Laura Deutsch is a writer, editor, and teacher based in Mill Valley, California. She began teaching writing in 1974 at the University of California at Berkeley and has subsequently taught classes and workshops at San Francisco State University, Book Passage bookstore, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, and in Arezzo, Italy. For the past fifteen years, her classes have focused on personal essay and memoir, writing from the senses, writing as a spiritual practice, and how to get into print. Laura's personal essays, feature stories, and travel pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco magazine, More magazine, Time Out, Mademoiselle, and the Dallas Morning News. Her personal essays have been anthologized in several collections, including I Should Have Stayed Home; Best Women's Travel Writing 2011; and Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana. Her commentary has aired on public radio.