KAREN ESSEX, TRAVELLING FOR DRACULA IN LOVE, OR HOW TO ADD NEW GEOGRAPHY TO AN OLD STORY AND RELOCATE A VAMPIRE
Readers often tell me that they take my novels on holiday as travel and history guides. I love giving readers an experience on the page, but I love it even more when they are inspired to leave their armchairs and experience the characters and the history firsthand. As an historical novelist, nothing informs my work like travel. I love to walk in my characters’ footsteps, breathing in the air that they breathed, literally sharing molecules with them.... Read more.
Despite a few family-friendly policies in the workplace, women still torture themselves over the work/family balance. To change that, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s high profile, controversial COO, says that companies must open the door to discussions of family planning. Problem is, both women and companies are too terrified to raise the subject because it’s thought to be against the law. However, while it’s illegal to discriminate against parents or expectant mothers, it is not against the law to DISCUSS when and if women are planning to start families.... Read more.
People often ask what prompted me to step out writing biographical historical fiction and write DRACULA IN LOVE. I have always loved vampires, ever since I watched Dark Shadows on tv as a child. Here’s why:
I Want to be a Vampire (and you should too!)
By Karen Essex
Friends and readers, let me give it to you straight. I do not want to die. It’s that simple. And now that I have written a vampire book, Dracula in Love, and fully explored the advantages, I really, really thirst to be an immortal.... Read more.
I really enjoyed doing this sixty minute radio interview with Jon Hansen. Few interviewers come so well-prepared to discuss a book on so many different levels with an author. Hope you enjoy.
The glass escalator is a new phenomenon similar to the glass ceiling, except that instead of hitting their heads as they try to rise to the top, men entering largely female dominated professions are carried past their women co-workers in winged chariots known as glass escalators.
Not surprisingly, as the job market shrinks, men are entering traditionally female-dominated professions—nursing, teaching, etc. This is great news for the professions, as far as I am concerned, and also great news for men who are willing to enter or retrain for these positions. The bad news for women is that they have to watch the men swiftly move past them for promotions and pay raises.
Old habits die hard. Though we’ve learned to respect and rely on female talent in the workforce, we still find it easier to lionize, revere, and promote men, and despite evidence to the contrary, we still find it easier to think of men as the major breadwinners.
Personally, I’d like to aim for equanimity in the workforce, based on talent and performance and not gender. But I’ll take the gain of men entering the more nurturing fields, where we definitely need a masculine presence too.
