This is the original submission letter I wrote to Drollerie Press about the books — or, at that stage, book. It’s a glimpse into what’s changed, what hasn’t, and what my original thoughts were about the project.

from: Mary Borsellino <mizmary@gmail.com>
to: submissions@drolleriepress.com
date: Tue, Jan 8, 2008 at 8:25 PM
subject: Novella submission - The Wolf House

Dear Drollie Press

Attached is a document containing the first three and final chapters of my novella, The Wolf House. The mythic theme the story hinges on is that of the search to find the group — be it a tribe, gang, or family — where you fit, and the things you gain and lose within yourself on that journey. This theme is explored through contained but interlocking stories centered around young people whose lives are changed by interaction with the Wolves, a powerful vampire clique with motives as complicated as those of the hunters out to get them.

If I was going to pitch this story to you in terms of existing media, I’d say that it was ‘the Romantic vampire novella meets Empire Records‘ — the strange, haunting atmosphere of the early supernatural gothic story, coupled with the youth and energy of a cast which the audience feels like they’ve known forever from their first meeting.

I believe that, though horror has never lost its power as an allegorical genre through which we consider the real world around us, much recent horror fiction goes for the easy scare or the cheap gore, rather than considering the full range of what can be done when the mirror we hold up to life has a monster in the reflection.

I sincerely hope you’ll consider publishing The Wolf House, as I believe it would be ideally suited to a home with Drollerie Press. The word count for the complete manuscript is 42,000 words but I am willing to pare down or expand the story if you feel it would be better suited to the novelette or novel format.

I look forward to your response and to a future working relationship.

All the best,
Mary Borsellino

Me with my 'Supa-Star' guest pass.

I look totally bemused in this photo because it is very strange to me that I continue to have people act like I’m some kind of legitimate creator or something, rather than a weird lady who makes up stories in her brain.

Saturday breakfast.

I had a bottle of True Blood (or TruBlood, or whatever way it’s spelled by people who are precise about these things) for breakfast on Saturday. It’s actually just slightly tart Fanta with a lot of caffeine in it. No, really.

Drawing by Audrey in progress.

Audrey Fox was selling A4-sized commissions for $10 at our table. We hit a lull during the morning, where she didn’t have a customer, so I commissioned her to draw me Jay and Blake.

Jay and Blake by Audrey.

This is the picture Audrey drew f0r me.

Setting up on Sunday morning.

This is a picture Audrey took on Sunday morning, as myself (in black) and Erinna (in red) set up the table for the second day of the convention.

Mary and Eliza Dushku.

I got to meet Eliza Dushku! Woo! And I didn’t start quoting bits from Bring It On or tell her that Faith has been my role model since I was seventeen. So I count that as a win.

GRETCHEN COSPLAY YAY

I saved the best picture for last. This is theonlytwin, dressed up as Gretchen. LOOK AT HER. How excellent is she, seriously? I am so delighted. Cosplay makes my whole life sing.

So that was my weekend, and a jolly lovely time it was too. To those of you who bought books, I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. Actually, I hope you enjoy them even more than that, because sometimes writing isn’t nearly as much fun as I hope you have reading.

Clearly I should stop typing now and go to bed. Back to the day job tomorrow. It will be so sad to return to a world where nobody is playing dress up in public.

If you can’t get to Supanova, here are the posters for download. The files are over a megabyte each, but they’re terribly nice to look at.

It’s a totally amazing line-up — I’m especially excited for Eliza Dushku and Allan Hyde myself, as Faith is one of my favourite vampire hunters in the history of ever, and Godric is exactly the kind of vampire I find fascinating. Hooray!

(Since there are all kind of different naming preferences for the people involved, I’ve just called everyone by their Livejournal username here for consistency.)

Here are some pictures from “Vampirefest” yesterday, a convention I was one of the guests at.

Poster outside the hall. I'm in the lower left-hand corner.

My bio in the program.

Me at my little table with some excerpts from book one and some necklaces for sale. I made twenty bucks, which I then spent on Indian food for myself and Audrey Fox, who took this photo.

I'm the one in the red stockings and white shirt.

