Are you new here, and this is your first time crossing over the threshold into a place that celebrates literature with a metaphysical dimension?

Links of Interest for Fledgling Members:
–Lestat Book Coven Meeting Room (this virtual space needs to be cleaned up a bit)-
–Lestat Book Coven Facebook Group Page–

Hi Coven Members!!

Remember that our group was only on a hiatus for about a week, but the coven is now ready, once again, to reconvene and begin to discuss the most exciting part of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire? We last left our intrepid band of vampires-Claudia and Louis- wandering around Eastern Europe in search of the elusive sign of any older vampire life that may have more conclusive answers to their most vexing questions about the nature of vampires and their purpose for existing.

Lestat Book Coven Contest #1-Lestat Comic Contest Details

If you have been keeping yourself up to date with everything happening on our coven’s page, you are probably more than well aware of our ongoing contest. Below, you will find all the pertinent details about what the prize itself consists of, and just how exactly to gain multiple entries to possibly become the very lucky winner of this prize.

For one of our entries, one of our coven page’s more dedicated members Jo V. has diligently been working on multiple Lestat portraits, which each illustration itself is worth “10 points,” and these 10 points (or 10 entries, in Rafflecopter language) can be redeemed only once a day. And, Jo has been working industriously on these lavish, aesthetically-pleasing portraits every day for the last week.

Here is an example of a portrait she drew with oil pastels of Lestat and yours truly-the Coven Leader. Remember she has been drawing these now for 7 consecutive days; seven different drawings, each worth 10 entries apiece? So, you better start getting busy with working on your own entries to win this contest!

**Many of Jo V.’s other pieces of artwork, all entries for the coven’s comic contest, can be found on the Lestat Book Coven Facebook Group page!!!**

More Contest Details!!

 

**Are you interested in owning copies of the Vampire Lestat Comics? It is an incomplete collection, comprised of only 10 nicely packaged volumes of The Vampire Lestat comics.

 

** Along with the comics, you will get a copy of Joy Dickinson’s Haunted City:An Unauthorized Guide to the Magical, Magnificent New Orleans of Anne Rice.

**Included with all of this, you will get a handwritten poem that I will write-inspired by the character of Lestat-that will be included as part of the prize package to show how grateful I am for everyone’s excitement about the Lestat Book Coven.

** Special Artwork of Lestat, drawn by my exceptionally talented, artistically-inclined mother!!

**Effusive Note, Showering you with Praise- Perfect Stress Relief for end of the work week!

**

Contest Details: How to earn entries? (The individual with the most number of entries by May 25, 2014  at 11:59pm. will win the above prize package!)

 

Use the Rafflecopter app below to enable you to potentially win the contest!! There are four different options tied to four different ways to attain entries for this contest.

The Rafflecopter Widget can be either accessed by  either clicking  the image of a dreary, broody Louis, or the picture of the seemingly sweet, though slightly bratty Claudia! Either picture will take you to a widget, which is pretty self-explanatory!  It’s the same widget, nonetheless; they’re just inelegantly hosted on a page separate from this one.

 

 

 

 

If you have any questions or concerns related to this contest (such as potential technical issues with the Rafflecopter Widget), please contact me by using the form below! All comments sent through this form are sent privately to my email inbox. Thanks! 😀

Reading Assignment for Week#8

Below, I have details for this coming week’s reading assignment (week # 8 to be exact). As always, I also have two discussions questions and details about where and when our next live chat will take place, and the link for that will always, for now, be embedded into a clever Interview with the Vampire related GIF image!!

Live Chats:

Every Wednesday (resuming this coming Wednesday, May 14, 2014), we will be having our second consecutrive live chat via Google Hangouts on Air (and simultaneously on Youtube live broadcasts). We still do not have a shadowy, mysterious guest, as of yet, but things will change progressively over time, in terms of piquing the interest of the many diverse vampire personalities out there.

Here is our slightly campy trailer (using clips from Tales from the Crypt) to help promote our weekly live chats!

 

Click the below Interview with the Vampire related GIF image to RSVP for our upcoming live chat, related to our upcoming reading assignment and corresponding discussion questions for this coming week!!

Reading Assignment (Posted on the Google Plus Event page for our next chat, as well!)

We are officially at Part 3 of Interview with the Vampire,  after Claudia and Louis’s rather failed adventure through the Eastern European wilderness, in search of signs for more intelligent vampire life (comparable to their own). In my mass paperback edition, this segment starts at page 201 or so.

There isn’t a clear point to end this reading, but I decided to end it after the very graphic description of the Theatre of the Vampire’s first stage-show, which both Louis and Claudia are both obliged to attend and watch in either incredulity or sheer horror.

We are ending somewhere, after that, when they are slowly making their way below stage, and into the subterranean world  beneath the stage (which does carry a lot of symbolic purpose). The line that concludes our section for the eighth week, thus, occurs at the line on pg. 228 (of my edition of the book), after Louis describes his complex reaction to seeing The Fall of the Angels painting:”Where we stood finally in the center of the room, the candle seemed to pull the images to life everywhere around us.”

Discussion Questions:

1. What was your initial reaction to the Theatre of the Vampire’s stage-show? Do you find it grotesque, morally repugnant, fascinating in a subversive way? What sort of symbolic purpose does this critical scene in the book play?  Does the scene act as a derisive comedy of Louis’ seemingly ridiculous feelings of guilt, over the vice that he sees in his vampire lifestyle?

2.Morally, do you think the theater of the Vampire is really profane or vulgar, and is worthy of any moral person’s condemnation? How does their version of art reflect Louis’ earlier quote in the novel (on page 72, when conversing with the interviewer) about whether or not, from the perspective of the artist, all aesthetic choices are moral? Ponder this carefully, and think of whether the Theater of the Vampire, from an artistic viewpoint of a vampire (with completely different moral standards) is really moral, based off Louis’ argument about aesthetic choices being moral?

All those subscribed to my newsletter (via email) for the coven will always be told instantly where and when the Coven Live chats are first! So, if you haven’t signed up yet, fill out the form on the Lestat Book Coven Meeting Room Page 

 

*By clicking the photo below of the Prince Lestat cover, you’ll find details on the Barnes and Nobles online website about pre-ordering your own signed edition of this  much-anticipated novel!*

Here are some other exciting tidbits from the page:

**Watch Sumiko’s lovely video, about #PrinceLestat!!**

Check out this rather exciting novel, from one of our own members of the coven:

William Massa’s Fear the Light: Who Murdered Dracula?
Also, we have this #PrinceLestat contest from editor and regular contributor on Anne Rice’s Facebook Fan Page: Todd Barselow (freelance editor for many self-published writer’s novels). He is also a venerated member of the Talmasca!! (unofficially)

**Click the banner below to access details about this giveaway of copies of Prince Lestat!!**