We Were the Lucky Ones (Hunter) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1978 (?)
• Raised—Attelboro, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Virginia
• Currently—lives in Rowayton, Connecticut


Georgia Hunter was born in Massachusetts and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. She turned to writing at a rather early age when she penned her first book at the age of four: Charlie Walks the Beast (named after her father's recently published sci-fic novel, Softly Goes the Beast). Seven years later she submitted an article to her local paper on how she would spend her last day if all life on earth were about to end.

Years later, in 2000, Hunter received her Bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Virginia and settled on a career in marketing and branding. After seven years in Seattle, Washington, she and her husband, Robert Farinhold, decided to head  back east. Currently, Hunter freelances as a copywriter for adventure travel outfitters, including Austin Adventures and The Explorer’s Passage.

We Were the Lucky Ones
Hunter was 15 when she first learned from her grandmother of her Jewish heritage—and that her family had survived the Holocaust. Six years later, a family reunion lit the spark for her 2017 debut novel. Hosted at her parents' home, the family gathering drew 30 relatives from North America, South America, Europe, and Israel. Speaking in Portuguese, French and English, they told their family stories. As Hunter described the experience in an interview with the Gordon School alumni magazine:

A baby born in a Siberian gulag. An escape from the Radom ghetto. A secret wedding in Lvov. A romance aboard a ship full of refugees bound for Brazil. Little by little, I began to piece together a part of my family’s past which, until that day, I had no idea existed.

It took Hunter nearly a decade to begin the saga of her grandfather and his four Kurc siblings whose descendants span the globe. After creaing a color-coded timeline to keep track of the many family branches, she turned to researching archives and museums and contacting ministries and magistrates. As she tells it, she "plotted an outline and chapter summaries and from there [and] began the terrifying task of putting my story to paper!"

Hunter now lives in Connecticut with her husband and young son. (Adapted from various online sources.)