Bio

In Jerusalem, overlooking the Hill of Evil Counsel.

Laura Resnick was born in Chicago, as were many famous gangsters. When she was a teenager, her family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where—according to Mark Twain—everything happens ten years later (which explains Laura’s relationship with her deadlines).

A cum laude graduate of Georgetown University, where she studied languages and linguistics, Laura speaks French and Italian. After college, she moved overseas for a few years, where she studied acting at London’s Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, worked various odd jobs in England (one of which required her to sign the Official Secrets Act), volunteered on a kibbutz in Israel, and taught English in Italy.

Having grown up in a writer’s house (she is the daughter of science fiction author Mike Resnick), Laura swore the one career she would never pursue was writing. She’d seen close-up what a godawful lifestyle writing is and how deeply weird most writers become due to years of dealing with pirates, rapists, and thieves (a.k.a. “publishers”). But despite that vow, she somehow wound up writing for a living.

Laura’s epic fantasy novels include In Legend Born, The White Dragon, which made “Year’s Best” lists, and The Destroyer Goddess, which Publishers Weekly describes as “a marvel of storytelling.” Prior to that, she began her career under the pseudonym Laura Leone, as the award-winning author of more than a dozen romance novels.

Laura is also the author of Rejection, Romance, and Royalties: The Wacky World of a Working Writer, a collection of her columns and essays on the craft and business of writing professionally. And she has written dozens of articles and short stories, as well as A Blonde In Africa, which is an account of her eight-month journey across the continent.

Her urban fantasy series about struggling actress Esther Diamond combines comedy, mystery, and romance with supernatural phenomena and mystical menace. The releases in this series include Disappearing Nightly, Doppelgangster, Unsympathetic Magic, Vamparazzi, Polterheist, The Misfortune Cookie, and Abracadaver, and there are more Esther Diamond misadventures in the works.

Laura also attended the master’s degree program at Ohio University’s EW Scripps School of Journalism, and she interned at The Associated Press in Jerusalem. She has previously served as President of the Board of Directors of Novelists, Inc. (Ninc), an international organization for professional novelists, and she currently writes an opinion column for Ninc’s monthly journal, Nink. Laura also works part-time as a historic walking-tour guide, and in her copious spare time, she volunteers with an animal rescue group, the Cat Adoption Team.