Laura Lann
Bio
I am an author from deep East Texas with a passion for horror and fantasy, often heavily mixed together. In my spare time, when I am not writing, I draw and paint landscape and fantasy pieces. I now reside in Alaska where adventures await.
Stories (128)
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Milk and Death. Content Warning.
They should have known better than to entrust her with something so frail and so precious. Yet the lords had seemed keen on gifting her with the duty of caring for the abandoned spawling. She clutched the hatchling in her hands, careful not to damage its soft scales, yet mindful of its talons. Surely no good could come from this bestowment. Spawlings were odd creatures, with ears like horses, scales like dragons, and bodies like sugar gliders with a long strip of black fur racing down their back and ending at the tip of their tail in a tuff.
By Laura Lann2 years ago in Fiction
Grown Through Bread
Fresh bread soothes my weary soul like no other comfort. The rising steam as it bakes wraps around me. The smell invades every room of the house with warmth and delight. It's rich and fluffy. It's a staple of my childhood and each buttery slice contains a plethora of memories from making it a million times.
By Laura Lann2 years ago in Families
The Procedure
She sits in a stiff chair with plastic upholstery and wooden legs. Identical chairs line the walls of the room with an occasional side table between them. Tissue boxes are carefully placed on each table. Fluorescent lights cast the room in an earie wash. A muted TV plays in the corner, cycling through an old TV show with bold subtitles at the bottom. A clipboard of paperwork stares up at her from her lap. Her name stands out boldly to her: Sandra Hopprey. Politely, the nurse comes by to collect it and offers her a sympathetic smile.
By Laura Lann2 years ago in Fiction
Self Burn Out
How do you feel? Sick, exhausted. Pulling through with warm tea and pills to dull the headache. What about mentally? I think that I think too much. Perhaps. Perhaps I think a normal amount. Perhaps it's a lack of chasing my thoughts that make them overwhelming. Perhaps if I find quiet time to silence my mind, it will all get better. Maybe exercising more will help.
By Laura Lann2 years ago in Confessions
The Dream Home
As a girl they told me I could buy my dream home one day. As a young adult, they told me, no one gets their dream home on the first go. You buy a starter home, build equity, and maybe one day with some luck and the right timing, you build your dream home or buy it. Quickly, I realized just to own a home was the dream. Home ownership itself was the barrier I was striving for.
By Laura Lann2 years ago in The Swamp
The Taste of Poverty
The rural south in the US has a way about it that pulls you in. It's sandy rivers with swampy ponds. It's red clay cliffs near vast lakes. It's field of cotton blistering under the sun. It’s rows and rows of pine forests, with amber needles where the grass should be and tall dark trunks looming up over you. Due to their fast growth, the lumber industry booms there. The really straight pines become powerline poles across the state. The less describe become boards and the really crooked are turned into wood chips or particle board. I can look at a pine tree and tell you what it will be cut for. We had our own land that was cut for timber, but it wasn't replanted. The seedlings cost money and took too long to return it.
By Laura Lann2 years ago in Chapters
The Other Sides of Me
I feel that in part, those that read my writing (the poems especially) know the most secretive parts of me. The dark and sad and vulnerable parts. The history of my childhood that stains almost everything I touch. It's always joked amongst my friends that my writing is not what you would assume I would write, if you spent any length of time with me. I'm quite the sunshine person and usually laughing or humming to myself. You know a small glimpse into the frail parts of my heart, but not the whole of who I am. So, when I saw this challenge, I delighted in the idea of partaking as well as getting to read others. It can be quite shocking to match an author with facts about them and is a good reminder that we are more than the words we leave here.
By Laura Lann2 years ago in Confessions
Through Tunnels and Trash
She sat knowing what was coming, aware of what was fixing to arrive. The war between the two clans had at last ensued; the brutish and unlearned barbarians against her own advanced and civilized people. Fear clamped tightly on her heart as she stood to the side of the green expanse of field where the battle would began; the field that led out of her world and into another. After endless miles of travel, the enemy waited just below the bottom of a monstrous hill that warped the entire field. Soon the army would reach the top where the city’s own troops were gathering. Amongst them was every man willing or not. Some were young, only sixteen. And, somewhere out there with the other youth was the boy she loved. She stood there her heart wrenching from her chest but only for an instant, then she darted away to her home to find safety and shelter.
By Laura Lann2 years ago in Fiction
Gender and Clothing
When I was little, I used to wear a dress made of the softest hues of blue and green. It splashed around me as I twirled in rich puddles of sunshine, and it sang the purest of songs when my voice cried out to the sky in happiness. I played in it almost every day beneath deep pools of shade residing under pecan trees. It was a nice dress of soft and flowing material that complimented my bouncy personality. For me it was the most comfortable of outfits, even though I was usually in a tree or rushing after my younger brother in a wild pursuit.
By Laura Lann2 years ago in Viva
