Current Project:
Girl With a Secret
Subtitled, How I Tried to Hide Muscular Dystrophy with Tight Jeans and Makeup, this memoir will tell the story of a girl whose family asks her to keep her diagnosis of muscular dystrophy a secret. And so she does -- despite the fact that her symptoms become more and more visible over time. She finds ways to hide it from her gym teachers, her friends, and her dates, and continues to be in denial about having muscular dystrophy past the point when it becomes ludicrous to keep pretending.
Anyone who has ever felt compelled to hide something about him or herself can relate to this story. What have YOU felt compelled to hide? The author is interested in hearing stories about trying to hide things that one really need not be ashamed about -- like physical features, personality traits, cultural background, unfinished dissertations. Contact her with your stories for a future compilation on this site, or add your personal experiences in the comments section of her blog.
"In this candid and irresistibly readable memoir, muscular dystrophy operates as a startling metaphor for the profound sense of otherness all adolescents feel. Laura Maffei describes, with spot-on memory and best girlfriend prose, the trials and tribulations of normal girlhood, all the while battling the threats of a frightening question mark, the diagnosis of a possibly debilitating condition. Against this backdrop, the usual quandaries of boys, clothes, and friendships become fraught with added poignancy. Adults and teenagers will be amazed by how closely they relate to Maffei's experience. This is a wonderful and important book, sure to resonate with women of all ages."
-- Nina de Gramont, author of Gossip of the Starlings and Every Little Thing in the World
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News From Laura
July 2010: Guest Column up on Girl w/Pen
June 18, 2010: Spoke with sixty (!) kindergartners at Fairfield Elementary (NJ) about disability and appearance. I'm told I was a hit! The kids were wonderful.
May 26, 2010: Attended the first SheWrites Knowledge Faire -- it was excellent
May 23, 2010: Spoke on tanka and read from Drops and Girl at a local church's fundraiser for the Kenyan Women's Literacy Project
March 2010: I have a sonnet up on 14 by 14
About Laura
Laura Maffei is the founder of the poetry journal American Tanka which she edited from 1996 - 2008 and the author of Drops from Her Umbrella (Inkling Press 2006). Read more
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