William A. Veselik has had his first novel, entitled “Weep Not for the Vampire,” published by Mundania Press. Veselik is the long-time Public Relations Coordinator for Wytheville Community College.
Mundania Press also publishes works by such best-selling authors as Piers Anthony (twenty-one times on the “New York Times” bestseller list) and the late Robert Adams, creator of “The Horseclans” series.
“Weep Not for the Vampire” is a horror novel based in a fictitious version of Veselik’s Southwest Virginia hometown. The book tells the story of a vampire named Cullen Roark who has tired of his undead existence and returns to the place of his birth in order to put to rest some ghosts from his past before finding some method of ending his unlife. Instead, he meets the daughter he never knew he had and learns, to his dismay, that his own granddaughter has become the prey of another vampire.
In “Weep Not for the Vampire,” Veselik weaves a tale with horror, mystery, and romance threads. The vampire Roark, haunted by a recent tragedy of his own making, quickly realizes he must move quickly to set things aright in the lives of his former wife, their child, and their granddaughter. He soon realizes he cannot seek the peace of his own grave until he has rid his hometown of the bloodsucking creature now stalking its streets.
“I’ve been writing in one form or another since I was a kid,” said Veselik. “I eventually went into the newspaper business where I was paid to write, but it generally wasn’t the kind of writing that required a great deal of creativity. You have to stick to the ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘when,’ ‘where,’ and sometimes the ‘why’ and ‘how’ as a reporter. Writing novels, on the other hand, goes a long way toward exorcising my over-active imagination,” he added. “I can pretty much write what I like and have the story come out the way I want it to. Nobody is looking over my shoulder telling me what should happen to the hero or whether he should end up with the girl. Sometimes the hero just happens to be a monster and the story doesn’t have a fairy tale ending. I like that freedom.”
Veselik said he prefers the horror genre, mostly due to the influences of old Universal monster movies and the British Hammer Horror films of the late 1950s and 1960s. Vampires are his favorite subject, he admits, and he much prefers Christopher Lee to Bela Lugosi in the role of Dracula.
“Not everything I write is vampire-related though,” explained Veselik. “The most recent novel I’ve sold to Mundania involves an ancestral ghost wreaking havoc in the life of a young man and his family. I’m also working on a novel that I call a farce of rural proportions. There aren’t any vampires or werewolves in this one. It’s more of a humorous—even satirical—portrait of a small Georgia town that is populated by odd characters. It details how the unexpected death of the community’s only plumber alters life as the residents know it. I call it ‘The Butt End of Uglyville.’ Oh, there is an alien invasion angle to the story, so there’s certainly nothing particularly normal about this novel.”
“Weep Not for the Vampire” is available from Mundania Press at www.mundania.com and will soon be available from other online sources such as Amazon.com. The book can also be ordered by local and national bookstores through their usual sources, including Ingram's US or UK catalogs and Baker & Taylor Wholesalers. Mundania accepts returns in saleable condition from booksellers within 120 days.
Mundania will also release four more novels by Veselik in the next two years, beginning with part one of a three-novel Victorian-era vampire trilogy entitled “My Soul to Take.” The first novel, “Corpses So Lively,” will be published in the late spring of 2007, followed by part two, “Enter Death, Stage Right,” in the fall of 2007, and the final part, “The Vampire Lord Unmasked” in early 2008. Veselik has just contracted with Mundania to publish his fifth novel, a supernatural thriller entitled “Ghost Image,” which is also set in the same fictitious version of his hometown of Marion. All of Veselik’s novels will be released in both trade softcover and e-book formats. He also has two completed horror novels which he has yet to submit to any publisher.
Veselik is a graduate of Marion Senior High School. He earned his bachelor’s degree in history from Virginia Tech. After working as a reporter and news editor at “The News Journal” in Radford, he became managing editor of “The Smyth County News” in 1986. In 1989, he was hired as the Public Relations Coordinator for Wytheville Community College, a position he still holds today. Veselik, his wife, Cheryl, and their son, Ethan, make their home in Marion.
His author website can be found at www.livelycorpses.com.
Share
Save
