Laura Ellen Scott
In One Note, Gabriel Blackwell asks writers to talk about the book they are currently reading and why. One Note 019: Laura Ellen Scott, Steve Greene, Death Valley Book of Knowledge.
In One Note, I ask writers for just that: one note, a single paragraph, on what they’re reading right now.
Today’s note comes courtesy of Laura Ellen Scott:
I’m working on a new novel project–a love story/treasure hunt set in Death Valley during the great wildflower bloom of 2005, so I’m reading Steve Greene’s 700+ page Death Valley Book of Knowledge. I’ve been to DV a couple of times, and I can’t wait to get back, but in the mean time Death Valley Book of Knowledge will help me recover the feeling of being there, to rebuild it in my mind. It’s about the most shoot-the-breezy sort of book I’ve read in a while, answering all the questions it wouldn’t occur to me to ask, with six “welcome” essays by DV notables, encyclopedia entries, essays, a quiz, trail reviews, a chunk of DV writing from 1890-1939, and a word hunt puzzle. Some of the encyclopedia entries are fun and eccentric: “BONNIE CLAIRE: This old camp was established as a milling center for surrounding mines in 1906, the same year that Alois Alzheimer, a German neurologist, first discovered and explained a form of cognitive impairment in human beings . . .” The entry goes on to describe the camp but never refers to Alzheimer again. Death Valley Book of Knowledge is perfect for the researcher with attention issues. I rarely need hardcore scholarship; the research I do for my writing is almost always for emotion and mouth feel.
Laura Ellen Scott‘s debut novel, Death Wishing, is a comic fantasy set in post- Katrina New Orleans and will be released in October, 2011 by Ig Publishing. Her short fiction collection, Curio, is available for free download from Uncanny Valley Press.
