Lorra Laven

From the time I was a child, I was fascinated with insects, animals, snakes and birds, anything that moved as long as it didn't skitter. (Eight-legged creatures were then, and continue to be, on my run-shrieking list.) In fact, my earliest memories of friendship were with the caterpillars populating the trees in our front yard. Oh wait, I'm confusing those with my high school friends. No matter. 

Now I know this isn't normal but, in high school, chemistry was my favorite subject. It would become my major, the subject I taught in all its twisted permutations, leading me to an interest in genetics and finally to a most curious disorder, Fatal Familial Insomnia. Whoa! Sounds dreadful. Better learn more before I catch it.

After reading everything I could get my hands on, I learned it was, indeed, a scourge that lucky for me, unlucky for them, was limited to 27 families, most of them in Italy.  Hmm: a macabre thought occurred to me. What if it became contagious? Theory in hand, I trotted down to Case‑Western Reserve University to meet with Dr. Pierluigi Gambetti, the world's foremost expert on the disease, asking if FFI could ever become infectious. "No, no, no" Gambetti said (ironically with an Italian accent.) "That is simply not possible."  

Playing devil's advocate, I challenged the distinguished man. "But didn't all of the contagious prion diseases start out as non‑contagious mutations? Why can't FFI become contagious as well?" 

Reluctantly, he agreed and I went home to pen the tale that had been fermenting in my brain. 

Before college, I apprenticed in acting at The Cleveland Play House, appearing in productions with the late Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West) who was, as it turns out, neither green nor mean. After completing my BS at Case-Western Reserve with honors, I returned to the theater, appearing in regional productions and commercials and hosting a children's television show for NBC's Cleveland affiliate while earning a real living in the chemistry lab at University Hospitals of Cleveland.  

I retired from the theater to raise my three sons, while continuing my piano studies at The Cleveland Institute of Music and completing graduate‑level courses in chemistry, genetics and biology. In an effort to stay sane, I continued working from home as a technical writer, journalist and chemistry tutor. 

I am currently completing research and an outline for a third novel with working title, Mudder. Like Ann Rule who found herself sitting beside Ted Bundy and later wrote "The Stranger Beside Me," Mudder shares a similar inspiration. Among the Mudder's many bizarre rituals was his use of bodily fluids to make mud that he then carried with him on myriad break‑ins, spreading the mud in women's undergarments and raincoats. Another favorite -- which caused many a sleepless night for me -- was his penchant for watching women while they slept, killing small pets upon completing his vigil.  

Alas the Mudder was never caught, but the break‑ins stopped the day he moved out of his childhood home. (Oh, did I mention that his house was directly across the street from mine?) From what I was able to learn from neighbors, the Mudder had a Sybil‑style relationship with his mother. To complete my research, I plan to interview the detective who handled the case (and with whom I spent many hours during the investigation) and, most important, confirm that the real Mudder is dead before writing the novel. To do otherwise is unthinkably terrifying.