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Laura Fraser

I am a long-time journalist and San Franciscan who loves travel and books. I'm the author of the NYT-bestselling memoir An Italian Affair, and its sequel, All Over the Map. I also wrote a book about the diet industry, Losing It. I am the co-founder and editorial director of Shebooks.net, which publishes short, top-shelf ebooks by women. My own Shebook, The Risotto Guru, is all about eating in Italy.

I'm passionate about reading, and have kept a list of all the books I've read since I was about ten, which you can find on my website: http://www.laurafraser.com/booklists/. I teach and coach writing, particularly memoir and personal essay.


“It's not that the grass is greener on the other side, it's that you can never be on both sides of the lawn at the same time.”
Laura Fraser
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“All of live is a celebration if you just find the right spot in the sun to take it all in”
Laura Fraser
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“So, too, how to tell your story has a great deal to do with how you feel about the circumstances in your life and which direction your story is going to go in”
Laura Fraser
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“...I am realizing that intention has a lot to do with how things turn out, and accomplishments don't always have to involve such a difficult personal fight or even campaign. So,too, how you tell your story has a great deal to do with how you feel about the circumstances in your life and which direction your story is going to go in. In a peaceful, patient town, surrounded by friends, I am losing the threads of my story that have to do with disappointment, with regret, with difficulties with men. I am happy for the wonderful men I have in my life, would be happy for a new love, and am happy either way. That is a kind of magical thinking that works”
Laura Fraser
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“All those stories need different endings——which is possible because it's my life and I do have the privelege of being able to write the story.”
Laura Fraser
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“You learned that it was easy frighteningly easy to get lost in someone else's life accommodating him and stop being yourself. You learned to be wary about falling in love. And you learned that someone who loved you could stop loving you for some dark reason and even though that was bruising you were more resilient than you knew. Eventually you would get over it more or less.”
Laura Fraser
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“Gorgeous' you say in English and he likes that word tasting it like wine.”
Laura Fraser
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“I am realizing that intention has a lot to do with how things turn out, and accomplishments don't always have to involve such a difficult personal fight or campaign. So, too, how you tell your story has a great deal to do with how you feel about the circumstances in your life and which direction your story is going to go in.”
Laura Fraser
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“English is a beautiful language, a remarkably precise language with a million words to choose from to deliver your exact shade of meaning.”
Laura Fraser
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“You can't regret a whole period in your life. . . . It's part of who you are, one of your stories.”
Laura Fraser
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“London on your own actually seems more exotic than Egypt on a tour.”
Laura Fraser
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“The fundamental condition of man is his verticality.”
Laura Fraser
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“It isn't such a bad thing to always know that someone on the other side of the world cares about you.”
Laura Fraser
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