sweet blood after a long hunt. How could she have mistaken Aiden's kisses for this? They had been delicious and smooth like the brief comfort of chocolate, but they had never been enough.”
― Annette Curtis Klause, Blood and Chocolate

tags: completion , desire , love

61 people liked it

See all Annette Curtis Klause's quotes »

Polls

Febrary Group Read Poll:Werewolves

Enforcer by Lauren Dane

7 votes, 28.0%

The Silver Wolf by Alice Borchardt

5 votes, 20.0%

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause

4 votes, 16.0%

The Lost Saint by Bree Despain

4 votes, 16.0%

Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur

3 votes, 12.0%

A Taste of Haven by Sierra Summers

2 votes, 8.0%

25 total votes

3 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Vampire Bites: The Changing of a Vampire	48	80	Jan 01, 2009 03:37pm
Dark Dudes & ...: * Book Suggestions for February 2009	6	72	Jan 24, 2009 02:01pm
The Alternative W...: Kissing Vampires, Shedding Werewolves	52	21	Jan 25, 2009 05:00am
Romance Readers R...: March - Pick it For Me!	153	363	Apr 01, 2009 08:59am
Romance Readers R...: July Monthly Challenge: Participants' Lists Thread	229	364	Aug 01, 2009 10:02pm
Horror Aficionados : YA recommendations	14	76	Aug 03, 2009 07:51am

More…

Is this you? Let us know. If not, help out and invite Annette to Goodreads.

Annette's Fans (456)