Laurie Jameson had a completely unremarkable childhood as the only child of Mississippi born and raised parents. Though she grew up in southern California, she spent every summer of her childhood and part of her high school years in Mississippi, and is no stranger to the odd ins and outs of southern life. If you haven’t experienced a sea of roaches crawling across your front porch on a muggy summer night, then you haven’t grown up in the south and probably can’t relate.

Her love of reading started before she even had a complete grasp on the alphabet. As a toddler she could often be found under her parent’s dining room table with her blanket and her story books, looking at the pictures and telling herself the tales contained within their pages. As she grew, she usually found reading more interesting than the world around her, and spent many family vacations with her nose in a book, completely oblivious to whatever sights her parents were vainly trying to point out to her, often responding with, “If you’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all.” Yes, she was that kid at school, the one who spent recess comfortably situated in a patch of shade reading while everyone else ran around playing. 

She never had any intention of becoming a writer. She stumbled on it quite by accident after having a rather intense dream and deciding it would make a great book. Five years, lots of tears, many glasses of wine, way too many toffee peanuts and too many chicken enchiladas later, success. No one said it would be easy, and that’s probably a good thing, because they would have been lying. But it’s certainly been interesting.

As an aside, I am a huge animal lover. Please consider adopting your next pet from your local animal shelter. Your best friend is waiting for you.