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I write... Laugh-out-loud. Heart-tugging. Love stories.

About strong-ass women just trying to find their way. Because, isn't that what we're all trying to do — navigate our relationships, careers, our pasts, our love lives, and paths toward a higher purpose? (Okay, that last one was a lot.) 

And if you find your way to my books, I'll be forever grateful. My readers mean the world to me.

About Me...

 

After my twenty-year career teaching college English in the U.S., South Korea, and China, I'm now a full-time writer with a soft spot for memoir and romantic comedy.

 

During my MFA program (graduated in 2019—a bit later in life, y'all), I wrote my travel memoir, Unsettled, which was a labor of love. Unsettled debuted in January, 2024 and I've been honored and humbled by the wonderful reviews it has received. Interacting with my readers has truly made my heart sing. While for years I devoted myself to literary writing (I've published a bunch of essays and short stories in various literary journals), my heart now belongs to writing romcoms. My romantic comedy, Anita Farleigh Unpacks, will be released early 2024. My hope is that it will crack open readers' hearts and souls and make their faces hurt (in a good way) from laughing so hard.

 

I'm originally from upstate New York (Go, Rochester!) and now live in the outskirts of Austin, Texas (and I do love my truck) where I'm beyond lucky to get to spend loads of time with my awesome daughter and son-in-law, my adorable agility dog, and my amazing husband, Bruce, the man of my love story dreams.

My Books...

Memoir

 

At the age of forty-nine, driven by an urgent restlessness, Laurie Woodford rents out her house, packs her belongings into two suitcases, and leaves her familiar life in upstate New York to relocate to Seoul, South Korea to teach college English. What begins as an opportunity to explore Asia while receiving a nice paycheck, evolves into a four-year nomadic adventure. Working and volunteering across the globe, Laurie spoon-feeds orphans in Ethiopia, performs 108 bows at a Buddhist mountain temple, walks shelter dogs in Peru, milks 350 goats in Fuerteventura, and gets lost in Mexico, all the while navigating dating at midlife.

 

After four years of traveling, Laurie's return to the U.S. becomes an unexpected adventure of its own when she ends up in Arkansas and meets Bruce, a bird-loving, bearded Quaker with a strong sense of home and penchant for stability. When Laurie finds herself falling for Bruce after years of living a life of fierce independence, she struggles to reconcile her need for freedom with her longing to feel settled and loved.

 

UNSETTLED is for anyone who has felt something missing in their life and sought to find it. It's a story about yearning and seeking, backbone and adventure, stillness and discovery. 

 

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Romantic Comedy (Coming soon!)

  

Free-spirited English professor, ANITA FARLEIGH, thinks she has it all — her ambitious boyfriend, ZACH, and a teaching career that actually pays her to travel. Then, ten days before Christmas, Anita returns home from a work trip in Shanghai to discover that Zach has dumped her for a domestic goddess with enough faux fur ottomans to fill a Hobby Lobby showroom.

 

On one of the worst days of her life, a hungover, disheveled Anita shows up for a routine doctor's appointment and meets OSCAR, a medical professional who just happens to be compassionate, funny, and absurdly handsome. When Oscar keeps showing up in her life, Anita can't deny their chemistry (Is it her fault that Oscar fills out his scrubs in exactly the right places?). Or their terrible timing (It'd be wrong to fall for someone so soon after a bad breakup. Right?). Neither can she ignore her emerging wish for stability as steadfast Oscar challenges her penchant for living with one foot out the door.

 

When a remorseful Zach reappears, wanting to woo back his world traveler, Anita must decide whether to follow familiar flight patterns or finally open her heart and make a safe landing.