Norine Dresser

Norine Dresser is a folklorist in the department of English at California State University, Los Angeles, and a research associate at the Center for the Study of Comparative Folklore and Mythology at UCLA. Dresser had never really thought much about the image of the vampire until she was mistakenly assumed to be a vampire expert based on comments she made in a media interview. As Dresser recalls in her introduction to American Vampires, this misunderstanding "plunged her into an investigation of vampires and they began to invade her life." In this excerpt from American Vampires, Dresser introduces the reader to several individuals who identify themselves as vampires and regularly either drink blood or feed on the emotional energy of other human beings. Dresser interviews and observes the vampires, and others who know them, in an...