Laura Elizabeth Woollett Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Laura Elizabeth Woollett is an Australian author that writes short stories using themes like sex, power, and girlhood.

+Biography

Laura Elizabeth Woollett was born in Perth. That is in Western Australia. It is also where she was raised. Laura’s foray into publishing officially began when she enrolled at the University of Melbourne to study Creative Writing.

She graduated in 2012 and began to probe the publishing field. At the time, Laura kept running into obstacles because most publishers were looking for full-length novels and the author’s works were more shorts stories than anything else.

Her perseverance saw her get shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction in 2017.

+Literary Career

Laura Elizabeth Woollett, best known for ‘The Love of a Bad Man’, got her big break when she read her work at the Melbourne Writers Festival Event. It was there that the author attracted the attention of an editor from Scribe.

Before that moment, Laura had looked to her American Agent to help her sell her stories. However, publishers were not biting. They loved her ideas. They just didn’t care for short stories.

They would have happily given her a book deal if she had a novel. But Laura had her sights set on a collection of short stories rather than a novel. She was fortunate that Marika Webb-Pullman happened to be in the audience at the Melbourne Writers Festival.

She reached out to Laura later on and gave her a book deal. It should be noted that Laura’s first literary work was ‘The Wood of Suicides’. It was a novel she wrote shortly after finishing her first degree.

Though, it is for ‘The Love of a Bad Man’ that she is best known. Laura did not immediately follow ‘The Wood of Suicides’ with another novel because she had no pressing stories on her mind.

She used that time –when she wasn’t writing—to read. As she delved into nonfiction and stumbled upon the lives of so many interesting men and women, ideas for a collection began to manifest.

She was fortunate to land a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship. She used ten weeks to get her manuscript ready after which she began shopping it out through her agent.

‘The Love of a Bad Man’ is considered by many to be Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s best work. Though, it did not exactly set the world on fire. Laura loves writing about power, sex and the nature of women in society.

The author admits that she isn’t an idea machine. She does not have the capacity to simply sit down and spit ideas from her imagination. Laura’s fiction is usually research-heavy.

Once the author has an idea, she can only flesh it out by doing research and seeing how others explored that concept. That explains why Laura is such a heavy plotter. She cannot sit down to write until she has thoroughly thought every aspect of her story through.

Unlike many of her colleagues, the rigors of research and preparation do not bother her. In fact, Laura loves to do research. She enjoys jotting her ideas down and organizing her plots until she has a cohesive story.

The author has a passion for women as protagonists. She loves getting into the minds of women who are pushed to a tipping point. She enjoys delving into the factors that drive them to do the unthinkable.

She places emphasis on the men in their lives and how toxic relationships with the male species can sometimes lead women down the wrong path. For all her research, Laura Elizabeth Woollett never forgets the fact that she is a fiction author.

She doesn’t let herself get so lost in exploring the colorful lives of her subjects that she forgets to entertain her readers.

Laura encourages aspiring writers to understand their strengths and weaknesses before proceeding to write. She thinks that so many budding authors could go so much further if they just learned what they are good at and stuck to it, this as opposed to delving into areas for which they are not suited.

+The Wood of Suicides

Laurel Marks is beautiful. The 17-year-old could have anyone she wants. But Laurel has an affinity for older men, chief amongst which is her father. There are no lines Laurel won’t cross to impress him, and when he dies, Laurel finds herself in search of a new love object.

She finds what she’s looking for in Mr. Hugh Steadman, an English teacher she meets when she is sent off to boarding school.

After several flirtatious interactions, Laurel and Hugh take things to the next level one November Afternoon. To Laurel’s shock, Hugh is more violent a lover than she could have dreamed.

And the more she recedes, the more ferociously he pursues her.

Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s first book tells a teacher/student romance. It follows the exploits of a studious teen with father issues and an eating disorder who seeks to explore her sexuality.

Laurel initially wants to see if she has the power to attract an older man, mostly because she finds the boys her age too immature. What starts as an amusing experiment grows into something far more serious.

Hugh, the object of her love, is a married man 25 years her elder.

+The Love of a Bad Man

This book is a collection of 12 stories that try to look at the women—wives, girlfriends, mistresses—behind the worst men in history. Laura delves into the lives of serial killers, rapists, and mass murderers.

She shows who they were to the women in their lives. She tries to understand what drew the women to their terrible men, how those relationships changed them and the destinations they ultimately reached as a result.

The characters Laura introduces are real people. They actually existed. But she explores them as one would characters in a fictional tale. The author isn’t afraid to delve into the darkness hiding within each story.

She lets the repulsive nature of the men bleed out and she tries to show why the women put up with them. The people Laura writes about vary. Some of the women in her stories are just hapless victims of charming and secretive men.

Others are just as depraved as their partners and proceed to participate in many heinous acts.