My writing journey began when I was small. Probably too small to understand what writing was really about but I gave it my best go anyway.
Laura A Coats - Author & Illustrator
* day dreaming, as usual *
* day dreaming, as usual *
From a young ages my head was filled with characters and stories often of my own making. Amy, Learny, Hardy, Gaga and Gonk were mice who lived in my fingers. I have no real recollections of inventing these characters, but my mother has reminded me many times throughout my life of their existence. The micey’s were invariably culpable for any wrong done by the child size Laura; silly childish crimes such as drawing on walls or making a mess on the carpet.
Later, I discarded the micey’s (or maybe they left, sick of being blamed for my naughtiness) instead projecting my imagination into my great family of stuffed animals. To my dearly beloved inanimate friends I assigned very grown up roles and characteristics, created storylines which I recounted nightly to my younger sister in a kind of bedtime soap opera called “Dream World” – we even had a little theme tune we’d sing before the stories.
Hamley the dragon was the wise paternal figure of the family; Claire and Gizmo the quarrelling couple – their relationship frequently interrupted by the wily Tigger – until eventually the couple married in a strange ceremony in front of a cardboard alter, with a wedding attire made from my mother’s pale cream slip. Not long after this I built a small village for my ever growing collection of plush monkeys – the true pride of my childish years.
My young years were filled with stories. My mother taught us to read and instilled great love for literature before we were all in school. Wonderfully, our Mum even wrote a story or two for us and read them to us at bed time. She gave us audiobooks on tape too, which we would listen to at bedtime – a habit, even as an adult now, I still stick to.
Skip forward in time ten years, an angst-ridden teenager with her over-active imagination, and hopelessly romantic heart wrote endless journals about the opposite sex, the perils of being at an all girls school and later penned her first novella with characters based on herself and her first ill-fated crush called Lust for Love. An undeniable cringe-fest but hilarious too – and yes, I still have a copy, which I intend to burn someday!
Throughout my late teens and early twenties I still kept journals but began to write a lot of poetry – a creative outlet which greatly suited my romantic but woefully dark outlook of life at the time. At thirty I graduated with a Batchelor’s degree in Fine Art – a disciple I had originally pursued as I had been practicing as an avid oil painter – only to discover I did not have any love for that industry. Being a storyteller at heart I longed to pursue a more narrative practice diverting away from the commercialised gallery space as soon as the cap and gown were off.
I wrote my first novel May the Opposite Befall Me, in November 2016 as part of the NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) challenge, penning over 100,000 words in 28 days.
Following this I decided to pursue a Masters in Illustration at Falmouth University, a discipline I felt amalgamated my love for words and images, storytelling and imagination. During my studies I excelled in the area of authorial practice writing and illustrating short stories for children. For my Final Major Project I wrote and illustrated my second novel The Road to Whatever After aimed at a Middle-Grade audience. Life events in the year 2023 then led to the conception of a third novel The Zeus Gate Saga (working title) – now being plotted to expand into a three part series. Finding my feet firmly planted in my writing practice, this year I completed a brand new manuscript, my fourth novel, Wherefore Sings the Blackbird.
Although I no longer have mice living in my fingers, my hands are rarely idle.
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