Vanessa Austin Locke: Introducing The Dyslexic Vampire Babies

I’ve been in the closet for years. I haven’t been able to tell anyone but my very closest friends for fear of personal and professional prejudice, but I can’t take it any more… My name’s Vanessa Austin Locke, I’m dyslexic and I’m proud of it.

That may well have ensured I never get another editing job as long as I live, despite the fact that my apostrophes wouldn’t know a greengrocer if they were shoved between his banana and his s. God forbid. But I doubt it. You see, over the years I’ve learnt that far from being a disability, my dyslexia is something that supports me, has me thinking outside the box, and often sets me apart.

“I frequently over-achieve through fear of underachieving”

At school I had to work harder than most to achieve the same, or sometimes lower grades, because our education system isn’t designed to let children who have different minds learn in the way they need to learn – I’m talking to you Gove. And even now in the workplace, I often have to stay later and put in unpaid hours, but that’s just the way it is and I’m grateful for it because it means I frequently over-achieve through fear of underachieving. I was also lucky enough to have exceptional parents who read to me for hours every night until I was about 14, so that my insatiable appetite for books I couldn’t read properly myself was at least partially fed.

One day, several years ago, a friend from my Dyslexics Anonymous meeting told me he didn’t want to have children because he didn’t want to pass on his dyslexia. That night I had a visitation from three little dyslexic vampire babies called Veronica, Vinnie and Velimir who told me that they wanted to be born even if they would have squiffy brains, because they could create wonders that people with ‘normal’ brains just couldn’t imagine and they had important work to do. So the next day I sat down and wrote a children’s book called The Dyslexic Vampire Babies. It’s about three terribly misunderstood vampire babies who get so frustrated at not being able to read that their little fangs pop out and they start eating the books (and one or two other things). Well, they get into awful trouble and are sent to their room, but something magical begins to happen as they digest the yummy books…

I sent The Dyslexic Vampire Babies to a few agents and publishers who said they liked it but that my drawings weren’t good enough and so Vinnie, Veronica and Velimir have sat on my computer for several years. I knew exactly who I wanted to illustrate my book you see, a local international artist that lots of you will know called Gary Goodman. However I had yet to meet him and so I bided my time and let Brighton’s social circle turn until one day the six degrees of separation closed and we found ourselves drunk in a pub together on the same poetry circuit.

Well, one thing led to another and before you know it Gary had given me three beautiful dyslexic vampire babies. We’re on the lookout for the right publisher at the moment and hope to bring the finished article to you soon. But in the meantime, all you dyslexic vampire babies out there, just remember… RWAR!