Maybe we had found the perfect moment in history, the perfect balance between the monstrous and the human, the time when the ‘vampire romance’ born in my imagination […] should find its greatest enhancement (Lestat).
I am beyond excited to announce that the impact of the Open Graves, Open Minds project has not gone unnoticed at the university and I have been invited to complete the necessary paperwork to have our work recognised universally and to create our very own vampire research and study centre!! The new research centre will seek to have further PhD studentships attached to it, special archives and regular research seminars and events. A new offshoot of the project will be the multidisciplinary research strand ”Books of Blood’: a cross-disciplinary investigation into blood as representation, symbol, and text in modern culture’. This new strand will be supported by a bid to the Wellcome Institute and will lead to an exhibition, series of talks, catalogue and further publications. Generation Dead: YA Fiction and the Gothic is another strand that is being further developed. Preparations for the next international conference Company of Wolves are well underway and I think it is fair to say that OGOM is in very good shape in 2015!! It has taken five hard but wonderful years to achieve this breakthrough and so I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has contributed since OGOM’s rise in 2010. Wow..I’ll keep everyone informed about this exciting development…..more details to follow soon. 
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Congratulations! This is really good news!