Authors: Laura Resau

The Queen of Water (26 page)

about the authors

The authors met in Colorado, at the school where Laura Resau was an ESL teacher and María Virginia Farinango was a student. They hit it off immediately and decided to collaborate to tell María Virginia’s story of growing up as a Quichua girl in the Ecuadorian Andes. Over the next six years, while developing a close friendship, they completed
The Queen of Water.

Several of Laura’s award-winning novels have also touched on indigenous issues in Latin America, including
The Indigo Notebook
and
Red Glass,
both available from Delacorte Press, and
What the Moon Saw,
available from Yearling. With a background in cultural anthropology, Laura loves finding excuses to travel to faraway places. Most of the time, though, she can be found in Colorado, writing in a little 1950s trailer in her driveway or spending time with her son and her husband.

María Virginia is now working toward a degree in psychology after many years of running her own Andean crafts business and traveling internationally with her husband, Tino, a musician and composer. Pursuing her interests in holistic health and beauty, she has recently opened a small day spa in Otavalo, Ecuador, where she lives with her husband and her son. Please visit Laura and María Virginia at
lauraresau.com
.