Laura Brown, PhD, is the author of How to Write Anything: A Complete Guide (W. W. Norton, 2014), an Amazon No. 1 best seller in the business communications category. Her business writing training and coaching clients have included AOL Time Warner, Citigroup, DHL, Dun & Bradstreet, the Ford Foundation, Hay Group, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Prudential, TMP Worldwide, and Warburg Pincus, among others.
Laura taught business and technical writing at Iona College for ten years, and she taught composition at Columbia University for five. She designed two core courses for Columbia’s master’s program in strategic communication. Laura has an extensive background in digital learning design. In 1999, she collaborated with e-learning pioneer Roger Schank and Columbia University on a series of web-based business writing courses. She has developed a variety of corporate training programs with online learning companies Cognitive Arts, KLi Learning Corporation, and Socratic Arts.
As a writer, Laura has provided a variety of marketing and other writing services—including web content, business cases, white papers, and promotional materials—for clients like Booz Allen Hamilton, Columbia Business School, Corning Incorporated, and Deloitte. She served for three years as English communication adviser for the Wharton School’s Global Chinese Business Initiative, where she oversaw the writing of international correspondence, promotional literature, and a series of case studies.
Laura is the coauthor of Build Your Own Garage: Blueprints and Tools to Unleash Your Company’s Hidden Creativity (Free Press, 2001) with Professor Bernd H. Schmitt of Columbia Business School. She has ghostwritten nearly a dozen books, including Inside Chinese Business: A Guide for Managers Worldwide (Harvard Business School Press, 2001) by Professor Ming-Jer Chen and Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel, Think, Act, and Relate to Your Company and Brands (Free Press, 1999) by Bernd H. Schmitt (in this best-selling marketing book, “Laura Brown” also appears as a mystery character . . . ).
Laura Brown was born in California and received a BA in English from UCLA. She holds an MA in drama from the University of London and a PhD in English and comparative literature from Columbia University. She lives in New York City.
You can reach Laura via www.howtowriteanything.com and www.laurabrowncommunications.com.