Laura Hennessey DeSena teaches AP English Literature, Creative Writing, and Doppelgangers, Dreams, & Madness: The Gothic Landscape at West Milford High School in New Jersey. For nearly two decades, she taught composition and research writing at NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Her performance pieces, Eve Speaks to Cain, Eden Within Us, and her play, The Men's Club, have been staged in theatres in NYC and in New Jersey. Her articles of literary criticism -- one on the painter, "Mary Cassatt," and the second on photographer, "Diane Arbus" - are included in Contemporary Women Artists (St. Martin's Press, 1999). She is the author of Preventing Plagiarism: Tips and Techniques published by the National Council of Teachers of English (2007), currently in second printing. She was invited to be an advisor in the revision of Turabian's College Student Writing published by University of Chicago Press (2010) and she served as an expert for the Online Writing Institute Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). Raised on her grandmother's stories from the turn of the last century about a coal mining town, Summit Hill, Pennsylvania, she threads together their remnants: the men and women of this town, their superstitions, and their everyday heroic lives still enliven her dreams.