Laura L. Engel

Laura L. Engel, born and raised on the Mississippi Gulf Coast transplanted to San Diego over 50 years ago. She is married to the love of her life, Gene, and the mother of six grown children and an adored golden retriever, Layla Louise. Laura is the proud Grammy of 10 cherished grandchildren.

In 2016 Laura retired from a 35-year career in the corporate world with plans to quietly catch up on hobbies and travels with her husband Gene. In October of that year her plans changed when a miracle happened in her life. She soon found herself busier than ever taking writing classes and writing up a storm about a secret she thought she would take to her grave.

Along with writing her memoir, Laura is the past president of the International Memoir Writers

If you like author Laura L. Engel here is the list of authors you may also like

Buy books on Amazon

Total similar authors (25)

Evelyn Kohl LaTorre

Evelyn Kohl LaTorre grew up in rural Southeastern Montana, surrounded by sheep and cattle ranches, before coming to California with her family at age 16. She holds a doctorate in multicultural education from the University of San Francisco, and a master’s degree in social welfare from UC Berkeley. She worked as a bilingual school psychologist and school administrator in public education for 32 years.
Buy books on Amazon
K.C. Sanford

K.C. Sanford is an American author, adventurer, and adoptee. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two dogs who can’t be trusted to make good decisions. K.C. writes under her alias – a meld of names that she has had during her life. You want to know who she is, and she truly understands. To you, she says, welcome to her world.
Buy books on Amazon
Carlyn MontesDeOca

CARLYN MONTES DE OCA is a #1 Amazon bestselling award-winning author, international speaker, animal-human health expert and passionate animal advocate.

A former film editor on such movies as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Three Men and a Little Lady, Carlyn holds a bachelor’s degree from Loyola Marymount University in communication arts and a master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine from Emperor’s College. She is also certified in plant-based nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutritional Studies at Cornell University.

Montes De Oca was voted PETA’s Sexiest Vegetarian Over 50 and is currently an Animal Ambassador at Animal Protection of New Mexico. She is the founder of The Animal-Human Health Connection.

As a sought-after s
Buy books on Amazon
Alexandra Fuller

Alexandra Fuller has written five books of non-fiction.

Her debut book, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood (Random House, 2001), was a New York Times Notable Book for 2002, the 2002 Booksense best non-fiction book, a finalist for the Guardian’s First Book Award and the winner of the 2002 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize.

Her 2004 Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier (Penguin Press) won the Ulysses Prize for Art of Reportage.

The Legend of Colton H Bryant was published in May, 2008 by Penguin Press and was a Toronto Globe and Mail, Best Non-Fiction Book of 2008.

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness was published in August 2011 (Penguin Press).

Her latest book, Leaving Before the Rains Come, was publ
Buy books on Amazon
Susan Wiggs

Susan Wiggs's life is all about family, friends...and fiction. She lives at the water's edge on an island in Puget Sound, and she commutes to her writers' group in a 17-foot motorboat. She serves as author liaison for Field's End, a literary community on Bainbridge Island, Washington, bringing inspiration and instruction from the world's top authors to her seaside community. (See www.fieldsend.org) She's been featured in the national media, including NPR's "Talk of the Nation," and is a popular speaker locally and nationally.

According to Publishers Weekly, Wiggs writes with "refreshingly honest emotion," and the Salem Statesman Journal adds that she is "one of our best observers of stories of the heart [who] knows how to capture emotion on
Buy books on Amazon
Emilie Richards

I'm the author of seventy-something novels, including romance, women's fiction and mystery. When We Were Sisters debuted in June 2016, a stand alone novel about two foster sisters traveling back into their past together. I loved writing it and love the cover my publisher chose.

I'm also excited about my recent series, Goddesses Anonymous, which started with One Mountain Away and was followed by Somewhere Between Luck and Trust. The third book in the series, A River Too Wide, came out in July 2014. The Color of Light debuted in August 2015. Will there be more? We'll see.

I'm also putting up my newly edited romance backlist and love re-reading and updating them a bit.

Last year my husband and I moved from Virginia, to Osprey, Florida, the state
Buy books on Amazon
Linda Joy Myers

Linda Joy Myers has always been haunted by the power of the past to affect people in the stream of time. She learned about World War II through her grandmother, a passionate Anglophile who would rhapsodize about the unfairness of war. Together they watched black and white documentaries about the war when Linda Joy was young which led to a passion about history which she integrated into her own struggles with intergenerational trauma and her work as a therapist and a writer.
As founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers, Linda Joy is the author of four books on memoir writing. The Power of Memoir and Journey of Memoir help writers find their way to their healing stories. Her two memoirs Don’t Call Me Mother, and Song of the Plains
Buy books on Amazon
Diane Bay

Diane Bay is an artist and writer living in Benton, Kentucky. She grew up as an adoptee in the Chicago area. Although she didn’t know her birth families, she always had a strong creative drive, drawing and painting from an early age. She has studied with several acclaimed oil painters, including Kathie Odom and Gayle Leveé. Diane’s style is representational impressionism. She hopes to convey the uplifting feeling that natural beauty brings to her heart.

