Laurel lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her Diné husband, whom she met at the University of New Mexico (UNM). Her husband is from Shiprock, New Mexico, part of the Navajo Nation. Laurel and her husband raised two sons in Albuquerque, who are also bent on storytelling in journalism and acting.

Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Laurel comes from an intertribal background of Mandan, Hidatsa from the prairies of North Dakota, and Tsimshian from a rainforest in Alaska. Laurel spent her childhood with a large community of cousins, aunties, uncles, grandparents, and intertribal family friends from the Haskell Club (Haskell was an Indian Industrial boarding school) that her parents helped form. The Haskell Club offered a supportive community as her parents adjusted to urban life after graduating from Haskell.

During the summers, Laurel and her family also took road and ferry trips to her homeland communities in Ketchikan, Alaska, Fort Berthold (now the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation), North Dakota. Laurel had many adventures with her family, from brown bears on the Alaskan trails, collecting cedar for basket making with her Alaskan grandmother, jumping off logs in Lake Sakakawea, corralling wild ponies for play rodeos on the prairie, and running away from rattlesnakes hiding in the family gardens.

Whether Laurel’s family was connecting with their homelands or in the urban suburbs, oral storytelling was a staple around the kitchen table. The stories were about ancestral chiefs and her grandfather, who was the tribal chairman of Fort Berthold. Laurel’s grandfather, Martin Old Dog Cross, bravely fought against the government to stop the Garrison dam, which eventually flooded their ancestral lands in the 1950s, causing displacement of tribal members. Martin would meet with Senators in Washington DC and proclaim, “There is no price for our land.”

These stories informed Laurel, her sister, and her cousins of their place within their generational family of leaders who left a legacy of resilience. Her grandfather also proclaimed that all should get an education to fight the white man’s injustices. So, loaded with this information, each generation obtained college degrees in service to their communities.

Laurel received a BA in Psychology and an MA in Community Counseling and Family Studies at UNM. She began writing by crafting a curriculum for community advocacy involving teen leadership and later for children newly diagnosed with mental health challenges. With a career in education and mental health and near retirement, Laurel decided to write for children.

Now a full-time writer for children, Laurel wants to give children what her family offers her through oral storytelling. She wants children to know they can rely on their cultures, which can provide strength and support in everyday living and in times of uncertainty. Laurel believes stories can help children learn to problem-solve and think critically and, most importantly, offer resiliency.