Why I Write Urban Fantasy

 

While cruising around social media lately I’ve seen thisquestion come up a few times: Why do you write in the genre you do?

Why indeed? Urban fantasy is a relatively new genre, just becomingpopular in the past couple of decades. The definition is basically this: magicaland supernatural characters and events based in a gritty, (mostly) urban modern dayenvironment.

Growing up I was fascinated by the paranormal and the occult.The more fantastical it was, the more I devoured it. Monsters and vampires and ghostsand witches and werewolves didn’t scare me. I was more afraid of the thingsthat could come at you in real life, like rapists and serial killers (thoughzombies are still my trigger fear). So I read everything I could get my handson in the genre that was then mainly classified as horror. When I couldn’t findthe stories I wanted to read, I made them up and wrote them down. Thus began mywriting career.

Vampire stories were my favorite–I read everything I couldfind. I didn’t like Dracula; he was too, well, moldy. I liked my vampires upand living in the real world, interacting with humans, and not always thevillain. I can’t remember all the authors I read, but their stories left theirmark on me. And one book in particular had a profound effect, from a littleknown writer at the time, Interview With A Vampire. Anne Rice’s vampires were arevelation. Finally, here were vampires who weren’t the villains, they were theprotagonists. The Vampire Lestat is still to this day one of my favorite books.I’ve worn out two paperback copies of it and have it on my kindle, and I stillreturn to it when I need inspiration or just that comfort read. I may knowpractically every line in it, but it still entertains me.

I believe Anne Rice ushered in the birth of urban fantasy.Yeah, there were others before her, but she brought it into the light ofmainstream fiction. There have been others since that have fed my love of thisgenre and have influenced my own writing, like Jim Butcher, Tanya Huff, ElaineBergstrom, Kate Griffin, and perhaps my current favorite, Rob Thurman (though Ican’t forgive her for leaving her readers in the lurch on a cliffhanger in the CalLeandros series). These authors and many more feed my imagination and make me abetter writer for it. I really do read heavily in the genre I write, and amconstantly looking for new voices to devour.

So why do I write in my chosen genre? Because to me it bestrepresents the fodder of my imagination. Stories about real life leave me cold.I have to live real life; when I read (and write), I want to escape it. So I goto my happy place. Urban Fantasy. To me, it’s the best of bothworlds.