I was actually writing a bit of book 5 while that last photo was taken, because yesterday was a bad brain-day for me (I have severe clinical depression, so some days just suck no matter where I am or what I’m doing, alas) and writing is how I escape from feeling crappy. Writing and seeing live music, which is why I ended up as the author of a bunch of books about characters who are in bands, funnily enough.

Lily Green by Coaster

First up there’s Lily, and I love how much of Lily’s essence Coaster has captured here. Lily’s surrounded by her own failures — cups of smoothie or tea that weren’t good enough to swallow down — but she isn’t staring at them, she’s got her face turned up and she’s caught in a moment of thinking.

Lily’s driving force is hope (which is why Will has always loved and needed her so much; even before they knew about vampires, he’s never been a personality who puts much stock in hopes and dreams and optimism, she believes in things he doesn’t)  even in despair, and I feel like Coaster’s pinned that down in this picture.

Will and Sofie by Coaster

And again, Coaster’s captured the absolute vital core of who these characters are in such a deceptively simple image. It’s just two people walking, right? Except that Sofie’s stepping forward, relentless and tense and insistent, and Will is more passively going along with it. Sofie’s habitual mistrust is so stark and obvious here, and so’s the way there are echoes of the youthful, pretty girl she might’ve been that’s been almost lost completely under the layers of pain and loss and hard days. Sofie is a survivor to the core, but surviving isn’t the same as thriving, and Coaster gets that.

And Will, geeky awkward quiet Will. Will was the first character of all the Wolf House characters to just click completely in my head — he was formed completely into exactly who he is even before I first told Audrey that I wanted to write a vampire story. So I’m pretty steadfast in who Will is, how the parts of him fit together to make the whole, why he’s a drummer and an atheist and why he writes journals and his relationship with Jenny and all the rest. And Coaster has drawn Will just as he is in my head, quiet and good-natured and following along, but with something more complicated and darker and maybe even dangerous in the set of his expression.

Which is to say: I LOVE. A LOT. And I’ll get that ‘Fanart’ section properly updated this week, along with adding more cosplay photographs up from Supanova.

Speaking of conventions! If you’re in the Melbourne area next week, come along to Vampirefest. which I’m the third Guest of Honour at even though I’m not actually up on the page yet. I’ll be doing a quickie talk about the Wolf House books a bit after eleven a.m, and am going to be part of the author debate about vampire fiction in the afternoon (hint: I’m for it), and will be hanging around with little excerpt booklets at a table through the day. So come along and have a chat with me and watch me get silly over all the excellent Star Wars and Doctor Who stuff (I am the Wrong Kind Of Fan for both fandoms: my favourite Star Wars is the Phantom Menace and my favourite Doctor’s Companion is Adric. Let’s argue!).

Gretchen by Coaster

The marvelous Coaster is much too good at everything in the world, and drew some Gretchen sketches. LOVE.

And the reason that the marvelous Coaster was drawing Gretchen is because I made a very strange request of her.

Quentin Tarantino is a big, big influence on me. Someday I might get into hand-flaily gestures and expressions and a lot of meta about how much of an influence on the Wolf House, and my writing in general, his films are. But we’ll leave it be for today, suffice to say that I decided yesterday that I really wanted Gretchen from the Wolf House to meet the Bear Jew from Inglourious Basterds. They hate Nazis! They love violent murder! Strong friendships have been built on far less.

And Coaster is the biggest Bear Jew fan I know, by far, having even won a prize in a contest Eli Roth ran this one time to think up a sequel for the Bear Jew after Inglourious Basterds.

So we’ve got a) Coaster is one of the best artists I know. b) Coaster loves the Bear Jew. c) I really want art of the Bear Jew and Gretchen together.

THE BLOODY ADVENTURES OF GRETCHEN AND THE BEAR JEW.

Coaster, I adore you forever. I mean, I did anyway, but now I do DOUBLE.

From The Age newspaper, 21 April 2010

I promise I am putting the pictures of cosplayers from Supanova up properly very, very soon — I’ve been using my Wolf House time to edit book 4 and prod book 5 with a stick, so this site’s suffered a bit. Sorry about that!