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Laura Brodie

Goodreads Author

Born

Columbus, Ohio, The United States

Website

http://laurabrodieauthor.com/

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs, Nonfiction

Member Since

May 2009

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I was born in Columbus, Ohio, with the name Laura Ann Fairchild. My earliest memories come from Seattle, Washington, where my family lived in the Magnolia neighborhood near the Puget Sound. I loved the deep, rainy colors of Seattle; one of my dreams is to buy a summer house on the Olympic peninsula.

At age eight, my family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where I stayed through high school, spending most of my time writing poetry, playing tennis, and earning money as an amateur violinist. After graduating from Broughton High School in 1982, I went to college at Harvard, and lived in Cabot House with a group of eight talented and diverse women who inspire me to this day. Hello to all my roommates!

My favorite class was a poetry workshop with I was born in Columbus, Ohio, with the name Laura Ann Fairchild. My earliest memories come from Seattle, Washington, where my family lived in the Magnolia neighborhood near the Puget Sound. I loved the deep, rainy colors of Seattle; one of my dreams is to buy a summer house on the Olympic peninsula.

At age eight, my family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where I stayed through high school, spending most of my time writing poetry, playing tennis, and earning money as an amateur violinist. After graduating from Broughton High School in 1982, I went to college at Harvard, and lived in Cabot House with a group of eight talented and diverse women who inspire me to this day. Hello to all my roommates!

My favorite class was a poetry workshop with Seamus Heaney, and I graduated with a degree in English in 1986. While at Harvard, I played violin with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, touring in Russia, Europe and Asia. On an orchestra tour I met my future husband, trumpeter John Brodie. We married after my graduation, and lived in Washington, DC, where I worked on campaign finance reform for Common Cause.

In 1988 we moved to Lexington, VA, so that John could take a job as band director at the Virginia Military Institute. I commuted to Charlottesville to work on a PhD at the University of Virginia, and with the help of a dissertation fellowship from the American Association of University Women and a Woodrow Wilson Women’s Studies Grant, I wrote a dissertation focused on widows in English literature. Since that time, all of my writing has been tied to women’s studies. My favorite chapter from that dissertation was on husbands who fake their deaths in order to spy on their wives, and that inspired my recent novel, The Widow’s Season.

My eldest daughter, Julia, was born just as I was finishing graduate school. From there, I began part-time teaching at various local colleges, and I started my first book, Breaking Out: VMI and the Coming of Women. The book covered the transition to coeducation at America’s last all-male military college. I served on VMI’s executive committee for coeducation, and taught a few courses for VMI’s English department while researching the book, which gave me an insider’s view of the Institute’s unique culture. The book was published by Pantheon (2000) and Vintage (2001) and was featured on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show.

During the three years while the book was in progress, I welcomed two more daughters into the world, Rachel and Kathryn, and I began teaching steadily at Washington and Lee University. My next book, The Widow’s Season, won the Pirate’s Alley/Faulkner Society’s 2005 prize for Best Novel-in-Progress. On June 2, 2009, that novel will be published by Berkley Books, a Penguin imprint.

My latest project is a memoir of one year that I spent homeschooling my oldest daughter, Julia, when she was ten. I wrote about the ups and downs of our year in the cover article for the March 2007 issue of Brain,Child magazine. That article led to my third book, Love in a Time of Homeschooling: A Mother and Daughter’s Uncommon Year. Look for it from Harper in April, 2010.
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Laura Brodie's Blog

My new memoir is coming out...

My new memoir, Love in a Time of Homeschooling, will be published by Harper on April 6. It's the story of one year when I gave my ten-year-old daughter a break from her public school routine. Along with telling a funny and serious mother-daughter tale, this book looks at public education and its discontents, and the ups and downs of trying to educate your own child. Check out the goodreads giveawa Read more of this blog post »

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Published on March 21, 2010 04:24 • Tags: education, homeschooling, memoir, mothers-and-daughters, parenting

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Laura Brodie’s books

Average rating: 3.39 · 1,847 ratings · 387 reviews · 6 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Widow's Season 3.32 avg rating — 1,036 ratings — published 2009 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Love in a Time of Homeschooling: A Mother and Daughter's Uncommon Year 3.57 avg rating — 435 ratings — published 2010 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	All the Truth 3.34 avg rating — 339 ratings — published 2012 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Breaking Out: VMI and the Coming of Women 3.92 avg rating — 38 ratings — published 2000 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Energy: Clean and Green by 2050 by Andrew Stunell, Laura Brodie (Goodreads Author) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 1999	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Time for Tears, A Time for Smiles: Poetry by Ligia Wahya Isdzanii, Dragon Heart LA, Bryan Syden Griffin 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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by Ann Patchett

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May 23, 2009 05:45AM

Quotes by Laura Brodie (?)

“Looking at the children, she knew that any hope for a new life would have to grow within her. She glanced at Nate, wondering if he felt as she did, that children were the only consolation in this world, the only recompense for so much suffering.”
― Laura Brodie, The Widow's Season

tags: children, pregnancy

5 likes

“I am eager for the pleasures of the flesh
More than for salvation,
My soul is dead,
So I shall look after the flesh.”
― Laura Brodie, The Widow's Season

2 likes

“Was it possible to love a man who made you feel ridiculous? Of course [.....], love was complicated, that was all. Or was love simple, and marriage was complicated? In seventeen years of marriage David had often left her feeling frustrated, and furious, and disgusted, yes - but he had also made her feel beautiful, and protected, and loved. And oh, what she would give to feel loved right now.”
― Laura Brodie, The Widow's Season

tags: death, love, marriage, widows

2 likes

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