Background
Solomon was born in Auckland on 28 June 1974. She grew up in various parts of New Zealand and Australia, including Raetihi, Nelson and Tasmania.
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book
The Shingle Bar Sea Monster: and Other Stories
(THE SHINGLE BAR SEA MONSTER AND OTHER STORIES uses surrea...)
THE SHINGLE BAR SEA MONSTER AND OTHER STORIES uses surrealism and black humour to explore human predicaments, emotions and aspirations, and to suggest solutions to life's challenges. The situations are extraordinary, the aspirations and emotions are common, and the solutions debatable. A young woman is taken to a sea monster's underwater palace and helps the mermaids preserve seaweed. A girl finds that her right hand can no longer feel. Another girl becomes her younger sister's guardian angel. Two men of different tastes and habits struggle to co-exist after the head of one is grafted to the body of the other. An executive experiences uncontrollable anger after undergoing open-brain surgery. Two sisters continue their childhood rivalry after being reminded of a favourite TV programme. A male scientist is forced to give up the child that he himself gave birth to. On the verge of burnout, a jaded London lawyer heads out to the Mojave desert to set up a new life for herself. Ghosts visit two sisters. A girl hears her dead grandmother speak. A modern day Lady Bluebeard lures men to grisly deaths, but adores her seventh husband and cannot bring herself to kill him. A young woman defends her passion for writing. A blind man in love carries a magical cane that makes flowers bloom on the pavement. An amnesiac builds a new life for himself. During the progress of a new relationship, secrets are revealed. A wife suspects her husband of having an affair with a group of mannequins. A woman flies to New Zealand to begin a new life as a romance novelist. Another woman buys a lighthouse through the encouragement of a friend. A schoolboy learns to levitate and is stoned and drowned by jealous classmates. A man finds the button for rewinding his life. Conjoined twins learn to survive and even thrive in the world. The purchase of a duvet leads to estrangement between an established couple, caused by the woman's extraordinary metamorphosis into a feathered winged creature. Always interesting, these stories – with their often bizarre realities – prompt us to see our own lives from the perspective of others. Do we also live in a somewhat off-centre world? FROM AN EARLY RESPONSE TO THE COLLECTION: "Laura Solomon's stories inhabit the borders between the mundane and the magical. Whether looking for love, or trying to understand a sibling, these stories have a very human heart. Solomon's characters are often looking for answers, and in the process of dealing with their dramas and disappointments they come across those things that can only be glimpsed from the corner of the eye. Sea monsters and angels, head grafts and werewolves, roses blooming from the tip of a blind man's cane.... The fantastic exists, though the miracle can fade with a wrong decision, or an unkind choice. These stories do not provide easy answers: the fantastic does not compensate for foolishness, and there are not always easy explanations. You may be touched by the marvellous, Solomon seems to say, but what happens next is entirely up to you." -- Viki Holmes, Author of "miss moon's class" (Chameleon, 2008), co-editor of "Not A Muse" (Haven 2009).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9888228080/?tag=2022091-20
In Vitro
(IN VITRO is the debut poetry collection of prize-winning ...)
IN VITRO is the debut poetry collection of prize-winning poet, Laura Solomon. It covers a wide range of topics: the prophetess Pythia, England's Guy Fawkes, an alternative reality for New Zealand writer Janet Frame, earthquakes, in vitro experiments, spiders, tigers, vampire bats. The themes are universal. As Patricia Prime writes in Takahe, Laura Solomon is, "a tolerant, compassionate observer of nature and human nature. She is able to look into the lives, hearts and minds, not only of people, but of animals using their thoughts and voices." Mainly written between 2003 and 2007 when the author was living in London, several of the poems have been placed in UK literary competitions and some have appeared in a number of international literary magazines, including Aesthetica, Broadsheet, Frost Writing, Sentinel, The Shop, Landfall, and the London Poetry Festival Anthology.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9881993563/?tag=2022091-20
Instant Messages
(Life is tough for fifteen-year-old computer nerd Olivia B...)
Life is tough for fifteen-year-old computer nerd Olivia Best. Her twin sister Melanie, who used to be Olivia's best friend, has taken to drinking and self-harming. Her father has no job and a string of unpublished romance novels to his name. Olivia's mother has just left Olivia's father for her lesbian yoga teacher, Sue. To top things off, Olivia is being severely bullied by a gang of boys from a neighbouring estate. Together with her trusted ally, a stuffed toy green frog, Olivia attempts to navigate the stormy seas of her existence. Narrated by Olivia, INSTANT MESSAGES charts the progress of the twins and other family members. It is a fresh and contemporary look at British family life. Olivia is a typical teenage misfit. At the start of the novel, she is very much a loner, but as the book progresses, she is befriended by another misfit, who wins her over. When Olivia comes out of her shell enough to find the courage to audition for the school production, The Tempest, she befriends another girl her age, Hannah. On the final night of The Tempest, Olivia is approached by a film-maker, a friend of the school principal, who has come to the show to find talented adolescents to act in his new film. Alan, the father, copes fairly well with the departure of his wife, following his initial despair and disbelief. He takes a job as a journalist at the South London Press, finds a new lover in his colleague Judy, and attempts to discipline the girls. When Judy moves in with Olivia and Alan, a fresh set of problems arises.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9881932025/?tag=2022091-20
The Shingle Bar Sea Monster and Other Stories
(THE SHINGLE BAR SEA MONSTER AND OTHER STORIES uses surrea...)
