About Laura
Laura began her career as an American Society of Magazine Editors' intern at Time magazine. Since then she has published her fiction and non-fiction in several prominent publications. Whether it is a short story or a commentary, her writing explores women's issues, illness and disability, and the arts.
Her first published short story, "Regina Leigh," appeared in Room magazine and placed third in Playboy's College Fiction Contest. Fifth Wednesday Journal published "Judgment," which won the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award for National Fiction from George Mason University/Rinehart Fund and was nominated for an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award. Her short fiction has also appeared in JEF (Journal of Experimental Fiction), ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), and The Antigonish Review.
After taking The OpEd Project's Core and Advance Seminars, she began writing op-eds. Her commentaries have appeared in The Huffington Post, Women's Media Center, and Garnet News.
Her feature stories; book, music, and art reviews; and essays have appeared in The Times of Northwest Indiana, Time, Facts on File Companion to the American Novel, Trivia: Voices of Feminism, Chicago Review, Book, New City, Chicago's Subnation, The Creative Woman, Chicago Artists' News, and Lake Shore Drive magazine.
She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Eastern Illinois University. Currently she teaches at Loyola University Chicago and tutors at Wilbur Wright College. She has also taught at DePaul and Roosevelt Universities. Several of her DePaul University writing and Wilbur Wright students have won writing awards from their respective institutions under her guidance.
To inquire about her writing, teaching, and/or tutoring, please email lauradurnell@gmail.com. View her LinkedIn page.
Follow Laura on Twitter and Friend her on Facebook.