About this item
Laura Shapiro Kramer has turned her experience raising a special-needs child (already detailed in her successful memoir) into a guidebook for other parents.The e-book and web site contain multiple resources and she is building a community of support through Facebook, Twitter, and at uncommonvoyage.com.
About the Author
Before becoming a mother, Laura worked in the entertainment business. She helped manage the first national tour of "Jesus Christ Superstar;" produced "Slab Boys" on Broadway with Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Val Kilmer; and developed "Smashville" by David Mamet for ABC. In 1979 Laura married Jay Kramer, an entertainment lawyer in New York City. Their son Seth was born in 1983, followed by daughter Haya in 1987.
The direction of Laura's life changed when Seth was diagnosed with cerebral palsy in 1984. She embarked on a journey to improve the quality of Seth's life, plunging into a world that lacked today's information-rich internet to get everything she could for Seth - at first within the mainstream and later in a wider world that came to include osteopathy, Feldenkrais, Iyengar yoga, and more.
In 1992 Laura wrote an article for Family Circle Magazine, "A Second Chance for Seth," detailing the maverick work she was doing with Seth. This led to an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Subsequently, Laura wrote "Uncommon Voyage: Parenting a Special Needs Child," about her experiences as Seth's mother. The first edition was published in 1995, the paperback edition was issued in 1998, and a second edition in trade paperback was published in 2002.
Laura currently lives on Cape Cod. She was the Chair of the Board of Resources for Children with Special Needs (now includeNYC) for ten years. Laura is Founder and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Greater New York (IYAGNY) and she serves on the Advisory Board of New York City Outward Bound (NYCOBC) . Her travel articles about Iran and Tasmania appeared in The Forward. Laura was Project Director of the Albyon Project for the New York Foundation for the Arts.
