1. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I was born and raised in Detroit, Mich. After high school, I joined the US Navy and served as a Corpsman in New Port, RI, and Long Beach, CA. After receiving an Honorable Discharge, it was back to Detroit for a year before moving to NYC to attend The American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
In 1968 I married and was living in the Bronx. In 71 we moved upstate where we raised our family, two boys and one girl. During those years, I worked in the automotive aftermarket as a manufacturer's rep, traveling all of upstate NY.
Then it was back down to the city for a few years as the sales manager for a firm importing automotive parts and accessories from the Far East.
Missing the country life, we moved the family back upstate to the Adirondacks in 1987 where we have been living ever since.
My day and often my night job is being a reporter for the Hamilton County Express for the past 12 years. It was going to work as a reporter that finally moved me to return to his early dream of writing books.
My first vampire novel, The Dancing Valkyrie was followed by The Vampire Valkyrie and And God Created Vampires.
2. Describe your book ‘And God Created Vampires’ in 30 words or less.
This is part of a series. The series follows the development of a young, female vampire who works as a topless dancer in upstate NY. My vampires are an undiscovered endangered species, physical creatures of flesh and blood, who need blood but enjoy regular food and are sexual promiscuous.
3. What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Finding the time to sit down and do it. Once I start, it goes okay. The reporting job interferers but it remains my main source of income.
4. What books have had the greatest influence on you?
Naturally, the original Dracula. High on my list of books are Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce and Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.
5. Briefly share with us what you do to market your book?
To be truthful - not enough. Time and money are equal problems. I do tweet and post to Facebook my books on Amazon on a daily basis. I do the little I do with Freedo and other similar websites. I also have my own web page at http://www.petekleinvampires.com
6. How do you spend your time when you are not writing?
Obviously, my reporting job. Living in the Adirondacks, I like to take hikes when time and weather permit. I do some book reviews for Allbooks Book Review. That provides me with most of my current reading. I also spend whatever time I can with my family and am lucky enough to have two of my three children living nearby. That means most Sunday dinners are spent with them.
7. What are you working on next?
I’m about 100 pages into a third vampire book with the lovely vampire, Mary Hoffman, Erica on stage. I don’t have a title yet and have not settled on just where it is going. The main idea is - how can vampires stay under the radar and keep their existence unknown in a digital world where personal security and privacy is becoming more and more difficult?
