The Webzine of Undead-Canine Speculative Fiction

Copyright (c) 2002 VamPoodle, LLC

EDITORIAL By Ty Sebastian Dream or Nightmare? I'm not sure, exactly, but one of those is being fulfilled by this webzine. VamPoodle was a long time coming, and I'm happy to have it here. It feeds several of my obsessions. And having just read that, you really do deserve a bit more detail. About ten years ago, I spent the summer working at a theme park. One of my co-workers was a lovely young woman, who, for the sake of propriety, we shall just call K. Now, K was a beautiful girl, model-gorgeous, with a great personality, athletic body and long, curly red hair. But there was one other striking thing about her: the series of pockmark-like scars on either side of her neck. We got to be pretty good friends, so I felt bold enough to ask her about them. Turns out that as a child, her aunt and uncle's poodle had grabbed her by the throat and not let go until K was almost dead. Wow. A poodle. Those silly little dogs, capable of such violence! But I realized that despite what they've become in the public consciousness, poodles aren't exactly what you expect. The image, quite obviously, stayed with me for a very long time. It still comes to me sometimes in my dreams. It didn't take me long to make the connection between the poodle biting K's throat and the old standby of horror fiction: the vampire. Returning to college the next fall, I ended up doing my thesis on modern American vampire fiction of the Northeast. And to make matters even weirder, after graduation, I found myself working in the PR department for the largest organizer of dog shows in the US. I'm still there, and when I'm not reading vampire fiction in my spare time (for fun, and for the eventual non-fiction book I am going to write on the subject), I find myself surrounded by poodles. So I guess it's truly time to tie the two together. VamPoodle. Dream or Nightmare? Both? Whatever. It's fun, it's new, it's mine... And it's yours. Enjoy.