LAURA'S Upcoming Events:
June 4, 2017 9-5 p.m., Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley, Co-hosting an Authors' Table with Katry Tropp Barbour
June 9, 2017 1-3 p.m. OSHER Class for UCSD
Topic: Surviving Peoples Temple at Jonestown: One Woman’s Story Laura Johnston Kohl
Fall 2017, Revisiting University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington – Class in Leadership
October 4-7, Presenting at the Communal Studies Association Conference in the Zoar Community, Ohio
Topic: 2017 Conference Theme: To succeed, grow and survive, all successful communal groups have had to adapt to changing situations, be they internal or external: internal changes in their leadership, in their environment, and in their membership, as well as those changes taking place in the outside world.
December 14, 2017 10-12 noon, Presenting at Cal State University-San Marcos OSHER Class in Murrietta, CA
January 2018, Presenting at Arkansas Tech University, Russellville, AR
LAURA'S RECENT EVENTS INCLUDE PRESENTATIONS AND INTERVIEWS:
• University of San Francisco, U of Southern Indiana, York College of Pennsylvania, U of Tennessee-Chattanooga
• OSHER classes for Uof Utah, Cal State U-San Marcos, Uof California San Diego
• Mexico City Book Talk in English/Spanish
• Penn State U – Political Science, History, and Sociology classes
• Grossmont College and San Diego City College
• Ben Modo Live television program
• Puget Sound University
• Western Washington University, Hawaii Pacific University
• Libraries throughout California
• Co-housing groups in California
• Athens GA, Chattanooga TN, Visalia, Lake Co., Santa Rosa, Bellingham, Washington, DC, Mexico City, and San Diego Quaker Meetings
• KPOO Radio Interview, San Francisco
• Books, Inc. San Francisco
• San Diego Branch Library Book Talks
• Numerous Local Author events
• Cal State San Marcos History Classes and History Clubs
• Miramar Coll. Women’s History Month
• Communal Studies Assoc. Conferences at the Oneida Community and Old Harmony, and many others.
OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS:
As a Board Member on the Communal Studies Association, I will continue to research and present scholarly papers about historical and contemporary communal groups. I present each October. This year, I am presenting about both Peoples Temple and Synanon. I spent a decade in each community.
As a Quaker, I am active in Peace concerns and part of the Latin American Concerns Committee. I work with the new refugees flooding into our country looking for a safe home, and I am active in pursuing a sane and wise immigration policy with a realistic path to citizenship. I support the DACA program and want it expanded.
I have produced an audio book from my print book. It is available in audio format, and in the "whisper" program. If you buy a kindle book, you can get the audio and either read yourself or listen to the audio.
I have been interviewed by Richmond Arquette, a researcher, who is putting together a mini-documentary/drama about Peoples Temple, as well as other authors, researchers, students, and media sites.
I have participated in two other interviews for television documentaries to be released in late 2015 and early 2016.
While in Chattanooga, I spoke with Joy Krause, a television reporter and documentary producer. She interviewed me for her upcoming documentary on women who seem to follow sociopaths. We will see how that goes.
I have been contacted by Liz Gannes, who is writing the script for an audio walking tour of the Fillmore District of San Francisco, exploring the history of the neighborhood. She would like to include the perspective of how the People's Temple found a home and many members there, in the 1970s. I'll be contributing my thoughts to her project.
Continuing into 2015, I will continue my work on collecting Peoples Temple Oral History recordings from around the country. I have completed ten recordings and will continue to interview fellow survivors and family members so that there is an archive of Oral Histories available. Once transcribed, the recordings and transcriptions will be shared with California Historical Society in San Francisco, at San Diego State University, and at University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. They will be available to the public.
I have written a number of articles for the recent annual JONESTOWN REPORT, published in print and on-line by the Jonestown Institute. Each year, I add a number of articles to the jonestown report published each November.
I have become a regular contributor to a local bilingual newspaper on topics of immigration and education.
I have been interviewed on five internet/radio programs to a national and international audience.