Author Laura Malone Elliott Brings History to Young Readers

Written by Diane Helentjaris | Photos courtesy of Laura Malone Elliott

“I hadn’t planned on it,” Laura Malone Elliott says, describing herself as “an accidental novelist.” 

Elliott, a Virginia native, writes biographical and historical fiction books for children and young adults. Covering everything from the Italian Renaissance to the Revolutionary War, her work has hit The New York Times Best Seller list and won numerous awards.

Her path to becoming a novelist was long, but straight. Elliott earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Wake Forest University. From there, she stepped into journalism. 

When she began her 20-year journalism career at Washingtonian magazine “in my Laura Ashley suit,” she was advised to disguise her femininity under the byline “L.M. Elliott.” She has published under both names. Diligent, she went on to become a prize-winning senior writer for the magazine. Along the way, Elliott earned a master’s in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Her assignments at Washingtonian were often so-called “human interest” topics like mental health, domestic violence, and cancer treatments. The key to crafting successful articles, she says, is to put a face on the issue and find a person willing to go public who was caught up in whatever the thorny thing is. Elliott says she wrote “many difficult, difficult stories — stories about survivors who managed to get out of difficult situations.”

Through her work in journalism, she developed an approach that she’s adapted to her work in fiction. Elliott describes herself as “trying to bring a human, a beating heart, to history.” She explains, “We always have made sense of ourselves through story — all the way back to Homer. Then, we remember it.”

In her novels, Elliott carefully chooses her protagonist and places them in the crosshairs of history. Her other characters are created just as delicately, at times including traits opposite to those of the main character. 

Her father’s homecoming from World War II inspired Elliott’s first book, “Under a War-Torn Sky,” published in 2003. Its roots were an article she wrote for a holiday edition of the magazine. The award-winning book, about an American pilot shot down behind enemy lines, continues to be a staple in sharing the experiences of World War II with young readers. A recent Amazon reviewer declared, “I read this book in third grade and it’s still my favorite. I love how the author captures everything so vividly.”

The book grew into a trilogy, and from that beginning, Elliott has gone on to write 14 novels, one nonfiction work, and five picture books. 

Recently, her novel “Bea and the New Deal Horse” won the prestigious 2024 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Set in Hunt Country, smack dab on the outskirts of Middleburg during the Great Depression, the book is “kind of my love song to horsewomen of all ages,” Elliott describes. In it, an abandoned 13-year-old girl befriends a prickly chestnut owned by a testy trainer. While Elliott rides for pleasure, her daughter was an avid Pony Club competitor as a young girl. Elliott spent many a day pulling horse trailers to events, listening to the riders, and observing the trainers’ dedication. “I was struck by the teenagers,” she shares — their bravery, “joy going over fences … no nonsense.”

Her latest book, “Truth, Lies, and the Questions in Between,” is the third in her Cold War trilogy. Set in 1973, it centers around Patty, a teenage girl and one of the first female congressional pages. While Nixon’s White House unravels under the scrutiny of the Watergate scandal, the doomed Equal Rights Amendment winds through Congress, unspooling along the way. Accompanied by her bohemian friend, Simone, Patty navigates her way through the time’s explosion of established gender norms.

Elliott evokes the era with photo essays of headlines, cartoons, and images. She also sprinkles in references to cultural nuggets, like Dippity-Do hair gel and men who order meals for their dates without asking. 

Aimed at a slightly older demographic than much of her work, “Truth, Lies, and the Questions in Between” is suitable for older teens and readers of the “new adult” genre, people entering the next stage of life beyond high school and making critical decisions about their future. 

Elliott believes teens “want the truth, not sugarcoated.” They “have a wondrous sense of what’s right. They spot baloney. They want hard truths wrapped with a little bit of hope. They as individuals hold onto humanity and help improve the world.”

In the author’s notes for “Truth, Lies, and the Questions in Between,” Elliott writes, “…the power of presenting controversial issues in a past era rather than present day — it removes the heat of immediacy and readers’ self-protective defensiveness. … I love writing for young adults,” and elaborates that “my hope rests on our younger generation, their open hearts and instinct to question everything… We must gift them some historical context — our mistakes as well as our triumphs.” 

In discussing her mission as a writer, Elliott says she has “a specific something for each book. As a biographical fiction writer, I have had the extraordinary privilege of discovering hidden histories and unsung heroes. I want you to know about it. I’ve come to learn about people who’ve come before us and who’ve made hard but often incredibly brave choices, who’ve helped those around them.”

She refers to John Steinbeck’s Noble Prize acceptance speech, in which he declared, “I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.” A writer must believe in the perfectibility of humankind, she says — “not that we’re there yet, but we’re trying to find a way to it.” ML

Published in the January 2025 issue of Middleburg Life.