In 2012, Illinois State opened their long-sealed adoption records and Diane sent for her original birth certificate. This began a new chapter in her life as she reunited with her birth families. She was surprised to find out her birth mother was the ’70s Hollywood icon Karen Black, who starre
Buy books on Amazon
Betsy Graziani Fasbinder

Betsy Graziani Fasbinder's newest book, Filling Her Shoes: A Memoir of an Inherited Family will launch May 2017. When she was about to become a mother for the first time, Betsy found that none of the stories about motherhood, even step-mothering seemed to describe her circumstances. They talked about pregnancy and baby names, or they spoke of getting along with "the ex". But she wasn't pregnant, and there was no "ex" to contend with. Betsy was becoming a mother by marrying a widower and adopting his young son. There was no child support or custody battle. Instead, her new joy in being a wife and mom was accompanied with the knowledge that her joy was possible only because of a tragic loss of a young mother, taken too soon. This is a simple,
Buy books on Amazon
Meryl Ain

Meryl Ain is a writer, author, podcaster, and career educator. Her new collection of short stories, "Remember to Eat," will be published on January 20. "The Takeaway Men," her award-winning post-Holocaust debut novel, was published in 2020. The sequel,"Shadows We Carry," was published on April 25.
Meryl's articles and essays have appeared in numerous publications, and she is the author of two non-fiction books. She is the host of the podcast, "People of the Book," and the founder of the Facebook group, "Jews Love To Read!

Buy books on Amazon
Mary Ellen Gambutti

Mary Ellen was born in post-WWII South Carolina and was adopted by an Air Force couple. The strength she earned in her landscape gardening and flower farming career served her during rehabilitation from a hemorrhagic stroke at age fifty-seven. No longer able to garden, she pursued her love of words, taking many online courses as her speech and memory returned. The essays and memoirs she wrote over the next decade brought her solace and self-discovery, as well as the satisfaction of publication in many online journals. She is still happiest outdoors, whether on a beach, in a woodland, or in a cottage garden. But her greatest joys are home, motherhood, and two grandsons.
She and her husband are retired in Lewes, DE with an apricot toy poodle
Buy books on Amazon
Evelyn Kohl LaTorre

Evelyn Kohl LaTorre grew up in rural Southeastern Montana, surrounded by sheep and cattle ranches, before coming to California with her family at age 16. She holds a doctorate in multicultural education from the University of San Francisco, and a master’s degree in social welfare from UC Berkeley. She worked as a bilingual school psychologist and school administrator in public education for 32 years.
Buy books on Amazon
Susan E. Greisen

Susan E. Greisen, raised on a remote farm in Nebraska, defied all odds to seek adventure and a broader understanding of life. Her work as a nurse took her to remote parts of the world with Peace Corps and CARE. She has journeyed to over forty countries on six continents and is a published poet and author. Her travel photographs have been published online by the BBC News. Susan lives in Bellingham, WA where she enjoys life with a vibrant and supportive writing community. Go to susangreisen.com for more photographs, home movies, and maps from the stories depicted in this memoir.
Buy books on Amazon
Julie Ryan McGue

JULIE RYAN Mc GUE is an American writer. Her award-winning memoir, Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging released in May 2021. It is about the five-year search that she and her twin sister undertook to find their birth relatives. On her weekly blog, “That Girl This Life,” Julie writes about finding out who you are, where you come from, and making sense of it. Her work has appeared in the Story Circle Network Journal, Brevity, Imprint, Adoption.com, Lifetime Adoption, Adoption & Beyond, and Severance Magazine. Personal essays appear in several anthologies: REAL WOMEN WRITE: Seeing Through Her Eyes, and Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis.
Buy books on Amazon
Tom J. Bross

Buy books on Amazon
Esther Erman

Like her heroine, Rebecca, Esther Erman was a refugee. A naturalized citizen, she early developed a passion for language, which led to her earning a doctorate in language education, writing her dissertation about the Yiddish language, and working with international students on many levels. A multi-published author, Esther now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband. When they’re not traveling—especially to be with family in other parts of the US and in England—she loves to bake, quilt, and add to her monumental book collection. Find out more about them at www.EstherErman.com.
Buy books on Amazon
K.C. Sanford

