Elizabeth LaBan

Elizabeth LaBan lives in Philadelphia with her restaurant critic husband and two children. She is the author of the young adult novel The Tragedy Paper, published by Knopf, which has been translated into eleven foreign languages, and The Grandparents Handbook, published by Quirk Books, which has been translated into seven foreign languages.

She teaches fiction writing at The University of Pennsylvania. In addition, she is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Newsday and The Times-Picayune, among other publications. She also ghost writes a weekly column, and has ghost written two books.

LaBan's new novel is The Restaurant Critic's Wife.

From the author's Q & A with Christy Snyder for Geekadelphia:

What book(s) have had a strong influence on you or your writing?

That honor goes to S.E. Hinton’s That Was Then, This Is Now, which I read in middle school. It was the first time I wanted to be with a book more than I wanted to be in my actual life at the moment, and when I finished it, I missed it so much it hurt. That had never happened to me before. That was when I decided I wanted to try to do that someday – create a world, a story, and people who might touch readers the way I had been touched by that book.

What do you like to read other than novels?

Well, of course I read...[read on]

Visit Elizabeth LaBan's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Restaurant Critic's Wife.

Writers Read: Elizabeth LaBan.

--Marshal Zeringue