THE SHINGLE BAR SEA MONSTER AND OTHER STORIES uses surrealism and black humour to explore human predicaments, emotions and aspirations, and to suggest solutions to life's challenges. The situations are extraordinary, the aspirations and emotions are common, and the solutions debatable. A young woman is taken to a sea monster's underwater palace and helps the mermaids preserve seaweed. A girl finds that her right hand can no longer feel. Another girl becomes her younger sister's guardian angel. Two men of different tastes and habits struggle to co-exist after the head of one is grafted to the body of the other. An executive experiences uncontrollable anger after undergoing open-brain surgery. Two sisters continue their childhood rivalry after being reminded of a favourite TV programme. A male scientist is forced to give up the child to which he himself gave birth. On the verge of burnout, a jaded London lawyer heads out to the Mojave desert to set up a new life for herself. Ghosts visit two sisters. A girl hears her dead grandmother speak. A modern day Lady Bluebeard lures men to grisly deaths, but adores her seventh husband and cannot bring herself to kill him. A young woman defends her passion for writing. A blind man in love carries a magical cane that makes flowers bloom in the pavement. An amnesiac builds a new life for himself. During the progress of a new relationship, secrets are revealed. A wife suspects her husband of having an affair with a group of mannequins. A woman flies to New Zealand to begin a new life as a romance novelist. Another woman buys a lighthouse through the encouragement of a friend. A schoolboy learns to levitate and is stoned and drowned by jealous classmates. A man finds the button for rewinding his life. Conjoined twins learn to survive and even thrive in the world. The purchase of a duvet leads to estrangement between an established couple, caused by the woman's extraordinary metamorphosis into a feathered winged creature. Always interesting, these stories with their often bizarre realities prompt us to see our own lives from the perspective of others. Do we also live in a somewhat off-centre world?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9888167359/?tag=2022091-20
Instant Messages by Laura Solomon (2010-11-23)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FELTUAK/?tag=2022091-20
The Shingle Bar Sea Monster and Other Stories
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9888227440/?tag=2022091-20
Laura Solomon
Edit ProfileEducation
She graduated from Nayland College, Nelson, in 1991 and later attended the University of Otago in Dunedin where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree and wrote her first novel Black Light. Solomon completed an Master of Science in Computer Science at Birkbeck College at the University of London in 2003.
Career
Best known as a novelist, her poetry and short stories have also been widely published and short listed for awards and prizes. She moved to Wellington in 1996 to do her Honours in English at Victoria University of Wellington. and to write her second novel Nothing Lasting. After graduating from Victoria, Solomon left New Zealand and lived abroad in London, where she wrote An Imitation of and Alternative Medicine.
She has travelled internationally for her work in Information Technology, including working in Norway for FAST Search and Transfer, now owned by Microsoft.
She returned to New Zealand to live in Nelson in 2007 and currently resides there where she writes full-time. Solomon wrote poetry and fiction from her teens.
As a young woman in Wellington, she wrote for theatre. Her play The Dummy Bride was produced at the Wellington Fringe Festival in 1996.
At the age of 21, Solomon"s first two novels — Black Light (1996) and Nothing Lasting (1997) — were accepted by Auckland publisher Tandem Press.
She emerged as part of a new wave of young New Zealand writers in the 1990s anthologised in Mark Pirie’s The NeXt Wave (1998). She continued writing while living overseas in the United Kingdom and had a play Sprout produced at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005. She took a break from publishing her work but returned to writing and book publishing in Nelson from 2007.
Her recent fiction has been published overseas in Hong Kong and Britain (Alternative Medicine and An Imitation of ) and her poetry has been widely published in New Zealand and internationally in magazines and online sites.
In 2011, her debut collection of poetry In Vitro appeared from HeadworX in Wellington, New Zealand. She has since published further fiction (Hilary and David, University Days (a sequel to Instant Messages), Vera Magpie, and a short story collection, The Shingle Bar Sea Monster and Other Stories) The second edition of In Vitro and a second collection of Solomon’s poetry, Freda Kahlo’s Cry and Other Poems have also been published by Proverse.
Solomon has judged the Sentinel Quarterly Short Story Competition in the United Kingdom. Vera Magpie.
Achievements
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She has won prizes in Bridport, Edwin Morgan, Ware Poets, Willesden Herald, Mere Literary Festival, and Essex Poetry Festival competitions. In 2009, her novella, Instant Messages, jointly won the inaugural Proverse Prize for Fiction in Hong Kong and was short-listed for the Virginia Prize in the United Kingdom.
Works
book
-
The Shingle Bar Sea Monster: and Other Stories
(THE SHINGLE BAR SEA MONSTER AND OTHER STORIES uses surrea...)
-
The Shingle Bar Sea Monster and Other Stories
(THE SHINGLE BAR SEA MONSTER AND OTHER STORIES uses surrea...)
-
In Vitro
(IN VITRO is the debut poetry collection of prize-winning ...)
-
Instant Messages
(Life is tough for fifteen-year-old computer nerd Olivia B...)
- Instant Messages by Laura Solomon (2010-11-23)
- The Shingle Bar Sea Monster and Other Stories
-
The Shingle Bar Sea Monster: and Other Stories
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Born
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Nationality
New Zealand