Laura’s Blog

I’m a phone addict. There’s no doubt about it. My laptop and my phone are extensions of my being and my fingers. My work life is entwined with them. My teaching is entwined with them. My home life is entwined with them. I write on them, communicate on them, blog on them, post on them, […]

Despite a loud party going on outside our hotel window last night, .5 mg Ativan and my c-pap machine helped me sleep through the night. I woke up at 5:00 AM, which is pretty much when I’ve been waking up in Santa Cruz. I got up, checked the weather—60 degrees and heading up to 88—and

An uneventful flight in cattle class. Flying internationally is one of the places my childhood training in dissociation comes in handy. I can sit in one of those squished seats overnight and nap and watch three movies: the new West Side Story, a documentary about a big wave surfer, and a father-son saga set in

It’s 4:00 PM and I just changed my outgoing voicemail message for the first time in three years. Because that’s how long it’s been since I flew abroad. When I arrive in Tuscany to lead my Write, Travel, Transform retreat, I’ll be buying an Italian SIM card and won’t be able to get calls on

It’s a weird time to be going on vacation, especially an international trip to Europe. Of course, leading a trip and facilitating a creative retreat experience for others isn’t the same as taking a private vacation. But having led these trips for ten years now, there’s an unfolding in the lead-up to each new adventure

Spend months in the summer of 2019 meeting with Graseilah, your tour guide partner, designing a dreamy ten-day writing retreat at a Villa in Tuscany, a place you’ve never been. Drool over pictures of the Villa you’ll be staying in: the gorgeous swimming pool, the beautifully set outdoor table, an albino peacock strolling through the