K.C. Sanford is an American author, adventurer, and adoptee. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two dogs who can’t be trusted to make good decisions. K.C. writes under her alias – a meld of names that she has had during her life. You want to know who she is, and she truly understands. To you, she says, welcome to her world.
Buy books on Amazon
Marie O'Leary Wydra

Buy books on Amazon
Minu Cash

Minu Cash is an Arizona native born in 1958. She received her dental hygiene degree from Rio Salado College. When she’s not immersed in a good book, Minu enjoys traveling and delighting her friends with her culinary creations—her spicy salsa is a crowd pleaser. But her heart truly belongs to her family, especially her grandchildren, who bring endless joy to her life. She lives in Glendale, Arizona, just north of her childhood neighborhood.

Facebook
Instagram
Buy books on Amazon
Diane Bay

Diane Bay is an artist and writer living in Benton, Kentucky. She grew up as an adoptee in the Chicago area. Although she didn’t know her birth families, she always had a strong creative drive, drawing and painting from an early age. She has studied with several acclaimed oil painters, including Kathie Odom and Gayle Leveé. Diane’s style is representational impressionism. She hopes to convey the uplifting feeling that natural beauty brings to her heart.

In 2012, Illinois State opened their long-sealed adoption records and Diane sent for her original birth certificate. This began a new chapter in her life as she reunited with her birth families. She was surprised to find out her birth mother was the ’70s Hollywood icon Karen Black, who starre
Buy books on Amazon
Betsy Graziani Fasbinder

Betsy Graziani Fasbinder's newest book, Filling Her Shoes: A Memoir of an Inherited Family will launch May 2017. When she was about to become a mother for the first time, Betsy found that none of the stories about motherhood, even step-mothering seemed to describe her circumstances. They talked about pregnancy and baby names, or they spoke of getting along with "the ex". But she wasn't pregnant, and there was no "ex" to contend with. Betsy was becoming a mother by marrying a widower and adopting his young son. There was no child support or custody battle. Instead, her new joy in being a wife and mom was accompanied with the knowledge that her joy was possible only because of a tragic loss of a young mother, taken too soon. This is a simple,
Buy books on Amazon
Susan E. Greisen

Susan E. Greisen, raised on a remote farm in Nebraska, defied all odds to seek adventure and a broader understanding of life. Her work as a nurse took her to remote parts of the world with Peace Corps and CARE. She has journeyed to over forty countries on six continents and is a published poet and author. Her travel photographs have been published online by the BBC News. Susan lives in Bellingham, WA where she enjoys life with a vibrant and supportive writing community. Go to susangreisen.com for more photographs, home movies, and maps from the stories depicted in this memoir.
Buy books on Amazon
Esther Erman

Like her heroine, Rebecca, Esther Erman was a refugee. A naturalized citizen, she early developed a passion for language, which led to her earning a doctorate in language education, writing her dissertation about the Yiddish language, and working with international students on many levels. A multi-published author, Esther now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband. When they’re not traveling—especially to be with family in other parts of the US and in England—she loves to bake, quilt, and add to her monumental book collection. Find out more about them at www.EstherErman.com.
Buy books on Amazon
Mary Ellen Gambutti

Mary Ellen was born in post-WWII South Carolina and was adopted by an Air Force couple. The strength she earned in her landscape gardening and flower farming career served her during rehabilitation from a hemorrhagic stroke at age fifty-seven. No longer able to garden, she pursued her love of words, taking many online courses as her speech and memory returned. The essays and memoirs she wrote over the next decade brought her solace and self-discovery, as well as the satisfaction of publication in many online journals. She is still happiest outdoors, whether on a beach, in a woodland, or in a cottage garden. But her greatest joys are home, motherhood, and two grandsons.
She and her husband are retired in Lewes, DE with an apricot toy poodle
Buy books on Amazon
Eva Neisser Echenberg

Born in Lima, educated in the USA, I have lived in Canada for most of my adult life.

A global citizen, both my writing and my personal life has been dedicated to acceptance of the "Other". As an author of eight Spanish cultural workbooks, I have promoted diversity and cultural literacy in the Spanish language classroom. Written in response to the grammar based language teaching that was standard practice in my profession, I developed interdisciplinary units based on content which are now the norm in the field.

My own personal history is the subject of my latest work, Walter's Welcome. Through letters and pictures, it tells the story of my family's flight from Germany and life in Peru.
Buy books on Amazon