We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laura Whitfield. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laura below.

Laura, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

I always tell people that every job I’ve had prepared me for being a published author. My first job out of college was at a mid-sized advertising agency, where I was the assistant to the president. That’s where I met my first mentor and decided I wanted to follow in her footsteps and become a copywriter. When the agency wouldn’t promote me, I left to freelance. I did that for eight years before starting a family.

From there, I was hired as a staff writer at an international relief organization. My copywriting skills gave me a great foundation for doing that job. After two years, I quit to homeschool my children and worked part-time for the mentor I’d met in my advertising job. From her I learned what it means to be a professional writer, to market your books, and to work with booksellers and hold author events.

Several years later I started teaching kindergarten. While I was teaching, I decided that I wanted to write a book called How to Prepare Your Child for Kindergarten. I had the idea to serialize my book in a weekly column in our local newspaper. I’d gotten that idea from my mentor who’d serialized her first novel (which went on to become a New York Times bestseller) in her local newspaper. She’d been inspired by Charles Dickens who serialized “The Pickwick Papers” that way. I went down to our local newspaper and asked the editor if they had a parenting column. He said they didn’t but they’d love to have one. So I started my column and did that for two years and finished my book.

When that was over, I did some travel writing for a blogger in the UK and worked part-time as a communications/public relations director for two different nonprofits. It was through those jobs that I learned how to write and design newsletters and plan and promote events, skills I now use as an author.

In 2015, I retired after teaching for fifteen years and began to write full-time. I started working on my debut memoir, Untethered: Faith, Failure, and Finding Solid Ground, in 2017, and it was published in April of this year.

My experience in each of these jobs has proven invaluable as I work to promote my book through social media, interviews (podcasts/radio/magazines/blogs), and author events.

Laura, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My father was a newspaper editor for more than forty years, so I grew up watching him write. I knew from the age of ten that I wanted to write, and, like many aspiring writers, I always dreamed of one day publishing a book. After college I wrote professionally for thirty-six years before publishing my debut memoir, Untethered. As I mentioned, I was an advertising copywriter, newspaper columnist, staff writer for an international relief agency, travel writer, blogger, teacher, communications director for several nonprofits, and a personal assistant to a New York Times bestselling author.

I may not have published right away, but I’ve always been writing and that has paid off. Untethered was named a Finalist in the Best New Nonfiction Category of the 2022 International Book Awards and a Finalist in the Grief/Hardship category of the 2022 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards. It received an Honorable Mention in the Autobiography/Biography/Memoir category of the 2022 New York Book Festival and was chosen as the December 2022 Book-of-the-Month pick for the International Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Book Club.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

My memoir is the story of going to disco-era New York when I was nineteen with the dream of becoming a cover girl. After months of pounding the pavement, I landed a contract with Wilhelmina Models, one of the top modeling agencies in the world. At twenty, that cutthroat world proved to be too much for me, so I returned home. Three years later, at the age of twenty-three, I returned to New York and Wilhelmina told me I was too old. I came home, went back to college, got married, and started a family. Then, at the age of forty-three, I signed with Wilhelmina Miami and modeled for ten years while I taught kindergarten. The second time was great. It was fun and stress-free and I got to travel around the world. What did I learn? If you fall down, get back up and try again. You never know where it might lead.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I love writing and feel blessed to be able to get up every day and do something I love. It energizes me. When I write, I feel as if I’m doing exactly what I know I was born to do. I don’t write because I hope to publish the next New York Times bestseller. I write because I want my stories to touch others. I want readers to recognize themselves in my words and feel as if they’re not alone. If my book (and future books) can do that, then I’ve been a success.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://laurawhitfield.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurawhitfieldwriter/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurawwriter
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-whitfield-9263811a/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/writerwhitfield

Image Credits
Annie Timmons Photography Ray Matthews Photography