Laura Maylene Walter will read her work as part of the Prout Reading Series hosted by Bowling Green State University in Prout Chapel, January 26th, at 7:30pm.
Laura Maylene Walter is an author, editor, and BGSU alum currently based in Cleveland Ohio. She has been published in Poets & Writers, The Sun, Literary Hub, Kenyon Review, Slate, Ninth Letter, The Masters Review, and many more journals and publications. Her awards and recognitions are as numerous as her publication locales: a finalist in the Ohioana Book Awards, an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, achieving fiction book of the month from UK Booksellers Association, etc. To add to her numerous accomplishments, the sheer volume of her pieces makes it impossible to include them all here. Most notably, she is the author of the short story collection “Living Arrangements” and has just debuted her first novel, Body of Stars published by Dutton.
Walter’s early work explored dark themes, largely based on the death of her mother when she was twenty, “Even so, I often find myself returning to that period of my life, particularly when I write nonfiction. I think it’s because, as difficult as that time was for me, the darkness made it rich” (Kenyonreview). Her most recent piece Body of Stars is a speculative feminist piece that explores the future as it relates to bodies, “an exploration of fate and female agency in a world similar to our own” (Ohiocenterforthebook). The premise of this up-and-coming piece focuses on the placement of women’s moles being able to predict future events. What Book Riot calls “a story of devastation, rebuilding, grief, and hope,” Walker’s Body of Stars is a debut of terrific promise.
—Kennedy Lomont, MAR