Laurence R. D'Orsay was an US author of several instruction books for writers, a critic and literary agent in Los Angeles, California.

Laurence Rex D'Orsay was born Leopold Alexander Thalmayer in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 in 1887, the son of an Austrian father and an English mother. He arrived in the US in 1916, where he changed his name to Laurence Thalmore. Since the mid-1920s he published his fiction and non-fiction in diverse magazines under the pen name Laurence R. D'Orsay, e.g. in Weird Tales

Weird Tales

Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....

, The Writer's Monthly, Writer's Digest

Writer's Digest

Writer's Digest is an American magazine devoted to both beginning and established writers, offering interviews, market listings, calls for manuscripts, and how-to articles....

.

Laurence D'Orsay was married to Nordica Abbott (1902–1969); they had a son, Kenneth Edward D'Orsay (1923–1972). He died in Los Angeles in 1947.

The author Henry Kuttner

Henry Kuttner

Henry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror.-Early life:Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915...

 worked for D'Orsay's literary agency in the mid-1930s, before selling his first stories. Another well-known author, Leigh Brackett

Leigh Brackett

Leigh Douglass Brackett was an American author, particularly of science fiction. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on famous films such as The Big Sleep , Rio Bravo , The Long Goodbye and The Empire Strikes Back .-Life:Leigh Brackett was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California...

, began her writing career by attending a writing course with Laurence D'Orsay.

Partial bibliography

Non-Fiction:

• Landing the Editors' Checks: Writing and selling your story. Kansas City, MO: Burton Publishing Co., 1928.
• Writing Novels To Sell. Cincinnati, OH, 1930.
• The Profit in Writing: A volume of definite, practical, how-to-do-it advice for the building of salable stories. Los Angeles, CA: Parker, Stone & Baird Co., 1934 (several editions).
• Stories You Can Sell: A volume of collected stories of various acceptable types, with explanatory analyses by the author, showing how plots may be obtained and stories written and sold by the reader. Los Angeles, Parker, Stone & Baird Co., 1935 (several editions).

Short stories:

• "Phantoms", in: Weird Tales
  Weird Tales
  Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
  
  , January 1925.
• "The Spirit of It", in: Short Stories, January 25, 1925.
• "Marble", in: Weird Tales, June, 1925.
• "The Stamp of Courtesy", in: Clues, October 1926.
• "Jewels for Two" (with F. L. Grant), in: Clues, December, 1926.
• "The Price of Empire", in: Soldiers of Fortune, May, 1932.

Novel

• Mistress of Spears: A Tale of Amazulu. Kansas City, MO: Burton, 1930.