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Darren Shan
spends his time
thinking of ways
to frighten
youngsters. A
bestselling
author of horror
stories for
children, he has
written 12 books
about vampires
and five about
demons in seven
years. He will
read from Blood
Beast, the next
book in his The
Demonata series,
out in June, as
part of the
Imagine festival
at the Southbank
Centre.
"It's great
fun meeting my
fans," he says.
"For me, it's
the best part of
the job. Mostly,
they tend to be
fairly subdued
around me.
Children tend to
get as nervous
meeting book
stars as they do
pop stars!"
Shan first
ventured into
writing horror
fiction at the
age of 14, when
he entered "A
Day in the
Morgue" in a
scriptwriting
competition and
won the
runner-up prize.
He completed
upwards of 15
novels before
Ayuamarca
finally found a
publisher in
1999. A sequel,
Hell's Horizon,
followed in
2000. The same
year he had
greater success
with his first
children's book,
Cirque Du Freak,
about a boy who
reluctantly
becomes a
vampire's
assistant, which
became the first
book in The Saga
of Darren Shan
series. "I have
always liked
exploring the
dark side, but
when I started,
you didn't write
children's books
to get rich
quick," says
Shan about the
pre- Harry
Potter days.
"You did it
because you
loved writing
them. Cirque Du
Freak took off
and the next few
books did really
well. I wound up
in this field by
accident."
Shan takes
about two years
to write a book
- his latest,
Bec, is about a
trainee
priestess - but
he always has
two books on the
go at once. "My
books are dark
horror, yet they
also have a
light side to
them because I
don't want them
to be miserable.
As long as there
is a moral to
the tale, this
genre of book is
accepted."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20070214/ai_n17222815
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