Laura Albert life and biography

Laura Victoria Albert is the author of writings credited to the fictional teenage persona of JT LeRoy, a long-running literary hoax in which LeRoy was presented to the public and publishers as a transgendered, sexually questioning, abused, former homeless drug addict and male prostitute. Albert was raised in Brooklyn, and she and her former partner Geoffrey Knoop have a young son. She has also used the names Emily Frasier and Speedie.

In 1999, New York writer Stephen Beachy postulated that JT LeRoy, a reclusive transgendered male prostitute and author of a controversial novel and several short works, was nothing other than a hoax of Laura Albert. A preponderance of circumstancial evidence indicated that such was almost certainly the case, and in 2006 Albert confirmed this to the Paris Review. In 2007, a Manhattan court ordered her to pay $116,500 for costs incurred in pre-production for a scuttled film adaptation of Albert/LeRoy's Sarah.

In August 2008, the Authors Guild released an amicus brief in regards to the trial verdict, supporting Laura and opposing the jury’s decision, stating that the decision “will have negative repercussions extending into the future for many authors. The right to free speech, and the right to speak and write anonymously are rights protected by our Constitution, and the district court's decision which holds that Laura Albert's use of pseudonym breached the Option and Purchase Agreement, is one that will have a chilling effect upon authors wishing to exercise their right to write anonymously.” They go on to request that the court reverse the decision in regards to a breach of contract.

According to the Amicus Brief, Albert's "reveal" by the New York Times raises into question the extent to which an author can maintain not only a pseudonym in his/her byline, but also to create an embodiment and persona to claim authorship to the work. Albert said in a 2006 interview in The Paris Review that she was able to maintain her voice and perspective by remaining in the shadows: "I could get what I wanted—connecting with others—without having to be the focus of attention."

Author of books:

Sarah (1999, novel)
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (1999, short stories)
Harold's End (2005, novella)

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