The Sookie Stackhouse Companion

best works. I discovered Hamilton’s Web board and began to explore her Anita Blake series. These books were part of what was being described as an emerging new fictional genre. Booksellers didn’t quite know where to put them—some placed them in horror, some in fantasy, and even a few in the romance section. Identifying their place in literature became something of a conundrum. Although I enjoyed the early books in the series, I found the later ones not to my taste and began to look for something new. While I was perusing the horror section in a nearby Barnes & Noble bookstore, my eye was caught by a book with a charming, almost folk art, cover. The book was Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. The rest is, as they say, history.
    Dead Until Dark was unlike anything I had read in my long history of reading. Since it was written in the first person from the perspective of the heroine, I felt that I actually became Sookie and experienced events through her eyes. I had read first-person perspective in the past, but these books seemed completely fresh, and the world was new and absolutely believable. Following my usual pattern, I visited the author’s website, searching to find other readers with whom to discuss the wonders of this new universe. I did not expect to meet the author there!
    Charlaine established her website in 2001 and updated it in March 2004 to handle the ever-increasing usage. Charlaine was an active participant, who encouraged discussion and became involved on a personal level with the readers who visited her site. I first visited her board early in 2004 and was able to share in the development of the new site. Imagine my thrill and astonishment the first time Charlaine commented directly to me on the board.
    A fan board is an interesting organism. It constantly changes as members come and go and as friendships are forged and cemented. In the early days of the new board, an active core of members was established, and these new friends became closer to me than many of the people whom I had known for decades. As we became more engaged with one another, a sense of community grew among members who were geographically far apart but close in interest and viewpoint. Charlaine was the glue that held us together, but in a very real way we were all a part of something that was much larger than any individual. It is not hard to imagine that many of us were curious to discover whether the friendships we had forged with one another as strangers would carry over into the reality of actually meeting.
    As more information became available regarding Charlaine’s touring schedule, board members began to plan to meet at these events. My first opportunity came in May 2006 at the Romantic Times Convention in Daytona Beach, Florida. I attended the Saturday author book-signing session and will never forget the first time I met my favorite author.
    I approached Charlaine’s table shyly, not at all sure how to greet her. Charlaine took matters into her own hands by leaping to her feet, hugging me with apparent delight, and inviting me to sit beside her and talk as she signed books for fans. As we sat together that afternoon, I felt a true friendship form and realized there were ways that fans like me could help bring her terrific books to the attention of new readers. Ideas from that first convention were spinning in my head as I returned home and shared with my family the wonderful experience of meeting Charlaine and several of my online friends.
    Returning to the board after my experience at RT, I approached the members with the idea of developing an official fan club whose stated purpose would be to help Charlaine become a number one bestselling author. Members of the board were interested, so I approached Charlaine for permission to pursue the fan club idea, and with some bemusement she agreed. Officers were nominated and elected, and a contest was instituted to choose a name and a logo for the club. During this time, it was announced that the rights to the Sookie Stackhouse books had been sold to producer Alan Ball, who was to develop them into an HBO television series tentatively titled True Blood . Excitement was high on many levels, and on June 1, 2006, Charlaine’s Charlatans became the official fan club of author Charlaine Harris.
    The sale of the merchandising rights to the Sookie series prevented the fan club from using any of the images associated with the Sookie books as we began to discuss what to use as