Laing, Sarah

IN BRIEF

Sarah Laing is a fiction writer and graphic designer. Her first collection of short stories, Coming up Roses, was published in 2007, and followed her win of the 2006 Sunday Star Times Short Story Competition. She illustrated the book Macaroni Moon (2009) and in the same year published the novel, Dead People’s Music, which is set in Wellington and New York. Laing was a Michael King Writers Centre Writer in Residence in 2008.

About the Author

Laing, Sarah (1973 –) was born in Champaign-Urbana in the USA, grew up in Palmerston North and moved to Wellington at the age of seventeen. She has also lived in Germany, Brooklyn, New York, and currently resides in Auckland. Laing has worked extensively as a graphic designer, in addition to writing fiction.

Sarah Laing’s first book, Coming up Roses, was published in 2007 by Vintage, and is a collection of short stories. The collection followed her win of the 2006 Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition. Paula Morris wrote in her review of the book for the NZ Listener, ‘the verve and clarity of the writing in Coming Up Roses, along with the wry, offside skewness of many of its stories, reminded me of reading Emily Perkins’s first book, Not Her Real Name, also a story collection. Laing seems to be a writer of intelligence and wit: I look forward to more stories, more books.’

Laing illustrated Paula Green’s children’s poetry book, Macaroni Moon (2009), and in the same year published Dead People’s Music. Guest reviewer Maggie Rainey-Smith writes on Beattie’s Blog, ‘I highly recommend this novel. Think somewhere between Zoe Heller and Zadie Smith. It is a book that takes itself seriously while being witty and insightful, tender and scathing, smart and innocent, fast-paced and even a little bit disgusting … The prose is utterly confident and never seems to falter.’

Sarah Laing writes, ‘I come from a visual background and spend quite a lot of time describing the concrete world. I started off thinking I was going to be a poet so I pay a lot of attention to words. I also love pretending to be an analyst, trying to figure out motivations for people’s peculiar behavior.’

She was the Michael King Writers Centre Writer in Residence, August –November 2008.

Sarah Laing is sharing the 2010 Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship with Sonja Yelich.  She will be using her time in the Sargeson Centre, Auckland, to work on her upcoming novel White Light and other projects.

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Media links and clips

• Blurb about Dead People’s Music on the Poppyshock site.
• Dead People’s Music Book review on the Listener site.
• Dead People’s Music Book review on Beattie’s Blog.
• Sarah Laing’s Random House Profile.
• Coming up Roses book review on NZ Listener site.

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