Who is Laura Jansen?

Who is Laura Jensen? The world knows Laura Jansen as a Dutch singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles. Jansen established herself as a regular at the Los Angeles live music venue the Hotel Cafe before gaining fame in her native country, The Netherlands. The daughter of an American mother and Dutch father, she holds dual citizenship in the United States and The Netherlands.^[2]

Her music has been featured on the television shows Newport Harbor and The Real World: Cancun.^[3]

She previously toured with Joshua Radin for six weeks as part of his band in 2008.^[2] In 2009, she toured with William Fitzsimmons as a part of his band and also as his support act.

Laura Jensen Walker is an award-winning writer, popular speaker, and breast-cancer survivor who loves to touch readers and audiences with the healing power of laughter.

Laura was born 4 March 1977 in Racine, Wisconsin (home of Western Printing and Johnson’s Wax—maker of your favorite floor care products) Laura moved to Phoenix, Arizona when she was in high school. But not being a fan of blazing heat and knowing that Uncle Sam was looking for a few good women, she enlisted in the United States Air Force shortly after graduation and spent the next five years flying a typewriter through Europe.

By the time she was 23, Laura had climbed the Eiffel Tower, trod the steps of the Parthenon, skied (okay, snowplowed) in the Alps, rode in a gondola in Venice, and wept at the ovens of Dachau. She’d also learned how to fold her underwear into equal thirds, make a proper cup of English tea, and repel the amorous advances of a blind date by donning combat gear and a gas mask.

Laura is a former newspaper reporter and columnist with a degree in journalism who has written hundreds of articles on many subjects ranging from emu ranching and pigeon racing to goat-roping and cemetery board meetings. However, realizing that livestock and local government weren’t her passion, she switched to writing humor, which she calls a “total God-thing.”

“I never planned to write funny. I just wanted to write books. But I didn’t have a clue how to even begin,” she says. “And when I sat down to write, the humor just flowed naturally.” Laura’s first non-fiction book, Dated Jekyll, Married Hyde, was published in 1997. Since then she has written a total of ten non-fiction humor books including Thanks for the Mammogram! and God Rest Ye Grumpy Scroogeymen (with Michael Walker.)

Her lifelong dream of writing fiction came true in Spring 2005 with the release of her first chick lit novel, Dreaming in Black & White which won the Contemporary Fiction Book of the Year from American Christian Fiction Writers. Her sophomore novel, Dreaming in Technicolor was published in Fall 2005.

Laura’s third novel, Reconstructing Natalie, chosen as the Women of Faith Novel of the Year for 2006, is the funny and poignant story of a young, single woman who gets breast cancer and how her life is reconstructed as a result. This book was born out of Laura’s cancer speaking engagements where she started meeting younger and younger women stricken with this disease—some whose husbands had left them, and others who wondered what breast cancer would do to their dating life. She wanted to write a novel that would give voice to those women. Something real. And honest. And funny.

Because although cancer isn’t funny, humor is healing.

To learn more about Laura’s latest novels, please check out her Books page.

A popular speaker and teacher at writing conferences, Laura has also been a guest on hundreds of radio and TV shows around the country including the ABC Weekend News, The 700 Club, and The Jay Thomas Morning Show.

She lives in Northern California with her Renaissance-man husband Michael, and Gracie, their piano playing dog.

In the Netherlands, her debut album "Bells" is available on Universal Records.^[4] Released on 4 September 2009, the album reached #2 on iTunes pop charts in the Netherlands.^[5]

In the U.S., she has two self released EP albums, "Trauma," (released 26 February 2007) and "Single Girls" (released 26 June 2009)
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