Laurie Gwen Shapiro is a native Manhattanite. Her resume includes time as a sex call screener for Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and as Peter Jennings's assistant at a publishing company. She now works full-time writing fiction and screenplays and coproducing independent films, including The McCourts of Limerick and Once When I Was a Cannibal. She's currently writing the screenplay for The Unexpected Salami which has been optioned for a film by Radical Media.