About the Contributors

Project Editor

Dr. Laura Quirk

Laura received her doctorate through the Tri-University doctoral program, which utilizes the expertise of the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, and the University of Guelph. Her PhD is in history with minors in archaeology and gender. She has been a professor at Conestoga College since 2010 and has developed many courses for the college, including history of art I and II, archaeology, history of living memory, gender, Canadian history, and ancestry, as well as a travel course to London and Paris.

Laura is the author of the first essay in Stories of Hope: “When Hope Is All You Have Left.” She is also the project’s editor; having created the initial concept, she is now soliciting further contributions.

Contributors

Dr. Cynthia Comacchio

Cynthia Comacchio served as a professor of history at Wilfrid Laurier University for 40 years before retiring in 2022. She has struggled with persistent, low-level, anhedonic depression since adolescence. This essay explores, not entirely tongue in cheek, a recent addition to her list of self-comforting coping strategies—television dramas from South Korea, popularly known as K-drama.