Date: Saturday, October 17, 2009

Featured Speaker: Laurel Corona

Visit her website at: http://www.laurelcorona.com

Laurel Corona comes to GSDCTE’s Promising Practices to share her experiences as a published author. Her novel THE FOUR SEASONS: A NOVEL OF VIVALDI’S VENICE  (Hyperion/VOICE 2008)  is based on the little-known story of composer Antonio Vivaldi’s work with an all-female orchestra at a foundling hospital in Venice, for whom he composed much of his music. “Corona shines when showing musicians at work,” Publishers Weekly says, while Booklist praises the “charming, exquisite, and poetic” depiction of “the dazzling light of Venice and…two orphaned sisters full of ambition, heart, and steadfast love.”

Laurel has also written nonfiction, including UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH: A HOLOCAUST STORY OF LOVE AND PARTISAN RESISTANCE (St. Martin’s Press, 2008), which recently won a 2009 Christopher medal, honoring books, films, and television productions that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit," and "celebrate the humanity of people in a positive way."At the recent San Diego Book Awards, Laurel was an unprecedented triple winner, sharing with researcher Michael Bart the award for Best Biography for UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH, as well as Best Historical Novel for THE FOUR SEASONS. The coveted Theodor Geisel Award, for Book of the Year, also went to THE FOUR SEASONS.

Laurel has taught in the San Diego area for over three decades, and is currently a professor of Humanities at San Diego City College.  She was a charter fellow in the San Diego Area Writing Project in 1977, and has also taught at SDSU and UCSD She got her start as a published author writing YA books for middle and high school libraries and is presently at work on THE LAWS OF MOTION, a novel based on the life of Emilie du Chatelet, the brilliant French physicist and mathematician who was also Voltaire’s lover and muse.