Latest news with #LJSmith
Khaleej Times
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
'Vampire Diaries' author LJ Smith passes away at 66
Author LJ Smith, whose bestselling novel series Vampire Diaries, were adapted for a hit TV show of the same name, passed away at the age of 66, reported Deadline. Referring to a New York Times report, Deadline said the bestselling author died on March 8 in Walnut Creek, Calif, after suffering the effects of a rare autoimmune disease for a decade. A statement on the author's website said she died "peacefully" after a "long bout" of illness. It also described the author as a person with a "kind and gentle" soul whose brilliance, creativity and resilience helped improve the lives of her family, friends and fans. It said, "Lisa was a kind and gentle soul whose brilliance, creativity, resilience and empathy illuminated the lives of her family, friends and fans alike. She will be remembered for her imaginative spirit, her pioneering role in supernatural fiction, and her generosity, warmth and heart, both on and off the page." Smith published the original four-book series, about two vampire brothers and an orphaned young woman, in 1991 and 1992, before they were turned into a hit TV show that debuted in 2009. She wrote another trilogy in 2009-11. The TV show Vampire Diaries starred Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder in the lead roles. Smith also wrote a series of Night World novels that featured vampire stories. Nine books in this series were published between 1996 and 1998. Dark Visions and The Forbidden Game were the other trilogies that the author wrote, reported Deadline. Her trilogy The Secret Circle was published in 1992 and adapted into a TV drama in 2011. According to the author's website, the author is survived by her long-time friend Julie Divola; her younger sister, Judy Clifford; Judy's children, Lauren Clifford and Brian Clifford; Brian's wife, Taylor Acampora; and Lauren's son, Wyatt Nicholson.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
LJ Smith, Vampire Diaries author whose characters spawned a massive media franchise
L J Smith, who has died aged 66, was the author of The Vampire Diaries, a sequence of supernatural romance novels that sold millions of copies and became a long-running television series; her career was nevertheless regarded as something of a cautionary tale. The Vampire Diaries chronicled the development of a love triangle involving Elena Gilbert, a teenage girl living in a small town in Virginia, and two brothers who belong to the ranks of the undead. The first four volumes were published in the early 1990s: with elements of both horror and romance, an unusual combination in the teen fiction market at the time, they became modest bestsellers. The author then moved on to other projects. But more than a decade later the phenomenal success of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novels (2005-08) ushered in a vogue for sexy stories of vampires more toothsome than toothy, and L J Smith's backlist of Vampire Diaries books returned to the bestseller charts. She resumed the series, after a 17-year-gap, with Nightfall in 2009. In the same year the CW network launched a television version of The Vampire Diaries as a teen-appropriate alternative to HBO's violent and sexually explicit True Blood. It ran for eight years (being shown on ITV2 in the UK) and spawned two popular spin-off series, The Originals and Legacies. L J Smith reaped limited rewards from the success of her creation, however. When she had been commissioned to write the first Vampire Diaries novels in 1990 she had signed a 'work for hire' contract which entitled her only to a small one-off fee. Later on the publisher, Alloy Entertainment (now a subsidiary of Warner Brothers), offered her better terms to continue the series, but by stipulation of the original contract it was the publisher not the author who owned the rights to the characters. L J Smith continued to write the series until 2011, then parted ways with Alloy after the company insisted that she recycle storylines from the television show. The books continued to flow, however, with ghost writers supplying the content but L J Smith still named as the author on the cover. Furious, she told Salt Lake Magazine in 2012 that the ghost writers were serving to 'mutilate [my] child limb by limb and destroy it'. Determined to stand up to Alloy, she went on to stage what the Wall Street Journal described as 'one of the strangest comebacks in literary history'. Making use of Amazon's copyright-hurdling Kindle Worlds 'fan fiction' service – normally the preserve of obsessive enthusiasts wishing to devise their own stories involving a favourite author's characters – L J Smith reclaimed her creations and self-published three further instalments of the Vampire Diaries. Offered two alternative continuations of the saga, readers warred with each other online as to which should be regarded as canonical. Lisa Jane Smith was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on September 4 1958, the daughter of Glenn C Smith, an engineer and entrepreneur, and his wife Kathryn, a teacher. She spent most of her childhood living in 'sad, sunny, superficial southern California'. She knew that she was going to be a successful writer while still a small girl, when 'a teacher praised a horrible poem I'd written'. After high school she spent some time living with friends of her family in Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, and developed a love of English literature. Lisa studied English and Experimental Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and was set to do a Masters in the latter discipline but baulked at having to experiment on the brains of monkeys and mice. Instead she secured a Masters in Educational Studies at San Francisco State University, and went on to work as a kindergarten and special needs teacher. She published two fantasy novels for young adults, The Night of the Solstice (1987) and Heart of Valour (1990); they did not sell well, but brought her to the attention of a book packaging company (subsequently purchased by Alloy Entertainment) which commissioned her to write the first three volumes of The Vampire Diaries in nine months. L J Smith – who used initials in homage to J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis – wrote several other fantasy novels, including the Secret Circle series, which featured teenage witches and became a television drama in 2011. At the turn of the millennium she abandoned writing for several years to help with her sister's family, her brother-in-law being seriously ill with cancer. For the final decade of her life Lisa Smith suffered from a debilitating autoimmune disease, but although she spent much of the time confined to hospital she strove to continue with her work and recently completed her first novel for adults, Lullaby. She is survived by her partner, Julie Divola. L J Smith, born September 4 1958, died March 8 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
BBC News
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
LJ Smith: Vampire Diaries author dies at 66
