Don't worry - these were the first and last matching outfits my mom and I had. My mom is a generous and talented educator who, every night of my childhood, read books to me and my brother that we got deliciously lost in. I used to perch at the top of my favorite magnolia tree, hidden in the leaves, devouring books. My brother came from Korea when I was four and he was two. We enjoyed dancing in rain puddles and building cities for our Smurf collection and catching lightning bugs in the alley. My dad is a scientist who used to bring home jars of formaldehyde with bits of animals inside and microscope slides with pink slivers of tissue for us to "play with". He is a man of many talents - here we are refinishing a cedar chest. I've been friends with Andrea and Amanda W. since middle school. Here we are at the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland. My other good friends Amanda C. and Megan aren't in this picture, but we've been friends for a long time, too. Epifania is a warm, wonderful Mazatec healer who has taught me a lot - including how to curse at chickens in Mazatec when we have to shoo them from the kitchen. Here we are in her village near Huautla, Oaxaca, taking the kernels off corn cobs to make tortillas. Here are my friends Fidelina (left) and her mother María Chiquita (right) in Huajolotitlan, Oaxaca. In this photo, the healer María Chiquita (María the Little One) was 96 years old and still curing with gusto. (No, I'm not a giant-- only 5'4" tall-- but María was very, very chiquita.) She passed away at age 97 and left beautiful memories. My husband, Ian, and I met when I was seventeen and he was sixteen. For the next ten years he lived in the Colorado Rockies, while I bumbled around Europe and the Americas. We saw each other on vacations visiting our families in Maryland, and finally got hitched in our late twenties. I recently spent time with Gaby and María Belem in their Quichua village in the Andes while I was doing research for a book (okay, that was my excuse, but mostly I was having fun with very friendly people, eating strange and delicious fruit, and hearing pan flute melodies everywhere.)

I was born thirty-some years ago in Baltimore City and spent the first ten years of my life there in old brick houses with alleys. When I was eleven, my family moved to a Baltimore suburb that used to be farmers' fields and woods.

When I wasn't in school, I was exploring the woods and stream and discovering remnants of what used to be there - rusted fences, ancient farm tools, an abandoned barn.

As a teenager, I loved to hang out with my friends by the Patapsco River, which ran through a nearby old mill town. Down a path through the trees, there was an enormous dam that we would sneak inside of. It felt like a cave in there. You could climb out an opening onto some rocks and stand behind the waterfall and get soaked in its spray.

I went to St. Mary's College in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake Bay. There I lived in a house with secret passages called 'Poodle Doodle House'. (There used to be a poodle-grooming business in the basement).

My favorite memories of that time are nights swimming in the bay with glow-in-the-dark phytoplankton and watching herons wade in the marsh and gathering seaglass on an isolated beach.

After I earned my B.A. in Anthropology and French, I decided I wanted to go somewhere faraway, so I got certified in teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) and sent job applications around the globe. A small university in a town in Oaxaca, Mexico was the first to offer me a job, and I snatched it up.

The town was Huajuapan, nestled in the mountainous Mixtec region of Oaxaca, and it turned out to be an enchanting place. During my two years there, people welcomed me into their lives and shared their culture and stories with me.

Thanks to their patience, I became fluent in Spanish and learned some of the indigenous language Mixteco. I participated in Mixtec and Mazatec healing ceremonies and formed friendships with healers. Every day was so stimulating I carried my notebook everywhere and wrote voraciously, desperate to capture every detail, every bit of dialogue, every smell and sound.

A few years later, while I was working on my Masters in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Arizona, I drew on my journal writing from Oaxaca to begin writing my first novel, What the Moon Saw. That summer, for my fieldwork on Mixtec childbirth practices, I went back to Oaxaca and hung out with women and healers, and finished the first draft of the book.

I moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, got married to Ian, and after five years of revising What the Moon Saw, I had it published with Delacorte/Random House, the press that's published all my books. As I wrote my next novel, Red Glass, I worked with immigrant families and taught ESL (English as a Second Language) and Cultural Anthropology at my local community college in Fort Collins. My book Star in the Forest was inspired in part by my work and friendships with immigrant families in my community.

After Ian and I adopted our son from Guatemala, I decided to devote myself to being a full time writer and mother... and to finding plenty of excuses to travel. During this time, I've celebrated the release of The Indigo Notebook, Star in the Forest, The Ruby Notebook, and The Queen of Water. I still travel internationally, usually a few times every year. And of course, I always carry a notebook with me wherever I go!

Here are some of the places I've traveled (and written about) lately:

Ecuador

In 2004, I became friends with Maria Virginia Farinango, an indigenous Quichua woman who was a student at the community college where I taught. We decided to collaborate on writing the true story of her amazing girlhood, which became the book The Queen of Water (released in 2011). While I was researching her life in the Ecuadorian Andes, I had some incredible experiences and heard fascinating stories that inspired me to write The Indigo Notebook (2009 release).

France

The second book in the Notebooks series - The Ruby Notebook - is set in Aix-en-Provence, France (2010 release). This is the beautiful, magical town where I lived for my junior year in college with a wonderful French family. Since then, I returned for research trips, and on the most recent trip, I brought my mom and son along (who was a toddler at the time.)

Mexico

The third book in the Notebooks series - The Jade Notebook - is set in Mazunte, a small, off-the-beaten-track beach town in Oaxaca, Mexico (Feb 2012 release). I discovered this gorgeous place back when I lived in the mountains of Oaxaca. It was one of my favorite relaxing beach get-aways - and one of the coolest things about it is that rare sea turtles nest there.

Guatemala

I've also taken several trips to Guatemala over the past few years (as part of the adoption process), and we're planning a return trip with my son soon. So far, the only book set (partly) in Guatemala is Red Glass, but who knows, maybe I'll get inspired to write another one...

And then there's the long, ever-growing list of places I'm planning on traveling to in the future (much like Layla's List in the Notebooks series!)

Here you can read more about my books, and here you can read (and see pics) about my travels. Here you can find a short bio and high-resolution photos for promotional purposes.

- XO,
Laura