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
- Passing Through GriefI am sitting right now in the same place I was when I heard my son Ivan was dead. On January 3 of this year I was waiting in the food court outside security in the Vancouver airport. About two hours before I would board a plane to fly to Singapore, I noticed I had a voicemail from a number in the Phoenix area. There was only one person it could be about. There were only two things it could be about. Ivan was dead, or hospitalized. When the message was from the police, I knew it was the former. I called…
- How to Befriend a Grieving Me, or AnyoneToday starts a new phase in my journey as I leave the ship and over the next few days make my way back to Victoria. During the time I have been living aboard, I have kept my sad news to myself, telling only two or three people, and then only in the context of recent griefs we have in common. When people asked if I have children, I swallowed hard and said no. I know that some people aboard know what happened because of this blog and Facebook posts, but beyond that, I don’t know how widely the story spread,…
- Past, Present, and FutureI saw a Facebook post today from someone identified only as Amy, and I am marveling at the simple wisdom of it. She says that to move on from emotional paralysis, “You have to give up your need for a different past. You have to allow yourself to grieve for what happened or a lot of times, what didn’t happen.” She adds, “It doesn’t mean you’re okay with what happened or didn’t happen, it means that you are accepting life now and in the past for what it was and what it is.” I look out this morning at a beautiful blue…