Drummond, Laurie Lynn 1956–

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Drummond, Laurie Lynn 1956–

PERSONAL: Born 1956, in Bryan, TX. Education: Attended Ithaca College; Louisiana State University, B.A., M.F.A.

ADDRESSES: Office—Creative Writing Program, 5243 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-5243. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Author and educator. St. Edwards University, Austin, TX, adjunct instructor and assistant professor, 1991–2004; University of Oregon, Eugene, assistant professor of creative writing, 2004–. Ithaca Police Department, Ithaca, NY, police dispatcher, 1976–78; Louisiana State University Police Department, Crime Prevention Division, plainclothes officer, 1978–80; Baton Rouge Police Department, Baton Rouge, LA, uniformed police officer, 1980–85. Coordinating editor, Butterworth Legal Publishers Employment Law Division.

AWARDS, HONORS: Tennessee Williams Scholar in Fiction, Sewanee Writers' Conference, 1993; Association of Writers and Writing Programs Intro Award in Fiction; two Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellowships; Walter E. Dakin fellow, Sewanee Writers' Conference, 2004; Violet Crown Texas Book Award in Fiction, and Jesse Jones Award for Best Book, Texas Institute of Letters, both 2004, both for Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used against You; Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Short Story, Mystery Writers of America, and PEN/Hemingway Award finalist, both 2005, both for "Something about a Scar."

WRITINGS:

Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used against You (story collection), HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2004.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel, The Hour of Two Lights, for HarperCollins; a memoir, Losing My Gun.

SIDELIGHTS: Laurie Lynn Drummond is a former police officer whose 2004 short-story collection, Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You, is a series of ten interlinking tales examining the life and work of female officers in the Baton Rouge Police Department, where Drummond herself was employed in the 1980s. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly thought that Drummond blends "Southern grace and urban brutality" in her "blistering fictional portraits." Three of the stories feature a fictional officer named Kathryn, who shoots a robbery suspect and then tries to save the badly injured man's life. Other tales focus on a traffic officer named Liz; an officer in Victim Services named Cathy; Sarah, who flees to New Mexico from her own past; and Mona, who has exhausted herself on the job. The Publishers Weekly reviewer went on to note that Drummond's "profiles in courage" offer continual surprises. Similar praise came from a critic for Kirkus Reviews, who felt Drummond's "prose … weighs like a gun in your palm." The same contributor felt Drummond successfully draws readers into her tales "with a marvelous command of fear and sensuous involvement." For Jo Ann Vicarel, writing in Library Journal, "this is an exceptional body of writing."