We were fortunate enough to get a chance to talk with Twilight mega-star Kristen Stewart (aka ‘Bella Swan’) at her press day for a sweet little indie she did for Mary Stuart Masterson called The Cake Eaters, and of course we made sure to get the Twilight scoop.

When asked what she thought about the bad press she’s been getting in the wake of her Nylon interview, Stewart is adamant that her words are being taken out of context—professing, believably might I add—to having nothing but the utmost respect and care for the Twilight story and situation as a whole. “I love the Twilight fans. I have literally never said anything remotely negative about them,” she told us.

So all the hullaballoo? She attributed that to learning the ropes about what is going to read in print and what isn’t. “You have to stay away from certain key words that can be twisted in a negative connotation. Like the word ‘psychotic’ apparently is really bad,” she said, provoking laughter around the table.

“I feel like it’s a really humble position to take that it’s not normal—you know what I mean?—to find yourself in a situation where there are 5,000 screaming girls. I feel like that’s not normal and it’s not something I should just say, ‘Oh yeah, it’s really cool, I love them,’” she continued. “I feel like everything I said in that Nylon interview, if you actually read the whole thing, was very honest and genuine and talking about something that I am so immersed in and I have absolutely no control over. And I’m just trying to stay honest and true to something that I care about.”

According to Stewart, cameras are set to start rolling on the next installment of the Twilight saga, New Moon, on March 23rd and she’s eager to dive back in. “It’s a completely different story. It’s like it completely undermines the first,” she explained. “Edward’s gone and for me that was the whole story. It’s hard for me to get past—I don’t know how Bella’s going to deal with that. She matures. A lot. And it’s a much more painful story than the first one. It’s actually quite devastating. It’s a smaller scale as well. She’s very solitary for quite a while, so that will be interesting. I’m excited about that.”

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She may prefer to write late at night while her family sleeps, but for the record, there is not a lot about Stephenie Meyer, author of the better-than-best-selling Twilight series, that screams vampire. Yes, she has long dark hair and earthy brown eyes, casually highlighted this afternoon at her home in Arizona by a black Banana Republic cashmere sweater and jeans, but she lacks the arrogance associated with vampireness. Her vibe is homey; she sits you down on her living-room couch, one leg curled up under her, and starts talking as if you had been in the midst of conversation for years. She’s surrounded by her sons’ toys, games, and compasses (her husband is a Cubmaster), as well as her work—her office is in the front hall. There are family photos and a few paintings of the Washington coast, where Twilight takes place. The Phoenix neighborhood where she lives, a kind of desert suburb, is the opposite of the Washington coast, and lately she and her husband have been taking their three boys (ages six, eight, and eleven) on vacation to the Seattle area once in a while, to see green. “It’s nice to show them that there are places where things are alive,” she says. Read the rest of this entry »

Booksellers say Meyer’s books are helping fill the void left by Harry Potter after the last instalment in the stories the boy wizard was published in 2007.

Publishers had fretted openly about how they would maintain sales after the publication of the final part of the series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Figures published by the retailer amazon.com show Meyer’s books dominating the top 10 lists for the last year in Britain, the US, Canada and France, enjoying an international success not seen since the height of “Potter-mania”.

In many of the national lists, compiled to chart international reading habits for World Book Day on Thursday her name appears two or three times in the top 10.

The American author has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide of her series Twilight – which was made into a film – New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.

Kes Nielsen, head of books buying at the British arm amazon.co.uk said it was rare for a book to have such appeal in many different countries at the same time.

“Stephenie Meyer, in particular, has achieved incredible success across all the English-speaking nations and Europe and many will say that her Twilight series has filled the hole left by Harry Potter.

“Indeed, I don’t think we have seen one author have so many books in the best-sellers lists since J K Rowling in the early days of the boy wizard.”

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