Meet the Team
Hope Edelman
Hope Edelman is the author of eight nonfiction books, including the bestsellers Motherless Daughters and Motherless Mothers. Her books have been published in 17 countries and 11 languages and have sold more than 1 million copies.
Hope’s work has been widely anthologized. Her essay, “Bruce Springsteen and the Story of Us” won a Pushcart Prize and is used in writing classrooms around the country. Her articles and essays have been published in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Psychology Today, Real Simple, The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, and more.
She has been teaching nonfiction since 1995, at The University of Iowa, Antioch University-LA, Ohio State University, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and most recently, at the San Miguel Writers Conference. In 2027 she will be a featured author at the Himalayan Literature Festival in Kathmandu.
The mother of two grown daughters, Hope splits her time between Los Angeles and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Karla Parra
Karla Parra is a Mexican-American writer and certified executive and career coach. Born and raised in Mexico, she spent much of her own career in the United States in management consulting, helping leaders and organizations navigate change.
In 2019, she left corporate life and set off with her husband in an 84-sq. foot camper, eventually finding her way back to Mexico and making San Miguel de Allende home. In 2024, she went all-in on writing a memoir exploring identity, belonging, and the unexpected path back to her Mexican roots.
For the past two years, Karla was part of the San Miguel Writers’ Conference team, building literary partnerships and virtual learning programs. Bilingual and bicultural, she is delighted to support the Rooftop Writers retreat as Program Coordinator and help participants feel at home in San Miguel.
When she isn’t writing, Karla can usually be found renovating an old house with her husband or singing everything from Mexican rancheras to American rock.
Laura Fraser
Laura Fraser is an award-winning journalist and author of four non-fiction books, including the NYT-bestselling memoir An Italian Affair, which was translated into several languages, and the travel memoir All Over the Map, which features San Miguel de Allende. She was the co-founder and editorial director of Shebooks, where she published 75 short books by women. She has taught writing for more than 30 years at numerous venues, including as an adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She also edits books and does private writing coaching. She has a Substack for her essays, The Phrazer. Laura lived in San Miguel de Allende when she was ten, and bought a house there in 2007. She is married and splits her time between San Francisco and Mexico. She adopted Chita, a street dog from San Miguel de Allende. Fluent in Spanish, she knows the town well and can take you out salsa dancing!
Her Mexico houses can be rented at CasasArtisticas.com.
