Laura Albert

Laura Victoria Albert
Laura Albert in her study
Born	(1965-11-02) November 2, 1965 Brooklyn, New York City
Pen name	JT LeRoy Emily Frasier, Speedie, Laura Victoria, Gluttenberg
Occupation	Author
Genre	Fiction

Laura Victoria Albert (born November 2, 1965) is the author of writings that include works credited to the literary persona JT LeRoy, whom Albert described as an "avatar", saying she was able to write things as LeRoy that she could not have said as Laura Albert. Albert was born and raised in Brooklyn. She has also used the names Emily Frasier and Speedie, and published other works as Laura Victoria and Gluttenberg.

Writing and other activities

Laura Albert published the JT LeRoy books – Sarah (2000), The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2001), and Harold's End (2004) – as "fiction," not as "memoir." She attests that she could not have written from raw emotion without the right to be presented to the world via JT LeRoy, whom she calls her "phantom limb," according to a 2006 interview in the Paris Review. "Looking back, Laura Albert anticipated just about all of it," commented author Adam Langer. "Long before we had split our personas into the lives we truly live and the ones that we choose to create on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and everywhere else, Albert created her own avatar." Another commentator insisted, "Albert had ingeniously hacked the literary establishment." Albert later told the San Francisco Bay Guardian, "For me it was created the way an oyster creates a pearl: out of irritation and suffering. It was an attempt to try to heal something. And it actually worked, and it did so for a lot of other people. The amazing thing is, now I can be available to people. [...] It's OK with me if someone doesn't like my writing. But they shouldn't try to tell me how I'm obliged to present my work." When asked about the notion of having fooled people by writing as JT LeRoy, Albert stated, "No audience for any work of art needs to worry about being fooled. Art is the opportunity to change the way you think, which means you can never be fooled – you either have that experience or you don't."

In November 2010, Laura Albert appeared at The Moth to tell her story on video. For a recent screening of actress/director Asia Argento's film adaptation The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004), Albert presented video of her Skype conversation with Argento, in which the filmmaker declared, "I'm so proud of this movie, and it's the best thing I've ever done. And I'm blessed to have read that book and to have met you and to have done this movie. Blessed. [...] And I'm so proud of you for everything you've done. You were bold to choose the path that you did. You're a real artist, Laura."

Laura Albert wrote "Dreams of Levitation," Sharif Hamza's short film for NOWNESS, and has also written for the acclaimed television series Deadwood. The film "Radiance," which she also wrote, was made an Official Selection of the 2015 Bokeh South African International Fashion Film Festival. She collaborated with director and playwright Robert Wilson for the international exhibition of his VOOM video portraits, and with the catalog for his "Frontiers: Visions of the Frontier" at Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM). In 2012 she served on the juries of the first Brasilia International Film Festival and the Sapporo International Short Film Festival; she also attended Brazil's international book fair, Bienal Brasil do Livro e da Leitura, where she and Alice Walker were the U.S. representatives. Brazil's Geração Editorial has re-released the JT LeRoy books in a boxset under Laura Albert's name, and she and JT are the subjects of the hit Brazilian rock musical JT, Um Conto de Fadas Punk ("JT, A Punk Fairy Tale"). On March 11, 2014, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Academy of Friends Oscar Party in San Francisco invited JT LeRoy – played by gender-fluid fashion model Rain Dove Dubilewski – to walk the runway as part of its HIV/AIDS fundraiser. Writing about having curated a recent photographic exhibition that included Mary Ellen Mark's 2001 portrait of JT LeRoy for Vanity Fair magazine, Chuck Mobley of San Francisco Camerawork insisted, "There were a lot of moral judgments being made (by educated people who should know better) that were exhausting and simplistic. [...] The grievances aired seemed petty and obscured a far more fascinating and intellectually stimulating story."

