Laura Shepard Townsend

As a child, Laura Shepard Townsend had the good fortune to grow up in the woodlands of the Catskill Mountains with a mother who taught her to revere the natural world; this has remained a lasting part of her consciousness. After college, she traveled for a year around Europe, solo, a big adventure with ample opportunity for myriads of predicaments and experiences.

Townsend used her tax return to fund additional travels resulting in the discovery of Venice, a city which has inspired much of Destiny’s Consent and will always remain a strong muse for her as well as her writing.

Freelance jobs in the entertainment biz funded the eight years necessary to produce the first two books of the "Destiny’s Consent" series. Townsend describes herself as akin to a roustabout at a circus, doing whatever necessary to support herself as a writer – including a short stint driving a cab.

For a few years, adopting the lifestyle of her gypsy heroine, Ms. Townsend and her husband, MT, adventured throughout the west coast in a trailer named Molly. Now, she and MT, the talented artist-designer of the Destiny’s Consent book covers, live in a tree house in the jungles of Costa Rica serenaded by parrots, cicadas and howler monkeys.