More about Laura Joyce Davis
Laura Joyce Davis writes to explore the triumph of the human spirit in a broken world. A Fulbright scholar, Laura also won the Poets & Writers Exchange Award, earned Pushcart Prize and Best New American Voices nominations for fiction, and was a finalist for WNYC’s podcast accelerator. In previous lives, she was a running coach, a capella singer, and scholarship athlete.
Podcasting
Laura’s previous podcast, MisInformed, looked at US-Mexico immigration through real-life stories from across literal and political borders. The plan for Misinformed also included living in Mexico for a year, a series of interviews, and partnerships with Ethical Storytelling, the Mexico Department of Immigration, and four Mexican universities. Misinformed was a finalist for the WNYC podcast accelerator contest, and for a 2020 Fulbright scholarship.
Social justice work
Laura's writing has often intertwined with nonprofit work. She writes for Micro Business Mentors, a nonprofit providing entrepreneurial loans and training in developing countries. As a Fulbright scholar to the Philippines in 2010, Laura spent a year working with sex trafficking survivors, whose courage in the face of corrosive injustice inspired her novel, which won the 2013 California Writers Exchange Award. You can read about her experience here and here.
Writing influences & awards
In college and grad school, Laura studied writing with Elmaz Abinader, Daniel Alarcón, Anthony Doerr, Yiyun Li, Victor LaValle, and Micheline Aharonian Marcom. Laura has earned a Kimmel-Harding Nelson residency, won two Ardella Mills prizes for fiction, and has been nominated for two Pushcart prizes, Best New American Voices, and Glimmer Train’s Honorable Mention for New Writers.
Personal background
Laura hails from Minneapolis but now calls Oakland home, where she lives with her husband Nate and three kids in their 914-square foot bungalow. When she's not writing or chasing children, she's running on the trails, biking in the Oakland hills, singing, or cooking something from Ad Hoc at Home.
