"Moore wants more," I would joke to myself.Busy Fingers Are Happy Fingers — Joe DeeganI couldn't find an angle to get my story started, I told her. "Forget all about angles," she then said with …
May 12, 2026
Laura Rhoton McNeal holds an MA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and is the author, with her husband Tom, of four young adult novels published by Knopf: Crooked (winner of the California Book Award in Juvenile Literature), Zipped (winner of the Pen Center USA Literary Award in Children’s Literature), Crushed and The Decoding of Lana Morris. Laura’s solo debut novel, Dark Water, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the San Diego Book Award in young people’s literature in 2010.
McNeal's notable Reader stories from the archives:
I Know That One Day, Not Very Far Off in a Corner of This World, Someone Is Going to Say, We Need You (war stories of the baby market)
Their Babies Smell Like Freshly Opened Hickory Nuts (squirrels' lives)
Fairy Godmother's Art (sewing and class-consciousness - about the author's mother)
Vampires on My Front Porch (the care and feeding of pale wigglers)
Articles by Laura McNeal
Judith Moore's tough-fisted regime at the Reader
Reader writers – music that shaped their lives
The Woes Of A Woman In Love — Barbarella....We've reached the end of the line. I hope your dreams turn out fine.Notes Give Pathos to Clouds — Laura McNeal.... I played Beethoven's sonatas until the …
May 5, 2026
Fallbrook home ec teacher kills her daughter
The body lies in a position of repose, a 12-year-old girl in pajamas, on her bed, in Fallbrook, California. Her blue eyes, though open, see nothing, and for ten more minutes, no one sees her. …
April 15, 2026
Waldorf School teaches religion, but you might not like it
The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …
February 21, 2026
Fletcher family tragedy in Borrego Springs
The Reader has started this series of its best stories from the past 52 years — 2600 cover stories and some remarkable interior features — to help make up for the loss of its physical …
October 13, 2025
The Weekend Read – a gripping story of a Chula Vista kidnap
Editor's note. Toward the end of her research for this story, Laura McNeal was attending a hearing for the case in a San Diego courtroom. In a hearing break, a girlfriend of one of the …
February 28, 2025
Normal Heights on its way back
Nowhere Zone“I’d been renting an apartment over on Georgia Street, the sort of border area between North Park and Hillcrest. From one month to the next, they raised my rent by $200. I’m a teacher …
December 4, 2023
South Bay gated community may not be safest place to avoid danger
The Chula Vista kidnapping of Eddy Tostado by Arellano cartelAt 3:39 a.m. on January 7, 2007, Columbia Street was almost deserted. Little Italy had been plagued with car burglaries — “It got where you couldn’t …
October 22, 2023
Tom Deméré takes us to Mission Valley of 50 million years ago
More or less sudden mountainsThe rocks in and around San Diego have composed amazing, fiery stories for a very long time. An ancient ocean once covered this county; volcanoes used to spew here; and more …
October 1, 2023