Author LJ Smith, whose best-selling Vampire Diaries novels were turned into a hit TV show, has died at the age of Jane Smith published the original four-book series, about a love triangle involving two vampire brothers and an orphaned young woman, in 1991 and 92, before releasing another Vampire Diaries trilogy in she was dropped from her own book series and replaced by new authors by publishers, but Smith continued releasing new instalments unofficially as fan official books were adapted for TV in 2009 and the show became a teen favourite over its eight years. Described by the Guardian as a "deliciously pulpy supernatural soap opera", the TV version was part of a craze for vampire stories that also included Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight and True show won a total of 30 Teen Choice Awards including six consecutive prizes for best fantasy/sci-fi actress for Nina Dobrev, who played Elena for the first six starred alongside Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder as brothers Stefan and Damon Salvatore. Fan fiction comeback Smith had originally been hired to write the novel series by a book packager - who sold them to a publisher - under a deal where they, not she, owned the said the packager dropped her in 2011 and handed over her unpublished eighth instalment to an anonymous ghostwriter, who went on to publish two further Vampire Diaries series was then handed on to an author using the pen name Aubrey Clark for three more. However, Smith's remained the most prominent name on the book covers as the series author said the situation left her feeling "trashed" and "mutilated".However, she went some way to reclaiming her creation when the Vampire Diaries was added to an Amazon Kindle scheme granting official permission for anyone to publish fan fiction linked to existing launched a new unofficial Vampire Diaries trilogy through that scheme, which picked up where her last official book left was also known for the Night World novels, which also feature vampires as well as witches, werewolves and shapeshifters, who secretly live among the human Night World volumes were published between 1996 and 98, before Smith took a decade-long break from writing. She said it was a result of writer's block while two family members dealt with The Secret Circle trilogy, published in 1992, was also turned into a TV drama in 2011. She also wrote the Dark Visions and The Forbidden Game trilogies.A statement on her website said: "Lisa was a kind and gentle soul, whose brilliance, creativity, resilience and empathy, illuminated the lives of her family, friends and fans alike."She will be remembered for her imaginative spirit, her pioneering role in supernatural fiction, and her generosity, warmth and heart, both on and off the page."
The Independent
04-03-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Seven in ten healthcare workers see patients unable to pay energy bills, survey suggests
Seven in ten healthcare workers regularly see patients who can't afford their energy bills, with high costs driving preventable respiratory problems, a survey suggests. New research from health campaign group MedAct shows how the high cost of energy is causing people to live in cold, damp, mouldy homes. Doctors have warned that poor living conditions are causing an 'entirely preventable public health crisis'. Of the 70 per cent of healthcare workers who reported seeing patients forced to go without energy, three in 10 said they were seeing this weekly while one in ten said they saw patients unable to pay their bills every day. Over two-thirds of health workers - 68 per cent - said that high energy bills were contributing to avoidable hospital admissions, and 45 per cent said that they had sent patients home knowing that their housing situation would make them ill again. Dr LJ Smith, a respiratory consultant working in London, told researchers: 'Every single day I treat patients whose lung conditions are entirely preventable, but they tell me their homes are cold, mouldy and damp, and they just cannot afford to keep the heating on. 'As a healthcare worker I shouldn't need a detailed knowledge of energy tariffs and benefits - I just want to get back to the job that I was trained to do, working with my patients to help them thrive despite their lung condition. This is a public health crisis that is entirely preventable.' Dr Amaran, a paediatric doctor working in Sheffield, said: 'I and other children's health workers are increasingly concerned by having to send children home with inhalers and medicines, knowing full well that for the many living in unsafe and unhealthy homes, it will be a matter of days and weeks before they're sick again, with serious implications for their life chances.' In 2022-23, 3.5 million households in England lived in a home that failed to meet the Decent Homes Standard, the minimum standard for liveable housing. One million households lived in a home with damp, data from the English Housing Survey found. Damp was most likely to impact private renters, with 441,000 homes affected in 2022-23. More than 26,000 babies and toddlers were admitted to hospital last year with lung conditions probably linked to exposure to damp and mould, BBC analysis of NHS data found. A new energy price cap of £1,849 starts from April, marking a third straight increase. Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley said that the UK's 'reliance on international gas markets' was continuing to drive up bills, adding: 'It's more important than ever that we're driving forward investment in a cleaner homegrown system.' He also warned that energy debts, which began during the 2021 energy crisis, have reached record levels and would continue to grow without intervention. Caroline Simpson, from campaign group Warm This Winter who commissioned the survey, said renewable energy and insulation programmes were the answer to high energy bills. 'Only by doing that will we free bill-payers from the high cost of energy so they can get the homes they deserve,' she said. Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson Helen Morgan MP said:'It is infuriating to think that so many people who otherwise would be healthy and able to live their lives to the fullest are in pain and forced to endure an NHS that is already at breaking point as they can't heat their homes properly. 'The government urgently needs to change course to protect people's bills and ultimately keep them out of hospital.' Some 2,128 healthcare workers were polled as part of the research. A spokesperson for the Department of Energy Security said: 'Everyone deserves to live in a warm, comfortable home. We have set out proposals to help almost three million more households, including almost one million with children, with support to pay their energy bills next winter. 'Our Warm Homes Plan will make homes cheaper and cleaner to run, rolling out upgrades from new insulation to solar and heat pumps - with up to 300,000 homes to benefit from upgrades later this year. "Up to half a million households could also be lifted out of fuel poverty by 2030 in major boost to standards in the private rental sector."
