Sarah Laing

Sarah Laing
Laing at the National Library of New Zealand in 2019
Laing at the National Library of New Zealand in 2019
Born1973 (age 51–52)
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, U.S.
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
New Zealander
GenreCartoons, illustration, poetry, fiction
Notable worksThree Words: An Anthology of Aotearoa/NZ Women's Comics, Mansfield and Me: a Graphic Memoir
Website
Blog, Let Me Be Frank

Sarah Laing (born 1973) is a New Zealand author, graphic novelist and graphic designer.

Background

Laing was born in 1973 in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, United States and grew up in Palmerston North, New Zealand. As a teenager she moved to Wellington and has also lived in Germany, New York, and Auckland. She is currently based in Wellington.[1]

Career

Self-portrait, 2018

Laing has a background in graphic design and worked as an illustrator.[1] She completed a master's degree at Unitec in 2016.[2] She illustrated Macaroni Moon, a children's poetry book by Paula Green.[3]

In 2007, she published her first collection of short stories, Coming up Roses.[4] Her first novel, Dead People’s Music, was published in 2009.[5][6] She is also the author of the short story ebook Inside a Pomegranate.[1]

Following her time at the Sargeson Centre, she wrote and illustrated her second novel, The Fall of Light.[1]

In 2016, she published the memoir Mansfield and Me: a Graphic Memoir (Victoria University Press), using the life and work of Katherine Mansfield to reflect on her own experiences; it was described as "part biography of Katherine Mansfield, part autobiography, and part account of her nagging insecurity about her own abilities."[1][6] The Times Literary Supplement said of the UK edition (Lightning Books): "Her watercolour-washed drawings delight us."[7]

With Rae Joyce and Indira Neville, Laing was the co-editor of Three Words: An Anthology of Aotearoa/NZ Women's Comics, published in 2016.[8][9]

In 2019, she published Let Me Be Frank (Victoria University Press), an anthology of her comics dating back to 2010, in which she documented the breakdown of her marriage.[10] Again, a UK edition was published by Lightning Books.[11]

Awards

In 2006, Laing won the 2006 Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition.[12]

Laing was a writer-in-residence at the Michael King Writers Centre in 2008 and 2013.[13] With Sonja Yelich she received the 2010 Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship.[14]

Mansfield and Me: a Graphic Memoir was long listed in the Illustrated non-fiction category of the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.[15]

Work

  • Coming Up Roses (short stories), 2007
  • Dead People's Music, 2009
  • The Fall of Light, Vintage, 2013, ISBN 9781775533030
  • Mansfield and Me, 2016
  • Three Words: an anthology of Aotearoa/New Zealand Women's Comics, 2016
  • Let Me Be Frank, 2019
  • Sylvia and the Birds: How the Bird Lady Saved Birds and How You Can, Too, 2022

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Sarah Laing". New Zealand Book Council. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  2. ^ Laing, Sarah (2016). Mansfield and me : intertexuality and the autobiographical impulse in the graphic novel : an exegesis (Masters thesis). ResearchBank, Unitec Institute of Technology. hdl:10652/3392.
  3. ^ Laing, Sarah (2009). Macaroni Moon. Random House. ISBN 9781869791513.
  4. ^ Laing, Sarah (2007). Coming up Roses. Random House. ISBN 9781869419202.
  5. ^ Laing, Sarah (2009). Dead People's Music. Random House. ISBN 9781869791087.
  6. ^ a b Bruce, Greg (14 December 2018). "Kiwi cartoonists on what mattered in 2018". New Zealand Herald. ISSN 1170-0777. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  7. ^ "Inside out - Autobiography".
  8. ^ "Three Words: an introduction". Three Words. 18 September 2014. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  9. ^ Joyce, Rae; Laing, Sarah; Neville, Indira (2016). Three Words: An Anthology of Aotearoa/NZ Women's Comics. Beatnik. ISBN 9780994120502.
  10. ^ Laing, Sarah (9 October 2019). "Let Me Be Frank: an essay about creativity and comics by Sarah Laing". The Spinoff. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  11. ^ "Let Me Be Frank by Sarah Laing | Eye Books". eye-books.com. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  12. ^ "Top New Zealand novelist Sarah Laing says winning Sunday Star-Times Short Story Awards was 'pivotal'". Stuff. 25 August 2016. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  13. ^ "Sarah Laing". Writers in Residence. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  14. ^ "Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship". Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  15. ^ "2017 Awards Longlist". New Zealand Book Awards Trust. Retrieved 1 December 2017.