American Poet Gives DRACULA His Voice:

(Isstories Editorial):- New York City, New York Mar 24, 2026 (Issuewire.com) – Multi-award winning poet and dramatist LindaAnn LoSchiavo has given Count Dracula something Bram Stoker never did: his own voice. “DRACULA BEFORE STOKER: The Prequel,” a 20-episode epistolary prelude to Stoker’s immortal novel, is now serializing free on Substack — opening two months before Jonathan Harker arrives at Castle Dracula and concluding on Walpurgis Night, May 1, 1893, when Stoker’s novel begins.

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That date is no accident. Stoker himself wrote a chapter set on Walpurgis Night — “Dracula’s Guest” — excised from the original novel and published only after his death. Where Stoker’s published story begins, LoSchiavo’s prequel ends.

Built in Stoker’s own epistolary tradition, the serial unfolds through multiple narrators — Dracula, Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra, and others — each voice freighted with the dramatic irony that readers of the original novel will immediately recognize. Count Dracula emerges not as a villain marking time before his hero arrives, but as a grieving, complex aristocrat contending with forces that test even his ancient powers.

The prequel draws on meticulous historical and folkloric research. Emily Gerard — the real Scottish writer whose 1885 essay “Transylvanian Superstitions” directly shaped Stoker’s research — appears as a character whose London party sets multiple plot threads in motion. A solar eclipse drives away Romani healers from the Carpathian Mountains. The folk remedy polovraga becomes the pivot of a desperate race against illness. The beloved Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu serves as an emotional touchstone for the Dracula siblings.

Running beneath the prose narrative is a shadow text: verses drawn from LoSchiavo’s Bookish Reader’s Pick Award-winning chapbook “VAMPIRE VERSES: POEMS” (Twisted Dreams Press, 2025). In one of the serial’s central meta conceits, Dracula himself acquires a copy of LoSchiavo’s volume in Vienna — reading about his own nature without knowing it.

“Stoker never let Dracula speak for himself,” says LoSchiavo. “I wanted to give him his interior life — his grief, his wit, his losses, and a sibling sickened by polluted blood — in the weeks before everything changed.”

LindaAnn LoSchiavo is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the British Fantasy Society, the Science Fiction and Poetry Association, and the Dramatists Guild. Her awards include the Elgin Award for “A Route Obscure and Lonely” along with her more recent accolades such as Chrysalis BREW Project Awards, The World’s Best Magazine’s Book of Excellence Award, Spotlyts Story Award, Voyages in Verses Book Award – – – and the Excellence in Literature Award and The Bookish Reader’s Pick Award, both received for “Vampire Verses: Poems.”. Her work appears in anthologies and journals internationally.

“DRACULA BEFORE STOKER: The Prequel“ is available free at greenwichvillagepoet.substack.com. New episodes post twice weekly.

This article was originally published by IssueWire. Read the original article here.