Marta Acosta Bibliography 
Happy Hour At Casa Dracula - reviewed by LoveVampires
Midnight Brunch - reviewed by LoveVampires
LoveVampires Author Interview with Marta Acosta
Marta Acosta on Marta Acosta.
I live a painfully banal life in the San Francisco Bay Area with the husband, the spawn, and an increasingly senile, yet charming dog. I’ve got a degree in creative writing, and I write freelance articles on a variety of subjects, including gardening, which is my obsession. I think people who talk about “garden sanctuaries” have someone who’s doing the actual gardening for them. I have garden ordeals and lots of gardening injuries.
Marta Acosta on Happy Hour at Casa Dracula and Midnight Brunch
Happy Hour at Casa Dracula is the story of Milagro, a warm-hearted and warm-blooded girl with a degree from a Fancy University (F.U.) who has to hide out from a crazy ex-boyfriend with a family of snobby vampires. Matters are complicated when Milagro falls for one of the vamps, Oswald Grant, even though she thinks he’s duplicitous slacker. The vampires think she’s a tacky social climber. Because Milagro is something of an outsider herself, she begins to identify with these blood-drinkers.
Midnight Brunch continues Milagro’s adventures. She’s living with Oswald, but learns that she’s still being excluded from family ceremonies. In her efforts to discover more about vampire culture, she discovers the sinister Project for a New Vampire Century, led by the creepy Silas Madison. After being attacked, she flees to the desert to hide, only to encounter a bunch of mysterious happenings at a lavish spa.
Both your books are firmly in the romantic comedy genre, why did you choose to add the paranormal elements and why pick vampires?
I added the vampires as a comic element. I played on the current convention of vampires as being wealthy, sophisticated, and gorgeous. It follows that they would also be terrific snobs. In many romantic comedies, the lead character must overcome issues of class and wealth, so snooty, real-estate obsessed, career-oriented vampires suited my purpose.
The vampires in Milagro’s world are suffering from a rare medical condition which gives them vampiric symptoms rather than being supernatural creatures of the night – how did you come up with the ideas and back story for this? And were you ever tempted to make the vampires more magical and give your books more of a fantasy feel?
While I love some supernatural stories and was a “The X-Files” and “Buffy” fan, I wanted to say something about the irrational fear and vilification of things outside our understanding. I contacted a doctor friend and asked him to please come up with a medical justification for the symptoms.
To me Casa Dracula is a comedy of manners with almost a Jane Austen feel to the writing style. Midnight Brunch has more of a mystery vibe going on and has a slightly different writing style. Why the change?
Casa Dracula was my homage to those comedies, including novels by Jane Austen: impoverished yet bright girl goes to a country house, deals with social conflicts, has misunderstandings, falls for one fellow, yet believes he’s unavailable, etc. I wanted to create a heroine who had the traits I admire in characters I love. I love humour and P.G. Wodehouse, too, and I wanted Milagro to be a little oblivious, the way that young people often are, and to make mistakes, yet be good-natured and optimistic.
The style changes because I wrote Casa Dracula as a one-off, and my publisher wanted a series. I could have focused on the relationships – boy loses girl and boy gets back together with girl – or take another direction and move the action forward with a little mystery, new characters, and new locations.
Your books have many laugh out loud funny moments in them, is it hard to write comedy?
Generally it’s harder for me to remain serious than to be funny. I’m no good at meetings because I get bored quickly and then say ridiculous things to amuse myself. (I have tried telling my bosses that I have Attention Deficit Disorder, but they don’t believe me, probably because I’m laughing when I say it.) As a writer, you get to go back and improve a passage, and I frequently write something with the intention of making it funnier later. Occasionally I write something that I think is hilarious, but the humour eludes all others. Then I’m faced with the difficult decision of deleting it or being self-indulgent.
How many books do you have planned for this series?
I don’t have any specific plans, but the idea of “more” sounds good to me. I’m working on a third book now, and I’m leaving a few strings hanging in case my publishers want a fourth.
Any clues about what Milagro will be up to next?
Milagro is now engaged, and she’s struggling to plan both a regular wedding and a vampire wedding. Weddings are supposed to be delightful, but they’re really the biggest nightmare of all social occasions, fraught with crazy-making details and opportunities to simultaneously humiliate oneself and insult others.
Milagro also has to meet with the mysterious vampire council to lobby for her rights in their society. On the career front, she’s ghost-writing the memoirs of a charming lunatic who’s clearly fabricating his life story. Milagro is a freak-magnet, so it’s no surprise that things go wildly awry.
Which authors do you think have been most influential on your own writing style?
I asked my brother this question. He said, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Evelyn Waugh, and P.G. Wodehouse. He’s speaking of the entirety of my writing, not only the Casa Dracula novels. Austen’s stories are timeless because they’re well-plotted with intriguing characters and intelligent, admirable heroines. I’ve always admired Twain’s first-person, colloquial voice, dead-pan comic delivery and penchant for absurdity. I was introduced to Waugh by a professor who told me, “You have a nasty sense of humour. You would like Evelyn Waugh.” I replied, “Who is she?” Wodehouse is just a delight, raising silliness to an art. Bertie Wooster is so loveable because he’s blissfully unaware of the world around him and cheerful. I tried to add a touch of that to Milagro’s personality.
What book have you most enjoyed reading recently, and why?
Impossible question. But I did just pick up a Sophie Kinsella novel and I expect to fully enjoy it. I think Kinsella is a really amusing writer.
Who is your favourite fictional vampire?
That’s easy. Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was sardonic, drove a terrific trashed Caddy, and despite his coolness, he was an underdog who always got screwed over. He had great one-liners, a dangerous edge, and fabulous cheekbones.
Many would-be authors never get their work as far as publication, how did it happen for you?
Most of my jobs included writing, I’d published columns in newspapers, and I’d also had a humour e-zine. I wrote a concise, intriguing query letter, got an agent, and she sold my book in a two-book deal to Simon & Schuster.
Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
Yes, first, finish your novel. It sounds silly, but people write to me and tell me that they’ve almost completed one chapter and now they’re looking for an agent. Second, persevere. Everyone gets rejected, so don’t take it personally. Third, listen to criticism, but don’t accept that all criticism is valid. Fourth, read and learn from others who are better.
Do you have any other writing projects in the pipeline?
I’m busy working on my third Casa Dracula novel, but I’m also thinking about a young adult novel. It would be a gothic set in an elite all-girls school. It will be spooky and dark and involve a secret society, revenge, and an adherence to archaic rules of conduct. In other words, “The Prime of Miss Brodie” but with virgin sacrifices between chemistry quizzes and assembly.
25th May 2007
A big "Thank You" to Marta Acosta for taking part in the LoveVampires Author Interview. Marta is also the author of Vampire Wire a blog that follows vampire and paranormal books, television shows and movies.
by Kresley Cole (29th April 2008)
by Patrice Michelle (1st May 2008)
by Charlaine Harris (6th May 2008)
by Laurell K. Hamilton (27th May 2008)
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