About Laura

When I was seven, I wrote in my diary, "I would like to be a riter someday." That same year, my family moved to a ranch in northern Colorado. And thus the two loves of my life: books and the natural world.

Childhood? Well, I remember a whole gaggle of us, including raccoons and rabbits and goats and pigs. There were newborn calves in our kitchen in the middle of the night, their new soft hooves sliding across linoleum as they tried to nurse from Coke bottles filled with milk. There were peacocks wandering around, some of whom also came into the kitchen. There were cats giving birth into our shoes in our closet, and there were many frozen dead animals in the freezer.

And then the blur: I attended the University of Wyoming for two years, then transferred to Colorado State University, where I got my B.A. and stayed for my M.A. because I didn't know what else to do. I got married, moved to Minnesota, and then to Indiana, where my husband was teaching at Purdue. I had just had my first child, and was lonely, and so I launched into a PhD program, which I finished a few years later, and which is in Contemporary American Lit. We later moved back to Colorado, where I gave birth to two things: a second child and Sky Bridge.

Later came a back injury which made it impossible for me to write. Instead, I edited, often lying on my back on the floor. It was a time when I wanted not only to protect myself, but other things in danger – the river, the open space, the crust of the Earth. Hence the books Going Green, Pulse of the River, and Home Land.

These days, I’m back to writing from a little house near the mountains. From my window I see red foothills and the blue mountains beyond. I also see the dog carrying around a deer bone from a mountain lion kill, and the last surviving chicken left by the bears and fox. The kids play, the sun sets, a coyote trots by. Life is good.

So, that's enough about me. Now, I'd like to hear from you. My email address is l_Pritchett@msn.com.