Jodi Update: “The Moment I’ve Been Waiting For” 9/2022

“The Moment I’ve Been Waiting For.”
By: Jodi Arias

The Vampire Chronicles, adapted from the novels by Anne Rice, is set to air on AMC next week on Sunday, October 2nd!

I’ve been working my way through Anne Rice’s books with an intentional slow burn since high school, not wanting them to end. I’ve even reread some of them. When I read an article last year announcing that AMC had optioned the rights, I literally shrieked and shouted, “Oh, my God! I’ve been waiting my whole life for this!”

I became a walking advertisement for the show. I went around the yard thrusting the article at every person who loved her books, too. I brought it to work at the library — along with all my enthusiasm — and shared it with every patron who showed even the slightest interest in Anne Rice’s novels or any other vampire fiction.

A few weeks ago, I finally saw a trailer for the show. It shows great promise of being faithful to the “savage garden” through which Anne Rice’s vampires stalk. These characters — “Children of the Night” — are not Stephanie Meyer’s sparkling Twilight beauties. Exquisitely noir and a little disturbing, the show is definitely for diehard fans like myself, but producers and the cast hope it will gain a vast new audience as well.

Vampires may not be your goblet of wine, and that’s fine. But I am beside myself with anticipation about The Vampire Chronicles finally coming to life on screen in a treatment worthy of the woman who dreamt up this intricate cosmology.

Late last year on a dark December morning, I awoke to a friend’s email that said, “I’m sorry about Anne Rice. I know she is important to you.”

Knowing what that meant, I turned on the news — because why wouldn’t the news be broadcasting the noteworthy passing of a remarkable author? All the TV media outlets were talking politics, as though politics were all that mattered in a world that no longer included one of my favorite authors.

I turned off the TV and opened the news app on my tablet. There, I found Anne Rice’s picture. She was smiling, beautiful, with salt-and-pepper hair cut to a clean bob. Thankfully, the Associated Press thought this phenomenal woman’s final night among the living was worthy of mentioning.

I couldn’t read the article, not because of the tears that began filling my eyes, but because I wasn’t a subscriber. I immediately bought a subscription and read that she died at the age of 80, a mere baby in the lifespan of her undying characters.

Later that month, I published a tribute to her and her work titled “The Immortal Maven of Vampires.” It was difficult to fathom that she would write no more novels giving life to the characters I had grown to adore. It felt as though they, too, had all died. Their exploits were ceased, their eternity frozen. But now her literary world is being resurrected and new life will reanimate her characters.

The stories Anne Rice gave us, while largely defined by vampires, were hardly confined to vampires. She also wrote about werewolves, witches, mummies, and Atlantians. She wrote about ghosts and angels and demons. She wrote a series of erotica and even a memoir. Above all, she wrote about humanity and the implications of immortality.

Her Vampire Chronicles alone are replete with immortal characters both ancient and young whose stories could not have been fully explored within the span of a single human lifetime. Had Anne Rice lived another 80 years, she could have continued churning out still more explorations into the characters who appear in her books.

I harbor the hope — and I’m certain I’m not alone in this with fans of her work — that she authored forthcoming books which have not yet been published. Many creative people of renown (writers, musicians, painters, poets), among whom Anne Rice must surely be counted, release posthumous work.

Production of the show began before she died and I’m heartened to know that, before she left us, she knew her vision would finally be translated to the screen on her terms. Her son Christopher Rice, an executive producer of the show, will undoubtedly do his mother’s legacy justice.

She once said in an interview, “I want to be immortal.” I hope it was enough for her to know that her words, her works, and her worlds are immortalized in the masterpieces she bequeathed to us.

<3 — Jodi Arias

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Remember, folks… each day that passes takes us one day closer to Jodi’s release date.

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SJ
Team Jodi #WINNING <<<

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