Laurel Hunter is a Bay Area based filmmaker who has written and produced two feature films, and is currently fundraising for her first documentary. Her first feature film, SOMETHING BETTER (www.somethingbettermovie.com), has screened at various film festivals and venues across the United States, including the American Film Institute in Los Angeles (2002), The East Village Cinemas in New York City with the New York International Film and Video Festival (2003), The Breckenridge Film Festival in Colorado (2004) and the Golden Film Festival (2004), who honored her work with Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Actress (Kim Ataide) awards. SOMETHING BETTER also received a Best of Festival Award from the Berkeley Video and Film Festival (2003). Hunter's second film, THE HIGHWAY HOME (www.thehighwayhome.com), premiered at the California Independent Film Festival (2008) with subsequent screenings at the Berkeley Video & Film Festival (2008) (Winner of the Peace Reel Special Recognition Award), and the La Femme Film Festival (2008).

Laurel Hunter is also the writer of various works of fiction and non-fiction that have appeared in publications such as New Woman Magazine (Man for a Day) and the Berkeley Fiction Review (Passenger), for whom she appeared as a guest author at the Berkeley Barnes and Noble and Modern Times Books in San Francisco. Her short story DOG HOUSE received honorable mention in the 12th Edition New Millennium Writing Awards, and most recently, her short story ORANGES was a recent finalist in both the Glimmer Train Press Open Fiction and Very Short Fiction competitions (2008).

Hunter received her degree in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University where she was the recipient of multiple playwriting awards, including a Lawrence and Lee Playwriting Award and a Highsmith Playwriting Award. She is also a past winner of the Bay Area Women's Playwriting Competition. She has directed numerous theatre productions on the East and West coasts, including JP Allen's one man show, GAMBLING at the Victory Theatre in Burbank, which received critical acclaim in the Los Angeles Times and the L.A. Weekly, and has since been made into a feature film, winning Best Feature at the Telluride Independent Film Festival (2005). Her theatrical collaboration with New York based actor, Bill Smartt (AUNT JACK) ran for three weeks at the 78th Street Theatre in New York City, after she developed it with Smartt at the Marsh Theatre in San Francisco (where it premiered at the Theatre Rhinoceros Studio Theatre).

Hunter is currently completing a collection of thirteen short stories, tentatively entitled, Passenger and Other Stories. She is studying the craft of fiction writing with acclaimed poet and writer, Clive Matson (Mainline to the Heart) in Berkeley, CA.