Diaries

Stephen Elliott started playing around with drugs at 10 and ran away from home when he was 13. He spent most of his teens in and out of group homes; as an adult, he stripped at gay bars for a year while shooting heroin. It came to a crashing conclusion when he overdosed. "People tell me, 'Oh, you've had a hard life,' " the San Francisco writer says at a shady cafe in Los Feliz on a recent trip to Los Angeles. "But compared to the kids I was in group homes with, I know their stories are worse than my story.

For months now people have been anticipating "The Vampire Diaries" as a CW-ized version of "Twilight" with a bunch of sensitive young lovelies yearning and burning for danger, romance and the ultimate penetration. In between bouts of underage drinking, texting, girl-bonding, and the inevitable minor-key whine of a soundtrack, that is. "True Blood Lite" or "Transylvania 90210." And you know what? It is. Almost exactly. But this is not a bad thing, not a bad thing at all. Because "Vampire Diaries" knows precisely what it is -- a Gothic romance -- and doesn't try to be anything else.