Thoughts & Observations

Welcome to the blog, a chance for me to share in small doses (but don’t hold me to that!) thoughts that I hope are largely amusing, potentially poignant, on occasion insightful and rarely blah.

Leslie Gura Leslie Gura

Squatters in the Hood

Think it’s easy to get squatters out of a home they illegally entered? Think again, my friends.

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Leslie Gura Leslie Gura

Getting Started

Forty years ago today, a “cub” reporter started his first job in newspapers, at the Fontana Herald News, a 4,000-circulation, six-day-a-week newspaper in Southern California. A man died that day.

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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

  • “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 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

  • "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

  • “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