Claire Fontaine

Claire Fontaine is the co-author with her daughter Mia of Come Back: A Mother & Daughter’s Journey Through Hell & Back. An unflinching true account of a teenage girl’s dizzying, drug-fueled descent into society’s underbelly and a mother’s desperate and ultimately successful attempts to bring her back, it is a riveting, lively, and often humorous tale of triumph over adversity and of the hero that lies within each of us. Since its publication, Claire and Mia have been sharing what they learned from their extraordinary experience, speaking at child advocacy organizations, schools and universities, Jewish groups, and writers’ conferences across the country.

Claire and Mia have appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America, Montel, The O’Reilly Factor, and were featured in Family Circle, Glamour, Ok!, Women’s World, and First Magazine. The recipients of the 2007 Dr. Richard Carmona Doorway of Hope Award for work that inspires youth to leave the street, they continue to receive rave reviews for the moving, inspiring and life-changing speeches they give across the country. They can be booked together or separately.

In talks, Claire shares a parent’s worst nightmare: having to save three-year-old Mia first from an abusive father, then a decade later from Mia, herself dealing with her manipulative, drug-fueled behavior and repeated disappearances, each time to do worse things with worse people, criminals finally. The only thing left would be death, hers or someone else’s. Claire’s search for Mia was brutal for of them, a dizzying series of dead ends, incredible coincidences and, at times, miracles across three states. Desperate to save Mia, Claire ultimately forced her only child into a harsh-but-loving boot camp school in Eastern Europe, later in Montana that did save Mia’s life.

Claire and Mia’s story is a powerful portrayal of the primal bond between mother and daughter that will resonate with audiences long after they’ve left the theater.

Claire has worked as a screenwriter with award-winning directors and producers for several years, and has degrees in design, art history and film. When not writing at home, she can be found writing in libraries, cafes, and park benches across Europe. She looks forward to returning to fiction in historic novels that take place where science, art, and love intersect.

A Mother and Daughter’s Story of Triumph Over Adversity The Work of Art that is The Mother/Daughter RelationshipThe Examined Life: The Power of Memoir