Hi, I’m Laura. I am a novelist, web-fiction writer, poet, photographer, dabbling artisan, traveler, and all around creative distraction. Welcome to my website!
I’m a Michigan native, now living near Washington DC with my charming husband and two kiddos. I studied creative writing at the University of Toledo, and instead of getting my MFA, I moved to the suburbs of Detroit and had a baby.
My stories are kooky and emotional relationship dramas, stories that are often tragic, usually witty, sometimes poignant, and a little bit crass. My first novel, Exactly Where They’d Fall, was released in the summer of 2012, followed up by The Fish and the Bird in 2016. After which I took a little break to stay home with my second little darling, born in 2019. But I’m not done. I have dozens more books in my head.
I love the mountains and Northern Michigan and the East Coast and England, and I wish we didn’t have to pick only one place to live in. I love hiking, camping in new places, taking photos, playing guitar and violin, gaming (Sims 4 and Minecraft!), making paper crafts, drawing (badly), and Photoshopping covers for books I haven’t written yet.
Left to my own devices, I could play Sims for hours – days, even. After many happy years playing Sims 1, 2, and 3, and I am currently hooked on Sims 4, where I have recreated my fictional families from my story neighborhood, Lakeside Heights. When Sims 5 comes out, yes, I will probably play it, and yes, I will probably recreate all of my families once again. You may read this madness if you wish.
brilliance – these are the artists whose influence formed me:
books: John Irving, Charles Dickens, Lorrie Moore, Sherwood Anderson, Sherman Alexie, T.C. Boyle, Charles Baxter, Victor Hugo, Janet Fitch, Margaret Atwood, Joshua Ferris, Rainbow Rowell, Stephen Chbosky, Jeffrey Eugenides, Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut
poetry: Mark Doty, E.E. Cummings, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, T.S. Eliot
film: My favorite films are all listed here…
television: Mad Men, the Walking Dead, Orphan Black, American Horror Story, Weeds, Dexter, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Being Human, Gray’s Anatomy, The Office, My So-Called Life, Shameless, Daria, Sex and the City.
music: Incubus, Radiohead, Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, Augustana, Snow Patrol, Pilot Speed, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Coldplay, Brandi Carlile, Ingrid Michaelson