Saint Lauren, Eileen: - Eileen Saint Lauren is a natural-born writer with a pure and original voice who in her debut novel, Goodlife, Mississippi, embraces the rural South of the fifties and sixties where she witnessed segregation. She provokes the reader to contemplate an understanding and tolerance of people whose life experiences and perceptions appear outside the norm though are very real. Goodlife, Mississippi's timeless voices of every color and social class both together reflect the message of compassion, forgiveness, and love.Eileen Saint Lauren was born in Hattiesburg and raised in a once two red-light town, Petal, Mississippi. She is an award-winning photo journalist and news and feature writer who worked early in her career as a commentator for Nebraska Public Radio and at Smith College Museum of Art. After graduating from Jones College in Ellisville Mississippi, with an Associate of Arts degree in journalism, she continued her education at he University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. She then continued on with her education in creative writing at The Washington Center, Duke University, Kansas Newman College's, The Milton Center, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She divides her writing time between Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Madison, Mississippi.Eileen Saint Lauren was blind for three years due to back-to-back retina detachments at an early age. Although she did not regain her full sight back, she is functional. She is visually disadvantaged.