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Thank God It's Toby: Highlights

Laura Ford

Season 2021, Ep. 221
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Hi, my name is Laura Ford and I am an author. My new YA novel Sounds Like Love has just come out.


Together with writing I love to travel and seek out new experiences and adventures to enrich my life and inspire my stories.


My journey in adult life started off with a scholarship to attend law school at 18. I had never studied law before but I thought that if I put my mind to it I could achieve anything. I was interested in society, people’s stories, justice - and from my point of view as a student - how the law may be able to help protect vulnerable people and the environment.


I specialised in environmental law and found that this was easy for me to study and put hours of time into as I love the natural world. I would write long essays and spend hours studying.


I graduated at 21 and worked in LA afterwards for a while. I then returned to London and studied at the London Film Academy and wrote a short film in a week called ‘Sounds Like Love’. My screenplay reached the top ten percent of the Blue Cat International Screenplay Competition and the story just would not leave my mind.


I later immigrated to the US where I performed stand-up comedy at the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and appeared in comedy sketches for the Jimmy Kimmel show. I enjoyed writing my comedy routines so much and using my imagination that I realised I had to write Sounds Like Love as a novel. I had always written short stories and even a book as a child.


Since this time, I have had short stories published in publications in the US, UK and Canada and recently had a piece translated into Japanese.

Writing is fulfilling for me on a soul level.


My novel Sounds Like Love was written from the heart and inspired by the different cats that I have shared my life with. One cat in particular - a kitten that I rescued from the street while on holiday in Greece - was an inspiration for one of the characters in my book.


When I wrote Sounds Like Love it was important for me to create a protagonist that was relatable. I wanted my protagonist to be a seemingly ordinary girl who is extraordinary on the inside. You don’t need to know Kung Fu or be a rocket scientist to be extraordinary!


People have immeasurable strength and resilience inside of them and this is something I wanted to focus upon in my story. The extraordinary hope, strength and resilience that lies within people - but cannot be seen to passers by.

Highlights from Toby's Friday afternoon show on Shout Radio. Featuring chat with top showbiz guests.

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