Laura Ellen Scott

Laura Ellen Scott’s debut novel Death Wishing, a comic fantasy set in post-Katrina New Orleans, is presented by Ig Publishing both in print and as an e-book. Her collection of short creepy fiction called Curio, is offered as an online experience from Uncanny Valley Press.


what are you reading now

Aside from 62 online magazines looking for Wigleaf Top 50 contenders, student fiction, Death Valley websites, and The Morgan Messenger? Right now I’m reading Michele Reale’s Lungfish. I bought Kathy Fish’s Wildlife but lost it almost immediately. Until it turns up I’ll adopt my go-to assumption that the ladies who clean my home every two weeks stole it. Along with the second Wii controller and my gray boots.


classic you’ve been meaning to read

Very few classics call to me anymore, but perhaps The Woman in White? There are so many classic mysteries I wish I’d read. I’m envious of the fact that Art Taylor has been reading the complete Sherlock Holmes stories aloud to Tara Laskowski. They’re partners so that’s okay, not weird. But wouldn’t that be cool if we all had an assignment to follow around another writer and read at them from time to time from a prescribed set of works? Whatever we needed, cosmically. Like, you could read Nathaniel West novels to Erin Fitzgerald, and Jason Jordan could follow you around and read Jose Saramago or Erma Bombeck. We’d all fight over Ethel Rohan. I’d probably get Sean Lovelace reading The Minister’s Black Veil over and over till he died of dehydration.


last book you finished in a single sitting

I’m a slow and lazy reader, but I read Robert Swartwood’s The Serial Killer’s Wife in two sittings—would have been one, but I like to sleep. The last, actual single sitting read? As a grown-up, only short stuff like Mel Bosworth’s When the Cats Razzed the Chickens and Grease Stains, Kismet, and Maternal Wisdom. Haven’t read Freight yet. I used to read Lia Matera’s Laura Di Palma mysteries in one go, but she stopped writing those. I did a lot of one-sit-reads as a kid, and I especially remember reading the last page of Anne of Green Gables just as the sun came up.


book you borrowed and never returned

China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station. I got through about half the book and started stealing from it. That happens a lot, the best stuff I don’t finish. I pillage.


most treasured book in your collection

I’m trying hard not to have a collection anymore, but I’m pretty sentimental about my former students who have turned out to be productive little creeps. Genevieve Valentine has published widely and her latest is a steampunk novel called Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti. Jacqueline Bowen is the author of another steampunk effort, Seven Stop Ride Across the Cosmos. And Sarah Boyle’s debut is a vampire novel called Right of Blood. I claim no direct influence on these works.


if you could write yourself into any novel

Any of The Three Investigators books, but preferably The Mystery of The Talking Skull.


book you’ve planted on a coffee table to impress someone

If by impress we can also mean repel, then The God Delusion. We’re in the DC metro area, so we do security clearance interviews once in a while, and on those occasions we make sure The Communist Manifesto is tucked away out of sight.


if you could subscribe to only one literary journal

BARRELHOUSE, natch!


best thing you’ve read online recently

Steve Himmer’s essay “Making Room for Readers,” on The Millions.


most anticipated upcoming release

Lotsa murder books. If Erin Kelly grows into her own as we all suspect, then her sophomore effort The Dark Rose should be a knockout. I will read anything Kate Atkinson or Tana French put out, and I heard that French is working on a genuine follow-up to In the Woods. Apparently Carol O’Connell’s publishing a new Mallory novel in January, but I’m a bit worried about that. Not really sure what more she can do with Mallory’s high functioning sociopathy.


recommended reading list:


Things I Won’t Read But Wish You Would


Promising cheap/free titles from the Kindle pile:

- Cornstalked by Patricia Bremer. Product description includes the line: “The author does an excellent job of placing the reader in the cornfield ...”

- Love Me if You Must by Nicole Young. My guess is it’s written from a cat’s pov.

- Her Very Special Robot by Ann Jacobs (from the Naughty Nooners series)

- The New Yorker