About the author

Leslie Gura is a lifelong writer and editor, who, as a journalist for newspapers in California, Connecticut and North Carolina, specialized in narrative storytelling and criminal investigations. Along the way, Gura won numerous awards, including the inaugural Taylor Family Fairness Award from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University for his Northeast magazine story about a Yale instructor wrongfully accused of murder by New Haven police.

After leaving journalism, Gura spent eight years in marketing and communications, as well as continuing to do freelance writing and editing. During that time also went back to school, earning his master’s degree from Wake Forest University in clinical mental health counseling. Since beginning practice in 2019, Gura has made trauma a specialty. Throughout his professional lives, he has used narrative techniques, in writing to tell and in therapy to discern stories.

He lives with his wife, Terrie, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where they enjoy cooking and shooting 9-ball, having met in a billiards hall. Their home is ruled by their calico, Taz.

Unwrapping: A Novel about Generational Trauma is Gura’s debut novel. He is hard at work on a follow-up.

What People Say About Unwrapping

  • "Leslie Gura contextualizes the process of psychotherapy within an engaging story with complex, compelling characters. Unwrapping is an important and rare novel about the process of trauma recovery that is both insightful and entertaining.”

    Mark B. Scholl
    Professor of Counseling
    Wake Forest University
    Winston-Salem, NC

  • “Take intriguing plot twists, romantic angst and generational trauma, and you get Unwrapping. I came away with deep empathy for Gura’s well-developed characters. An informed, touching read."

    Sherry L. Allen, LPC, NCC
    Owner and Principal Therapist
    GrowSteady
    Nashville, TN

  • "It's difficult to find a book that is teaching vital information while absorbing the reader simultaneously into a story, allowing our imagination to take us there. Gura found the middle world between reading enjoyment, learning about hard and triggering topics, and tools that can be utilized for learning."

    Laneita Williamson, RN, BSN
    Trauma-informed Care Manager
    CareNet Counseling
    Winston-Salem, NC

  • "I absolutely loved this novel! So many different story lines. The characters are real and their stories are true. I feel for them."

    Maria Teresa Jones, MDiv, BCC
    Spiritual Director and Dreamwork Facilitator
    Ceiba, Puerto Rico

  • “Others have shared the techniques and theory of the art of care; Gura is the only one that I know of who has brought that carefully honed practice into proper focus with the dramatic perspective it deserves. What could be more amazing, surprising or compelling than people helping each other along their way through life?”

    Gary Gunderson, MDiv, DMin, DDiv
    Professor, Faith and the Health of the Public
    School of Divinity
    Wake Forest University
    Winston-Salem, NC