She has taught at Dave Eggers' 826 Valencia and the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and has lectured with artist Jasmin Lim at Artists' Television Access with SF Camerawork's Chuck Mobley, in conjunction with a window installation about her work. A spokeswoman for the successful "Heart for Eye" campaign to raise funds for eye surgery for children, Laura Albert hosted a television segment and was both an interviewee and an interviewer of inspirational women such as Anastasia Barbieri and Anh Duong. She was photographed by Steven Klein for QVEST magazine and by Kai Regan for his "Reckless Endangerment" at ALIFE; she has also done fashion shoots for Christian Lacroix and John Galliano. Laura Albert profiled Juergen Teller for the 2003 Citibank Photography Prize catalogue; and published her reminiscence of Lou Reed in The Forward. She was a catalog contributor for the "Blind Cut" exhibition at New York's Marlborough Chelsea and collaborated with Williamsburg band Japanther, releasing a limited-edition cassette under the name True Love in a Large Room, with original artwork by Winston Smith. She has also written for dot429, the world's largest LGBTA professional network, and been an invited speaker at their annual conferences in New York.

Authorship controversy

In a New York magazine article in October 2005, Stephen Beachy suggested that LeRoy was a literary hoax created by Albert. Beachy suggested that Albert was not only LeRoy's friend Emily Frasier, but also Speedie, LeRoy's street-hustling friend, as well as LeRoy himself. Albert has since confirmed that she is the writer behind the LeRoy books.

Investigation showed that the advance for LeRoy's first novel, Sarah, was paid to Laura Albert's sister, JoAnna Albert, and that further payments to LeRoy were made to a Nevada corporation, Underdogs Inc., whose president, Carolyn F. Albert, is Laura Albert's mother.

The New York Times published an article about Disneyland Paris with the JT LeRoy byline in the Sunday magazine T:Travel supplement in September 2005. After the publication of the New York article, the Times found that expense receipts included an Air France itinerary for three people instead of the four described in the article. Employees at Disneyland Paris and two Paris hotels confirmed that the person claiming to be JT LeRoy matched photographs of Laura Albert, who told the employees she was traveling with her husband and son.

On January 9, 2006 an article in the New York Times gave evidence that the role of LeRoy was played publicly by Savannah Knoop Albert explained the circumstances of JT's existence in a Fall 2006 Paris Review interview with Nathaniel Rich.

Fraud charges

Antidote International Films, Inc., and its president Jeffrey Levy-Hinte announced plans for a film adaptation of Sarah to be directed by Steven Shainberg. According to The New York Times, when Shainberg "learned who had truly written 'Sarah' an inspiration came to him to make a 'meta-film,' a triple-layered movie that would blend the novel with the lives of its real and purported authors in a project he took to calling 'Sarah Plus.'" The Times also reported that this new project "required the rights to Laura Albert's story, rights that she in no uncertain terms refused to grant."

In June 2007 Antidote sued Laura Albert for fraud, claiming that a contract signed with JT LeRoy to make a feature film of Sarah was null and void. ABC News questioned whether Antidote’s lawyer “may have misfired by comparing Albert to Shakespeare in an attempt to claim that authorship matters. ‘You think Shakespeare would be Shakespeare if he didn’t write it — whoever Shakespeare really is?’ he asked.” On June 22 a Manhattan jury found Albert liable in monetary damages for the tort of fraud because she had signed her nom de plume to the movie contract. She was ordered to pay $110,000 to Antidote, covering the option contract, as well as an extra $6,500 in punitive damages. In reporting the verdict, The New York Times noted that Jeffrey Levy-Hinte said, “if Ms. Albert, who never made a fortune from her literary works, could not afford to pay the judgment, he might have to consider laying claim to the rights to her past and future books.” On July 31, 2007, the court ordered Albert to pay an additional $350,000 in legal fees to Antidote. After having appealed, the damages awarded were reduced by settlement with Antidote in 2009, and Laura Albert retained the rights to her books and her life story.

In August 2008, the Authors Guild released an amicus brief in regards to the trial verdict, supporting Albert 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."

External links

• Official website
• Asia Argento and Laura Albert Skype Interview
• The Importance of Being JT LeRoy
• What I Learned From Lou Reed
• Personic Truth: An Interview with Jasmin Lim
• Who is the Real JT LeRoy?
• Uncle Walt, Parlez-Vous Français?
• The Unmasking of JT Leroy: In Public, He's a She
• Figure in JT Leroy Case Says Partner Is Culprit
• She is JT LeRoy
• Being JT LeRoy
• "Writer Testifies About Source of Nom de Plume" By Alan Feuer, N.Y. Times, Published: June 20, 2007