So, yesterday I mentioned that LauRa AlbeRt (caps mine), writing as JT LeRoy, has enough publishing power that she could’ve moved up from the dumpy digs on Larkin by now. JT’s website, indeed, confirms that she’s published enough to have a little in the old bankaroo…

JT’s work has also been published in literary journals such as The New York Times, Francis Ford Coppolla’s Zoetrope, McSweeney’s, and the Oxford American Music issue. A contributing editor to Black Book, I-D, Lemon, SOMA, and 7×7 magazines, he has also written reviews, articles and interviews for The New York Times, The London Times, Spin, Film Comment, Filmmaker, Flaunt, Index, Interview, and Vogue, among others. He is syndicated world wide. Additionally, JT has written the liner notes and biographies for musicians Billy Corgan, Liz Phair, Conor Oberst, Bryan Adams, Nancy Sinatra and Courtney Love..

So where’s all that money going? Mind you, I have a fairly realistic view of what kind of money is and is not to be made in publishing, but the lady has published a couple of bestsellers, and slick mags like Spin pay pretty well. It would be easy to attribute JT/AlbeRt’s lack of visible wealth to the more mundane possibilities–a coke habit, poor financial choices made under the influence of meth, a coterie of ne’er-do-well’s living on her dime–but I like to think AlbeRt has put the proceeds from her writing career to better use. An emu farm! A collection of rare, 16th century hats! An annual party cruise to Easter Island! Or, better yet, (subliminal advertising advisory here) several thousand tunebuckles!

P.S. Ayelet Waldman writes about getting conned by LeRoy for Salon. and P.P.S. Years ago, when LeRoy and I had articles in the same issue of 7×7, we exchanged a few emails. After reading the emails, my husband Kevin said, “JT LeRoy doesn’t exist.” He had some theories on who JT really was; his hypothesis was Dave EgGers. (I think we should all start indiscriminately capitalizing the third letter of our last name. I’ll be Miss RiChmond, or, on my extramarital days, Mrs. PhElan.) Kevin wins a toaster, but not the jetskis.