RIP Lara Parker

I just saw the awful news that Lara Parker has died. We became friends in our MFA Program at Antioch Los Angeles in the mid-00s. Lara was writing her second Dark Shadows novel, and I was also writing a vampire novel. Her attitude towards me at first was very Angelique--i.e., Who Are YOU To Also Be Writing a Vampire Novel in My MFA Program? I'm not sure how that morphed into friendship, but the shift happened rather quickly, as I recall. At the time, I had not yet seen Dark Shadows.

At some point, I think after we'd both graduated, our mutual friend Dodie Bellamy (who we'd both studied with at Antioch) contacted me because there was going to be a Dark Shadows Festival in Hollywood, and she wondered if I'd like to attend with her and watch the fans go wild over Lara. I had no idea what to expect, but the fans did in fact go wild over her. She was still so beautiful and so poised. The Festival made me curious about Dark Shadows, and I became a fan of the show. Lara and I both attended Jim Krusoe's writing workshop at Santa Monica College, and I kept asking her questions about Dark Shadows and old-school soap opera production in general (because I was writing Can't Find My Way Home). She would do Angelique's evil laugh for me, to my delight. For years, whenever there was a Dark Shadows Festival in town or she was doing some other event, I'd go and catch up with her--usually while she signed many, many autographs. I hadn't seen her in several years. She was such a warm friend, and I will miss her terribly.