Molly Lazer, an English teacher at Cheltenham High School and resident of Glenside, wears many more hats than one might think. In addition to being a reading, writing and drama teacher at Cheltenham, Lazer also directs the school play, is a professional critiquer, is married with twin boys and has just published her first novel, Owl Eyes.
Graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre and English from the University of Pennsylvania, Molly Lazer began her professional journey by accepting an editor position with Marvel Comics. Her work there entailed editing Fantastic Four, Captain America and New Avengers.
Lazer, later returned to University of Pennsylvania and received her M.S. Ed. in Reading, Writing and Literacy in 2009. This allowed her the opportunity to begin a new career as a high school English teacher. First teaching in Philadelphia, she then went on to accept a new position at Cheltenham High School in 2010, and has been there since.
When Glenside Local asked the author what her incentive was to write a fairy tale, she informed us that her first draft of Owl Eyes was actually written back in 2004, as a senior in college and she has rewritten it a few more times over the years. Lazer has always loved fairy tales, and would often read everything she could about them in college and was intrigued by learning the history behind them all. She took a course called “Feminist Fairy Tales” during her senior year in which they read, studied and analyzed many different versions of each fairy tale through a feminist eye. Hence, where the idea of her new novel, Owl Eyes, a retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale, came from.
Despite teaching full time, directing the play and writing, Lazer is still able to keep her foot in the door within the comic business. Andy Schmidt, whom she previously worked with at Marvel, asked her to be a professional critiquer for his company called Comics Experience, a website for aspiring writers. Her job there involves reading and critiquing the scripts that the writers submit, then helping them better tell their stories using the comics medium. She often finds it rewarding when she sees the work that she critiqued, get published.
In addition to her first novel, Lazer has also written several short stories throughout her professional years, that have been published in various magazines. You also might not be surprised to hear that Molly Lazer already has plans to write her second novel, which will be loosely based on The Little Mermaid.
A Brief Description of Molly Lazer’s new novel, Owl Eyes;
Nora knows three things: she is a servant, her parents are dead, and she lives in the kitchen house with her adoptive family. But her world is torn apart when she discovers that her birth father has always been right there, living in the house she serves.
This discovery leads Nora to more questions. Why was she thrown in an ash-covered room for asking about her father? Why is a silver-bladed knife the only inheritance from her birth mother? Why is magic forbidden in her household—and throughout the province of the Runes? The answers may not be the ones Nora hoped for, as they threaten a possible romance and her relationship with the adoptive family she loves.
With the announcement of a royal ball, Nora must decide what she is willing to give up in order to claim her stolen birthright, and whether this new life is worth losing her family—and herself.