Creative Modifications

“Why vampires, werewolves, and the supernatural—especially if you say you’re Christian?” That’s a question I’ve heard silently asked in the eyes of friends, even if it rarely comes out in words. For most people, the pull of the supernatural is tied up with the “dark side”—evil, sinister, dangerous. But for me, it’s always been something more. My fascination with these beings goes back to when I was fourteen, when life itself felt like a place between worlds.

At that age, I had just lost my mom. I saw my abuser again after years of distance, and my family was going through trauma that left me panicked, terrified, and utterly alone. I remember sitting in the room with my grandparents and feeling like I was caught in this strange space between life and death. Come to think of it, I don’t think I really felt “alive” again until I held my newborn nephew four years ago. Back then, I made the idea of vampires fit the mold I needed: beings who walked that same line, caught between life and death, embodying immortality, desire, fear of decay, and rebellion against the natural order.

I built them into the stories I was writing by hand. My imagination turned into escape, into survival. I’d daydream about being rescued—sometimes picturing Jordan Knight on a motorcycle pulling me away from it all. I didn’t feel safe in my family, didn’t feel like I fit anywhere, and escape was my instinct. So, in my stories, Jordan Knight became a character—turned vampire, blood-bonded into that world—woven into the life of Berenice (back then, called Secret). In those early versions, I gave her a twin brother, Scott Dennis, inspired by a relative of my dad’s partner that I had a crush on. Writing became my safe place, a distraction, and more than that, a way to process a world I couldn’t control.

I only knew the basics of vampire and werewolf folklore back then—whatever I picked up from things like Bram Stoker’s Dracula on VHS, which I mostly laughed through. But I knew right away that “my vampires” weren’t like the ones in movies. They weren’t demons. They weren’t the result of bargains with the devil. They didn’t spike crosses in churches. In my stories, vampires and shifters weren’t born of evil—they were something else.

At first, blood was just fuel, a liquid diet. But over time I realized blood could symbolize more: life force, vitality, intimacy, power. Immortality became less of a gift and more of an endurance sport. I started asking myself: how would someone handle living hundreds of years, reinventing themselves over and over, creating new backstories, hobbies, even speech patterns to keep going? At first, maybe immortality would feel like one long party—but eventually, everyone tires of the party. That’s when the real questions come.

For years, I kept religion far away from this world. I didn’t understand Christianity, and I thought it meant bowing down and doing whatever God commanded like some kind of servant. I was wrong. What changed everything was the word relationship. After losing my husband of seventeen years, I knew exactly what I wanted—and didn’t want—in relationships. And in the middle of my grief, I discovered I could find what I longed for in Jesus. For me, He became the big brother I’d always wanted: someone who would protect me when my family couldn’t, who would offer support when I had none.

Now I find myself asking: what would happen if my characters encountered Christianity? How would they react to faith, to the idea of grace, to a God who offers relationship instead of chains? It fascinates me, because these characters began as an escape, but they’ve grown with me. They’ve carried my pain, my longing, my need to belong. They’ve been with me so long that I can’t just let them go, even when I’ve tried. They still show up in my dreams.

Maybe that’s part of why society keeps returning to these myths, too. Every generation reinvents the vampire—Lost Boys, Interview with the Vampire, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Blood & Donuts, Once Bitten, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and now Sinners. We keep telling these stories because they keep reflecting us. Myths survive because they adapt to the questions we’re still asking. Vampires and shifters and supernatural beings aren’t just fantasy—they’re mirrors. They help us explore the parts of ourselves we don’t always have the courage to name: our fears, our desires, our contradictions, and our humanity.