"There's no book available on the vampire culture today with the range, depth, and diversity of Belanger's Vampires in Their Own Words." --Katherine Ramsland, author of Piercing the Darkness and The Science of Vampires "Belanger gives empathetic access to an emergent new magical-religious community . . . An important sourcebook for both the scholar and inquiring public." --J. Gordon Melton, Director, Institute for the Study of American Religion, and author of The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead The code of silence has been broken For this anthology, vampire Michelle Belanger convinced nearly two dozen real-life vampires to break the code of silence that has kept their fascinating subculture shrouded in secrecy. Sometimes provocative, sometimes surprisingly down-to-earth, these candid firsthand accounts come from both psi vampires who feed on energy and sanguine vampires who drink actual blood. Their true stories shed light on a variety of topics, including awakening to vampirism, the compulsion to feed and feeding practices, donor ethics and etiquette, and vampire traditions and codes of behavior.