Is There Vampire Prejudice in the Literary World?

I didn't believe it when it happened because it sounded totally ridiculous. My first vampire novelette manuscript was attacked by a kind of prejudice. This occurred in the mid 90's. I submitted my manuscript to several publishers. My novel was a romantic story about a black vampire living in his tumultuous world, finding love with an African-American human love interest. After receiving multiple reject form letters, I finally received a written note from one publisher. He stated that my story was entertaining but would I consider changing the race of the vampire character and female romantic lead to Caucasian, because there wasn't any interest in publishing stories about romantic black vampires, or at the time interest in romantic African-American novels.

Of course being an obstinate writer, one who believed my creative words were gold, I refused, and continued receiving form reject letters with several publishers responding in the same vein. I finally sold my manuscript to a smaller publisher who accepted my story as is.

Are vampires only to be of eastern European origin, due to the first and greatest vampire, "Dracula?" Blacula," a 1972 movie, happens to be the only African-American male vampire character that readers can usually recall. The name, Blacula, however refers to a dark, blood sucking, slaughtering fiend. Not my idea of a romantic vampire.

"Vampire in Brooklyn," with Eddie Murphy as the lead vampire character came out in theatres in 1995 for a relatively short period, after my novelette was published. It didn't do too well with ratings, with many people mocking Eddie's portrayal of a vampire. I realized in the literary world at that time my romantic vampire character might be doomed to be an ill conceived character.

Today with the surge of interest in the fictional vampire world again, I'm going to pursue submitting my full length romantic vampire sequel novel. Multicultural stories are now prevalent and gaining popular in the literary world. African-American characters can be romantic lead characters in the literary world, with television and movies portraying African-American romance.

In the past television series have only shown Caucasian vampire romantic characters. Whether this is due to the lack of good African-American character vampire storylines or because of lack of public interest I don't know. Does the black vampire seem too ominous a fictional character?

"True Blood," the latest vampire series on HBO begins a second season with a huge cult following, but again only has Caucasian vampire lead characters. "Moonlight," and "Kindred," were short running vampire series with romantic Caucasian vampire leads.

"Blade," was a movie series with a half mortal and half vampire African-American character who battled and killed evil vampires. The younger generation is following the latest raved, "Twilight," series books, with the recent movie, "Twilight." "Twilight" has a handsome African-American vampire character Laurent. Is vampire prejudice against African-American characters starting to disintegrate? Should we see color when it comes to vampire stories?

With prejudice still in existence in our world, does it cross over into our literary and screen world? I somehow believe we can accept romantic vampires of all origins.

To find out further information about African-American or black vampire characters click on the links below.

http://www.answers.com/topic/african-american-vampires

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Meanwhile%2c+back+at+the+crypt%3a+new+black+vampire+and+horror+tales+are+...-a0153898400

The End