Laurence was born in the town of Neepawa, Manitoba, in 1926. Hailing from a small town herself, she was taken with Montgomery's portrayal of small town life. She once remarked to her biographer that "Montgomery had everything right in her Emily [of New Moon] trilogy: Maud had accurately portrayed all the impediments that stood in the way of young women aspiring to become writers in small-town Canada (or America)." (qtd. from The Gift of Wings)

In an interview with Adrienne Clarkson, the former Governor General of Canada, Laurence credited Montgomery with starting women's literature in Canada, in that all young Canadian girls in the first half of the twentieth century were exposed to her work.

Like Montgomery's, Laurence's writing often focused on small-town life. Academic Theodore Sheckels released a 2003 study titled "The Island Motif in the Fiction of L.M. Montgomery, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, and Other Canadian Women Novelists," further underscoring the thematic legacy carried on in Laurence's work.

Laurence has, in her own right, become one of Canada's most well-known authors, having been championed by novelist Leon Rooke in the 2002 "Canada Reads" competition.

Aside from The Stone Angel and its sequels, Laurence also wrote short stories, children's fiction, and a number of essays.

Source: Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings by Mary Henley Rubio