Wrenn, Elizabeth 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born 1957; married. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, walking, hiking, cross-country skiing, movies, and Extreme Croquet.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Boulder, CO.

CAREER:

Freelance writer. Has worked as a park ranger, outdoor education naturalist, public relations and media specialist, literacy tutor, and roofer.

WRITINGS:

The Christmas Cactus, Centering (Omaha, NE), 2001.

Around the Next Corner, New American Library Accent (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to various periodicals, including the Christian Science Monitor and Runners World.

SIDELIGHTS:

Elizabeth Wrenn's novel Around the Next Corner tells the story of a woman in mid-life who decides she needs to take on a new project in addition to her marriage and children. She feels her family has been taking her for granted, and her old hobbies, such as painting, no longer interest her. She brings home a Labrador puppy and sets out to train it to become a seeing-eye dog for the blind. The story is firmly rooted in personal experience, as Wrenn brought home and trained a puppy named Lucca for Guide Dogs for the Blind as research for the novel. On her home page, she explains: "The research—raising a guide dog puppy for 15 months—required a monumental commitment of time, energy, emotion and patience. It was the most profoundly rewarding research I've ever done for a writing project." Deborah Straw, reviewing the novel for Curled Up with a Good Book, commented: "It is a gentle, feel-good novel, but it is not lightweight," and went on to add that it "seems real, and its characters, quite amazingly, relatively happy." Amy Brozio-Andrews reviewed the book in the Library Journal, dubbing it "a dynamic narrative that settles into a quite satisfying conclusion."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, June 15, 2006, Amy Brozio-Andrews, review of Around the Next Corner, p. 60.

ONLINE

Curled Up with a Good Book,http://www.curledup.com/ (July 18, 2007), Deborah Straw, review of Around the Next Corner.

Elizabeth Wrenn Home Page,http://www.elizabethwrenn.com (July 18, 2007).

New American Library,http://nalauthors.com/ (July 18, 2007), author biography.