Laurie Dennett

Born in Toronto, Canada, Laurie Dennett has spent much of her professional writing life in the City of London. She is the author of eight corporate histories, including those of Prudential, the Institute of Actuaries, and law firm Slaughter and May.

She raised nearly $500,000 internationally for multiple sclerosis research through her pilgrimages on foot to Santiago de Compostela, Rome and Jerusalem, and wrote a travel book, A Hug For The Apostle (Macmillan of Canada, 1987), about her walk from Chartres to Santiago de Compostela. The book became a classic of Camino literature and was republished in an updated and enlarged format by Words Indeed, Toronto, in 2019, and as an audiobook, read by the author, in 2020. From 1995 to 2003 she chaired Britainīs Confraternity of Saint James. She has also translated several Camino-related books from Spanish. She is also the author of An American Princess: the Remarkable Life of Marguerite Chapin Caetani (McGill-Queens University Press, 2016). Laurie lives near the Camino de Santiago in the province of Lugo, Galicia, where she continues to write and translate, and to welcome visitors to the first and only Quiet Garden (affiliated with the U.K. based Quiet Gardens Association) in Spain.

(Photo courtesy of Joan and Jerry Cochrane)