Laurell's grandmother, Laura Gentry, was responsible for Laurell's interests in things that go bump in the night. Mrs. Gentry related tales of horror originating in the hills of Arkansas, the state where she grew up. From those stories Laurell got this lesson: "Rawhide and bloody bones will get you if you aren't good".
When Laurell was 13, she discover a short story collection titled "Pigeons from Hell". "It was the first heroic fantasy I'd read. It was fights, swords, monsters I decided not only did I want to become a writer, it was this I wanted to write". She chanced upon another book in the high school library " The Natural History of the Vampire". She read it so many times she nearly memorized it. When it's suggested that her choice of creepy films and stories were unseemly when her friends' companions were dolls: "I wasn't like most girls" she said.
Laurell was born in Heber Springs, Arkansas but grew up in Sims, Ind. A hamlet with a population of 100. Laurell's mother was killed in a car crash in 1969. Laurell's mother Suzie Kline and her grandmother had been the other's strength with Mrs. Gentry the one who kept the household together. Her mother's death, her grandmother's role in raising her and growing up with no male in the home are "the three things that made who I am," she says. Though she still believes she would have grown up to be a writer regardless.
Laurell K Hamilton resides in St. Louis County in Missouri with her family.
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