Writer. Speaker. Apologist for the beauty of pugs. Ex-competitive figure skater. Mental health advocate. Still rocks out sometimes.
Writing Bio
Laura Zera’s writing can be found in the New York Times, the Washington Post, DAME Magazine, Quartz, Catapult, Full Grown People, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Hippocampus and other places, and she was previously a regular contributor to the Seattle Times. She is working on a novel set in South Africa, as well as a new memoir.
A chronic wanderer, Laura has traveled to 75 countries. After 17 years in Seattle, she returned home to British Columbia in 2020.
Who-I-am Bio
(For a resume, see my LinkedIn profile.)
Some quick bits:
- I was a race car driver in a former life and hang on to a shred of that exhilaration in my present existence. The grab handle on the passenger side of my Mini Cooper is well used.
- I cry easily, which makes the rest of my family laugh.
- For several years, I was listed in the phone directory under my dog’s name, Pug Ozwald. I asked the phone company if they could put an umlaut over the ‘u’ in pug and told her my “roommate” was Danish.
- I’ve competed at the Canadian Figure Skating Championships.
- I live with Complex PTSD, panic disorder and major depression, and I’m an empath.
- Most of my eighteenth year was spent as a volunteer on a kibbutz in Israel, an experience that turned me into a global citizen.
- Grade 11 Earth Science class was spent perfecting my ability to gleek. Now I must be very careful whenever I eat anything sour.
- I attended Nelson Mandela’s presidential inauguration.
- I’m a left-handed night owl, which means when I‘m struggling to sign the inconveniently angled payment screen in the grocery store at midnight, no one’s around to hear me curse.
My most treasured book is my passport. I believe that the more we know about each other, the more we will do to ensure each other’s long-term health and prosperity, whether it be for your neighbor next door or someone thousands of miles away whom you’ve never met. The more we share our stories, the more we feel our inherent human connection and can discharge pain and shame.
Thank you for being here. I hope you’ll come back often.