With latest release, local author Laura Otero proves the future is already here.

Monterey resident Laura Otero is probably not a time traveler. But the coincidences of her recent life does make one wonder.

In January of 2020, before the pandemic hit and introduced us all to Zoom, Otero was already an evangelist for online education, working full time to design and run online learning systems – while also being enrolled in an online-only doctoral program. More tellingly, Otero had just completed a draft of a novella that envisioned our world after the outbreak of a deadly virus.

The book was in editing for the next year and was recently self-published on Amazon with the title The Road, the third installment in a four-novella series, appearing under her pen name Elle Otero. The latest story takes place mostly in Monterey County, and contains uncanny predictions Otero thought of before Covid, as well as cultural artifacts from our past year, incorporated upon revision. Borrowing from the real pandemic, she calls her virus HORPOV-25 and makes references to discarded blue surgical masks, hand sanitizer shortages and the phrase “quarantine romance.” These elements are introduced inconspicuously among the many reminders of 2020.

Weekly: How could you have created something so eerily prescient?

Otero: Pandemics happen every so often. The pandemic that’s featured in my Caves and Catacombs series is more smallpox-based. A viral kind of apocalyptic scenario, much more lethal than Covid. Right now, we’ve got, what, a 3-percent death rate and it’s been horrific for everyone and the consequences have been so far-reaching, it’s really changed in our daily lives. I imagined something with a 30-percent mortality rate – how might that change our lives?

What was priming you to think about the end of the world?

I work in tech and I see how dependent we are on technology and electricity. We’ve really been able to see that with the fears about the food supply being disrupted as Covid started taking hold.

And I think about this whole community of people who consider themselves preppers. I wouldn’t consider myself a prepper, but I would consider myself someone who is interested, in the sense that I want my family to be resilient in an end-of-the-world scenario.

And how do you make yourselves resilient?

For example, my husband and I have always been very avid gardeners and so we got really into making a survival garden with all the staples that you would. Three sisters: the corn, the beans, and squash. The kind of stuff that’s going to be shelf-stable.

The gardening reminds me of one of your characters, who survives, even thrives, thanks to a magnificent home and garden. Reading about him made me think I should live more like him, without the apocalypse part.

I’m really glad that was a takeaway for you because I do hope that people will actually gain something practical.

This is kind of a spoiler but he leaves everything to join someone and not be alone.

If you don’t have somebody else, you have nothing. Society is where we’re safe.

How did you first get into writing creatively?

When I was 13 or 14, I was an avid gamer and I used to play this one game based in Yahoo groups. It was a role-playing game and you would write these really long, in-depth stories. You would write a chapter and then somebody else would write the next chapter and each had their own character. It was such a good escape from being a teenager.

A few years ago, I got really into video gaming again, and I just thought to myself, “Why am I creating stories in these video games when I could become a writer, even if just on the side.”

What would you say to people who are in that position where you were six or seven years ago, thinking about being a writer?

Just do it. You’re only going to get better by throwing yourself into it. Set little goals for yourself. I try to write every two days. I try to write another 1,000 words, it might be garbage, and I might throw it away in three more days, but it’s still so necessary to propel it forward.