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Welcome!
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 laurelcoronabooks@gmail.com to let me know you’re out there reading and traveling!
From my diary
- The Times are Changing—AgainNearly sixty years ago, while still in my teens, I marched at People’s Park in Berkeley. I sat in and demonstrated at the University of California at Davis, where I was an undergraduate. I did so in the firm belief that mass, visible protest could bring down the powerful. We could end a war. We could end racial injustice by the power of our presence and our voices. We could, and we did. I realize now it was never that simple. The war ended largely because the same power elite we despised decided it was no longer winnable or in…
- It’s Safe to Wake UpOn election day, I on a cruise ship traveling through the Dardanelles from Türkiye to Greece, waiting for the polls to close. I had commented to friends that at least with the time zone differences, I would be asleep during the most nailbiting hours waiting for the polls to close. Around 5AM I got an email from a friend with the subject line “It’s safe to wake up.” Of course, thinking I would sleep through a night like that was absurd, and I had been glued to the television for hours already, but I agreed with her words nonetheless. It…
- MilestonesI wrote the other day about sending my new book, The Intuitive, off to my publisher for edits, but unless you are a writer, you might not understand how big a milestone that is and how it makes an author feel. I thought I’d devote a post to explaining, from my personal perspective, what all the milestones are in getting a book from a glimmer of an idea to something that comes in multiple copies to your door. Some happen on a specific date and others are vaguer, but equally real. Pre-Milestone 1: I spend months, sometimes years, thinking about…