Pasadena, Calif. » More from the Television Critics Association sessions:

Dear 'Vampire Diaries'

A teen girl falls for a brooding, hunkish vampire who drifts into town. Sounds like the Flavor of the Month, "Twilight," no?

No, it's the premise behind the CW's new teen series, "The Vampire Diaries," and the show's creator promises it's not a "Twilight" rip-off.

"The storyline is very different," said series creator Kevin Williamson, who also created "Dawson's Creek." "It's not 'Twilight.' It's not 'True Blood.' "

Though the books the series is based on came in out in the 1990s -- before Stephenie Meyers' Twilight novels --- this series has only been cooking since winter after "Twilight" the film hit mega-box-office status.

Williamson said that by the third book, the series will "take a fork in the road" from the novels and the basic concept of "Twilight."

Writing off writers?

The brains behind some of television's biggest shows feel like they're getting snubbed in the upcoming Emmy Awards, which will be broadcast Sept. 20 on CBS.

The Writers Guild of America, which represents Hollywood's screenwriters, television creators and showrunners, issued a petition Aug. 3 to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, demanding the academy telecast the winners of the writing categories live on the ceremony like it used to.

Controversy erupted this year after CBS and the show's producer Don Mischer announced they would "time shift" some announcements of the winners during the ceremony. In other words, they would be taped earlier in the night and shown edited during the live telecast to cut down on time. That includes all four best writing categories.

The Writers Guild passed around a petition stating: "This decision conveys a fundamental understatement of the importance of writers in the creation of television programming."

Show creators from "Desperate Housewives," "Breaking Bad," "Family Guy," "Lost," "Mad Men," "Dexter" and "Grey's Anatomy" signed the petition.

Tribune TV critic Vince Horiuchi is hanging out with TV executives this week to report the latest news from the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour. Read more about it at his blog at blogs.sltrib.com/tv