Prose Month at SOMOS: Readings by Lauren Bjorkman, Estelle Laure & Eileen Wiard
Lauren Bjorkman: She is the author of two young adult novels, Miss Fortune Cookie (Holt, 2012) and My Invented Life (Holt, 2009). Her short story, “The Shark King,” appeared in an anthology called The First Time. When she grew up on a sail boat, she shared the forecastle with her sister and the sail bags. In the end, she managed to survive both seasickness and a personal terror of the ocean. And live to write stories. Estelle Laure: She is the author of This Raging Light and But Then I Came Back, young adult books for most readers (maybe if you’re under 14, check with someone). I like to write about darkness without discounting the light. I try to write stories I want to read myself, about life and death, family and love, and mostly how we cope with change and danger in our lives, two things we can’t avoid. I also like to write about magic. Always magic. Not necessarily the big, obvious magic, but the little things we could miss if we aren’t paying attention, the little pieces of magic that add sparkle and mystery to every day. Eileen Wiard: Eileen Wiard came to Taos from Boston on a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation writing residency for two months in the summer of 2002. She fell in love with the high desert and never went back, leaving behind a teaching career that she loved for a life of writing plays, essays, and songs. Inside Outsiders is her first work of fiction.