Laurie Notaro Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Funny Women Write from the Road Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Laurie Notaro is a historical fiction novelist from Eugene, Oregon, where she lives with her husband. She was born in Brooklyn, New York but spent most of her early life in Phoenix Arizona where she had quite the checkered past.
She graduated with a journalism degree from Arizona State University and then worked as a journalist for years.

Before she became very popular as an author, she worked for “The Arizona Republic” for more than a decade as a columnist, and then as a senior editor at a full-color city magazine known as “Tucson Monthly.”
She is also famously a cofounder of “Planet Magazine.”

Notaro published “We Thought You Would be Prettier,” her first work in 1995, and her first fiction novel “There’s A Slight Chance I Might Be Going to Hell” in 2007.

Unlike many authors, she has never been one to stick to one genre and has published works in humor, historical fiction, and even one in aviation that has become very popular.
In addition to her works, she has penned and published numerous essays and articles and was A Thurber Award finalist in the American Humor category.

As a columnist, she has written for the likes of BUST, The New York Times, Village Voice Media, Glamour, USA Today, BARK Magazine, and Oprah.

Unlike most of her contemporaries, Laurie Notaro does not remember how she got started writing.

For much of her life, writing was something that she just sort of always did. Her teachers often told her that she was very good at telling stories and she loved doing it and she never had to try hard to be decent at it.
Since she is a tragic disaster in anything to do with mathematics, it is a relief that she is very good with words. Given that it is the only thing that she knows how to do really well, Laurie has never stopped writing.
Moreover, she is now too fat to be a ballerina, she is a horrible singer and she sucks at painting. There was just nothing left and hence she went to Arizona State to become a journalist.

But even while she was in journalism school, she always felt that it was not for her, even if she liked the atmosphere of a newspaper room.

While Notaro was working for the university paper, she accidentally became a columnist and has never stopped doing it. Over time, she found that she liked to make people laugh at themselves and at her.
While she sometimes stumbled into magazine editing early in her career, writing is the place she always felt like she belonged.

Laurie Notaro’s novel “There’s a Chance I Might Be Going to Hell” is an interesting work of fiction set in a small town. It is a story of an extraordinary pageant, dark secrets, and peculiarities.
When Maye’s husband is offered a job at a small university, she is delighted that she will soon be leaving the heat of Phoenix for the green and lush quiet of Spaulding, Washington.
Even though she has fallen in love with the quirky little town, she never anticipated how much she would miss her friends once she left Phoenix.

Moreover, as a childless freelance writer in her thirties who works from home, it is almost impossible to make new friends.

She nearly gets banished from town following a series of false starts and comes up with an ingenious plan.

She is going to make a connection with the townfolk by entering the Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant, an annual dead serious but kooky local tradition, open to all genders and ages.
With the help of a former pageant queen, she begins making preparations only to uncover a bizarre mystery.

Laurie Notaro’s “Spooky Little Girl” asserts the truism that death usually comes when you least expect it.

Lucy Fisher comes home from vacation in Hawaii to find that all her belongings have been tossed onto the front lawn, her fiance’s phone is not going through, the locks have been changed and she has just been fired.
Her world is fast spinning out of control and the only thing she can do is to move upstate to live with her nephew and sister hoping for a new start.

However, things become even more dramatic when she boards public transport, which results in a fatal encounter landing her in the nearly hereafter.

She now finds herself in school where she learns how to be spooky and find success as a spirit so that she can fulfill her paranormal assignment.

If she makes it through, she will have a spot reserved in the next level but until then, she has to live as a ghost in the most hated level.

Since she does not want to be trapped for all eternity on Earth, she crosses the line between death and life several times while returning home.

While she navigates the dangerous channels of the paranormal, she will do anything to find out why her life has gone to the dogs, and why no one seems to have noticed that she is gone despite how ugly her death was.

“Crossing the Horizon” by Laurie Notaro is a work set in the 1920s making for a stunning historical fiction work.

It tells the little-known but true story of three aviatrixes who are fighting each other to make history as the first woman to navigate a plane across the Atlantic.
Twirling and flipping through the air at ten thousand feet, the women fly from New York to Paris to London, fueled by courage and determination to get their hands on the biggest prize of the century.
Since it is only 1927, Amelia Earhart is yet to cross the Atlantic and make history and the race is on to follow in the footsteps of Charles Lindbergh.
The names of the three aviatrixes are on every front page.

Ruth Elder is a beauty pageant contestant who makes use of her winnings to become one of the most preeminent Americans in the sky after she takes flying lessons.
Mabel Boll is a former cigar girl and glamorous society darling who is very driven.

Lastly is Elsie Mackay the first Englishwoman to get her pilot’s license and is also the daughter of an earl.

Inspired by real people and true events, the author evokes some fond memories of what was a very exciting time.

Through atmospheric prose, meticulous prose, and striking photography she brings the three women to life as they struggle, collide, and crash in the fight for a place in history and fame.