Author Details
Author Details
Hamilton, Laurell K.
" Laurell's grandmother, Laura Gentry, was responsible for Laurell's interests in things that go bump in the night. Mrs. Gentry related tales of horror originating in the hills of Arkansas, the state where she grew up. From those stories Laurell got this lesson: ""Rawhide and bloody bones will get you if you aren't good"". When Laurell was 13, she discover a short story collection titled ""Pigeons from Hell"". ""It was the first heroic fantasy I'd read. It was fights, swords, monsters I decided not only did I want to become a writer, it was this I wanted to write"". She chanced upon another book in the high school library "" The Natural History of the Vampire"". She read it so many times she nearly memorized it. When it's suggested that her choice of creepy films and stories were unseemly when her friends' companions were dolls: ""I wasn't like most girls"" she said.
Laurell was born in Heber Springs, Arkansas but grew up in Sims, Ind. A hamlet with a population of 100. Laurell's mother was killed in a car crash in 1969. Laurell's mother Suzie Kline and her grandmother had been the other's strength with Mrs. Gentry the one who kept the household together. Her mother's death, her grandmother's role in raising her and growing up with no male in the home are ""the three things that made who I am,"" she says. Though she still believes she would have grown up to be a writer regardless.
Laurell does not shy away from sex or violence in her books. ""I was a kiss to be so believable it give the reader shivers. Two things I do well are sex and violence, but I don't want gratuitous sex or violence. The sex and violence is only as graphic as need be. And never included unless it furthers the plot or character development. Everyone [in the book] has someone to lust after, but Anita is like me. She doesn't see herself as a lust object.""
From Darla:
A question that gets asked a lot is ""What is Laurell really like?"". Hmmmm.... She is not Anita, though you can see bits of Anita in her. She is the truly the warm, generous, friendly person you see at cons and signings. I am blessed by her continuing friendship.
Before her writing career kept her so busy she volunteered at an animal shelter. Not as a keeper but as a person who went out and shared time and love with unwanted pets. Unfortunately, she had to drop that from her busy schedule. She says that all work and no play makes the writer grumpy. But I have never seen her act that way. She writes as fast as she can manage. And that brings up the topic of publication dates. Laurell does not set these, the publisher does. It is a complicated formula of length of time from last book by author, other authors who are publishing something, printer schedules and multiple bookhouses juggling. Laurell has little control over the when.
I know she wishes she could answer each fan mail herself. But if she did that we would get no books! She gets a lot of mail. And for those wondering, Laurell is a self admitted technophobe (read the computer confuses her), though she is learning to use the email with help from her friends.
The awe she generates often confuses her. She sees herself as an ordinary person, nothing special. She writes because to not write even for her own enjoyment would be like not breathing. It is just something she has to do. Thankfully she is willing to share that wonderful talent with us all. "
