{"id":14671,"date":"2026-03-10T09:28:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T13:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/?page_id=14671"},"modified":"2026-03-10T09:28:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T13:28:26","slug":"laura-hawbaker","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/laura-hawbaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura Hawbaker"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Funerals don\u2019t always look the way you think they should. Sometimes they look like backyard folding chairs, classic rock, kids tearing around a jump house, coolers full of beer, and relatives needling each other with jokes. Laura Hawbaker\u2019s debut novel, The Afters<\/em>, grew out of that particular Irish American kind of grief: loud, funny, devastating, and one huge family all crammed into the same Delco rowhome.

The Afters<\/em> is a one-fateful-day tragicomedy about a Hollywood actress who returns to her hometown for her grandmother\u2019s funeral, only to be kicked out during the eulogy when fans start asking for selfies. Its world draws on Laura\u2019s childhood memories of her mother\u2019s family rowhome in Clifton Heights, just outside Philadelphia, and the legend of a house once bought for a dollar.

Another thread came from Laura\u2019s sideways proximity to Hollywood through her sister, whose behind-the-scenes work taught her about the labor and off-camera absurdity beneath celebrity glamour.

Laura isn\u2019t from Los Angeles, and she isn\u2019t from Delco. She\u2019s in Chicago, a gorgeous skyline wrapped around a parking ticket. Which means setting The Afters<\/em> in Delco is, in some sense, asking for trouble; no outsider has ever been Delco-accurate enough for Delco. But as one of the \u201cChicago cousins,\u201d she kept coming back to the place and her family traditions, including Mommom and Poppop Hammond dancing the Mummers Strut at weddings and singing \u201cUnder the Boardwalk\u201d under a picnic table at the shore.

Laura is the Prose Review Editor at Another Chicago Magazine<\/em> and the <\/em>founder of Masks Literary Magazine<\/em>. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Linguistics, was a Fulbright Fellow in Poland, and has taught in Hawaii and New Orleans\u2014where she also sold street art in the French Quarter. Her writing explores class, performance, family, and what running from the past does to a person who can never fully leave home.

The Afters<\/em> is available from Regal House Publishing (2028). Learn more about Laura’s work at www.lahawbaker.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Funerals don\u2019t always look the way you think they should. Sometimes they look like backyard folding chairs, classic rock, kids tearing around a jump house, coolers full of beer, and relatives needling each other with jokes. Laura Hawbaker\u2019s debut novel, The Afters, grew out of that particular Irish American kind of grief: loud, funny, devastating, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-14671","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9DpGh-3OD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":966,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/forthcoming-publications\/","url_meta":{"origin":14671,"position":0},"title":"Forthcoming Publications","author":"Jaynie","date":"April 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Regal House: \u00a0 Christopher Hebert, Delivery (releasing 2026) Martha Conway, We Meet Apart (releasing 2026) Brett Ann Stanciu, Call it Madness (releasing 2026) Jessica Handler, The World to See (releasing 2026) Caroline Bock, The Other Beautiful People (releasing 2026) Lee Upon, The Withers (releasing 2026) Shasta Grant, When We Were\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/cropped-transcrown.fw_-150x150.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12966,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/laura-thomas\/","url_meta":{"origin":14671,"position":1},"title":"Laura Hulthen Thomas","author":"Jaynie","date":"December 15, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"When Laura\u2019s family moved to a working-class neighborhood in Southeast Michigan from New Hampshire, she was still too young to be aware of her parents\u2019 uneasy start to small town life in a flyover state. Her father had landed a job with Ford Motor Company during the late Sixties\u2019 auto\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Laura H. Thomas","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/L-Thomas-BW-Final-1-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/L-Thomas-BW-Final-1-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/L-Thomas-BW-Final-1-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/L-Thomas-BW-Final-1-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/L-Thomas-BW-Final-1-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/L-Thomas-BW-Final-1-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14450,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/laura-esther-wolfson\/","url_meta":{"origin":14671,"position":2},"title":"Laura Esther Wolfson","author":"Jaynie","date":"October 31, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Photo credit: Florence Montmare Just Writing This Is Killing Me (forthcoming from Regal House Publishing, November 2027), encompasses nearly two decades of life with a terminal disease advancing with all deliberate speed, followed by the double lung transplant that sweeps away the grim diagnosis. It\u2019s a story about living, not\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WolfsonLauraEsther_bw-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WolfsonLauraEsther_bw-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WolfsonLauraEsther_bw-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WolfsonLauraEsther_bw-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WolfsonLauraEsther_bw-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/WolfsonLauraEsther_bw-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7274,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/2021-rhp-summer-scholars\/","url_meta":{"origin":14671,"position":3},"title":"2021 RHP Summer Scholars","author":"Jaynie","date":"April 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Hannah Simms Hannah attended Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, graduating with her BA in English in 2018. 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Cox Poetry Award longlist","author":"Jaynie","date":"March 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The response to our 2020 call for submissions for our annual Terry J. Cox Poetry Award was phenomenal, and we would like to extend our gratitude to all the talented poets who submitted their collections for our award. The process of narrowing down the selections to a longlist of ten\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Terry J. Cox Poetry Award","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/poetry_logo.jpg?fit=896%2C400&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/poetry_logo.jpg?fit=896%2C400&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/poetry_logo.jpg?fit=896%2C400&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/poetry_logo.jpg?fit=896%2C400&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7498,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/laura-scalzo\/","url_meta":{"origin":14671,"position":5},"title":"Laura Scalzo","author":"Jaynie","date":"May 14, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Photo Credit: \u00a0Erik Kvalsvik\u00a0 I\u2019ve lived in Washington, DC, for one year in Cicada Years which is seventeen by traditional count. Our family arrived shortly before Brood X and here it is, back again already. 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