The second most exciting thing in life for me has always been learning something new. The first? Getting to share what I’ve learned with others. My life has given me so many opportunities to do both—as a professor (retired), as a historical novelist, and as a cruise lecturer.
My goal as a historical novelist is to provide you, the reader, with high-quality fiction about women and the forgotten and undervalued roles they played in their societies. Whether it’s the real-life physicist Emilie du Chatelet, the literary heroine Penelope, or women who have sprung entirely from my imagination, I offer you stories true to the facts of a time and place, to bring history alive for you and make you feel as much a part of other cultures as you do your own.
As a world-wide lecturer for several cruise lines, I use my career as a college professor of humanities to find the stories that make travel more exciting and memorable.
If you have either met me recently or been in my life since I was a teenager (or younger), you may know me by my birth name, Laurel Weeks. I have been using this name in my private life for several years.
Please check back from time to time for updates on my new projects and schedule, and drop me a line at lacauthor@gmail.com to let me know you’re out there reading and traveling!
From my diary
- Kindness‘I have the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein,’ My Fair Lady’s Henry Higgins claims in “I’m an Ordinary Man.” And what does ordinary mean to him? It’s someone “Who desires nothing more than just an ordinary chance/ To live exactly as he likes and do precisely what he wants.” Of course the song highlights the stodgy professor’s cluelessness about what would actually make him happy. It takes a shabby flower seller in Covent Garden, with none of the qualities Higgins thinks he values, to show him how wrong he has been. I’ve been thinking about kindness a lot…
- Bus Number 8Yesterday I went on a tour out of the Chilean port of Puerto Montt to go to several villages on Lake Llanquihue, the second largest lake in the country. Its backdrop is Osorno, one of those perfect cone volcanos that make Chile so unique in our beautiful world. I’ll spare you all the little signs that this was not a day that would go exactly as planned, but suffice it to say that my travel companion Megan and I were laughing most of the way through the first stop in Frutillar about how just buying a take-out empanada became a project…
- You Are Not RealI started this blog in September 2008 to coincide with the publication of my first two books, The Four Seasons and Until Our Last Breath. It evolved fairly quickly from primarily promoting my work as an author, to sharing my experiences and ideas as a person. Now 440 posts later, I think of it mostly as a means to bring my thoughts into focus, and to share what I think might be of value to others as we all find our way through the complicated puzzle of our lives. I haven’t posted much for the last few months because I,…