Clara Montague didn't even want to come home. Her mother, Constance Montague never liked her--or listened to her--but now they have to get along or they will both end up in jail or dead.
"During her yearlong tenure as Norwalk’s first poet laureate, Laurel Peterson will work to disseminate poetry in Norwalk’s public sphere. Her first project, a selection of poems to be displayed on Norwalk busses, will go on display this month." –The Hour
"Laurel Peterson, an author and poet, is Norwalk’s first poet laureate — one of only a handful in the state. For the next year, she will work to foster a love and appreciation of poetry among the city's residents and visitors" –Westport News
Laurel S. Peterson is a Professor of English at Norwalk Community College.
Her poetry has been published in many small literary journals. She has two poetry chapbooks,
That’s the Way the Music Sounds (Finishing Line Press, 2009) and Talking to the Mirror (The Last Automat Press, 2010), and two full-length collection,
Do You Expect Your Art to Answer?(2017) and Daughter of Sky (2021). She co-edited a collection of essays on women’s justice titled (Re)Interpretations:
The Shapes of Justice in Women’s Experience (2009) and has written two mystery novels Shadow Notes and The Fallen (Woodhall Press).
She is on the editorial board of the literary magazine Inkwell, and served as the town of Norwalk, Connecticut’s, Poet Laureate from April 2016 – April 2019.
Currently, she sits on the Norwalk Public Library Board.
You can find her on Substack at https://laurelspeterson.substack.com/archive.
One eighth grade afternoon, the bully on the bus was worse than usual. I came home and wrote a story of revenge in my journal. What satisfaction to leave her bleeding (on paper, of course!) on the playground. Thus was born my career as a mystery writer.
In college, I majored in psychology, fascinated by what motivates us (or doesn’t). Why did that girl down the hall only write notes to her mother and rarely talk to her? Why did one kid in a family act like a goody two-shoes, while an older brother or sister did drugs and flunked out? Why was the rich girl with all the family connections bulimic? Why did people attend a religious school only to flout all its rules?
After college, I tested the waters in advertising, catering, retail, and sales, salting away character details in my journals, and in lousy short stories. Then, I did an MFA and entered the world of academic politics, where I currently reside, writing poetry and mysteries, and grading papers.