Lambdin, Laura Cooner 1961–

PERSONAL: Born October 17, 1961, in Orlando, FL; daughter of Francis Marion (an owner and president of a chain of beauty aid stores) and Ann Jeanette (a company vice president; maiden name, Yeager) Cooner; married Robert Thomas Lambdin (a professor), December 16, 1989; children: Elizabeth Ann, Mary Nell. Ethnicity: "White." Education: University of South Florida, B.A., 1986, M.A., 1988, Ph.D., 1991. Religion: United Methodist.

ADDRESSES: Home—278 Muddy Springs Rd., Lexington, SC 29073. Office—College of Business Administration, University of South Carolina at Columbia, Columbia, SC 29208; fax: 777-2077. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Francis Marion University, Florence, SC, assistant professor of English, 1991–95; University of South Carolina at Columbia, Columbia, affiliated with College of Business Administration. Lambdin, Inc., chief executive officer.

MEMBER: College English Association, Southeastern Medieval Association.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with husband Robert Thomas Lambdin, and contributor) Chaucer's Pilgrims, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1996.

(With Robert Thomas Lambdin) Camelot in the Nineteenth Century, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1999.

(Editor, with Robert Thomas Lambdin, and contributor) A Companion to Jane Austen Studies, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2000.

(Editor, with Robert Thomas Lambdin, and contributor) An Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2000.

(Editor, with Robert Thomas Lambdin) A Companion to Old and Middle English Literature, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Laura Cooner Lambdin once told CA: "My husband Robert became my best friend in graduate school because I admired his mind and was able to work and study easily with him. We began writing together for classes and conferences several years ago, and this naturally progressed into reference texts when we had both completed our doctorates. It's hard to tell which of us wrote what part because our writing style is symbiotic.

"I want to leave behind a record of my intellectual progress—a part of myself not necessarily reflected in our children—for future generations. Our reference texts are sold to most major universities, so the audience is large and eclectic.

"We write to fill a need: our ideas spring from texts we can't find in our primary areas (medieval, Romantic, and Victorian literature). Thus our ideas are easily sold to a publisher because we passionately feel a demand for such a text ourselves.

"My husband generally finds the research materials, which I read and compile. I write a draft which he fine-tunes while typing into the computer, and then we both edit the material.

"My husband and I are very lucky to have found a creative outlet that we enjoy doing together and that pays us. We naturally work well together, based upon the strengths and weaknesses of our intellectual and academic abilities within the narrow form of medieval, Romantic, and Victorian literary criticism. We greatly admire each other's abilities and hope to continue growing as writing partners and lovers for many years to come. I am blessed to be able to work so closely with a man whom I greatly admire."