about Valerie
Valerie Laws: poet, crime and comedy novelist, stage and radio
playwright, sci-art installation specialist, performer, mathematician,
swimmer. She performs her work at readings, events, festivals and signings live and in the media world-wide.
BOOKS: (see pages listed left for full details)
Her 13 published books include crime (two Bruce and Bennett novels) & comedy fiction, 4 full collections of poetry, non-fiction/polemic, and drama. Two language course books she co-wrote became surprise best-sellers. Several of her books are also available as ebooks. Check out her Amazon author page for an up to date list of available Kindle books.
NOVELS:
Her first crime novel THE ROTTING SPOT (Read Regional Choice, Northern Promise Award, shortlisted for McKitterick Prize) was endorsed by Ann Cleeves and Val McDermid. The second in the series THE OPERATOR is endorsed by Ann Cleeves, Phoef Sutton, Alex Marwood and Chris Longmuir. Her comedy novel is a ‘Clueless in corsets’ Austen inversion, LYDIA BENNET’S BLOG, endorsed by Linda Gillard, Catherine Czerkawska and Paul Magrs.
SCIENCE AND POETRY:
Valerie often writes (and performs) funny poems about sex and dating, and moving science-informed poetry about dying and pathology. Recent years of intensive research via funded Writer’s Residencies at a London Pathology Museum, Kings College London Anatomy Department, and Institute for Ageing and Health Newcastle University, have involved working with human dissection, neuroscientists and pathologists on dementia, and the science of dying: the result has been poetry collections THE FACEBOOK OF THE DEAD and ALL THAT LIVES, sci-art poetry installation SLICING THE BRAIN (now on Youtube), BBC radio play NOWT TO LOOK AT and forensic knowledge which has informed her crime fiction, THE OPERATOR and THE ROTTING SPOT. Her many prizes include a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, twice prizewinner in National Poetry competition, two Northern Writers' Awards, many poetry competition prizes. She has a first class degree in Maths/Theoretical Physics.
SCI-ART POETRY INSTALLATIONS:
She devises new forms of poetry, science-themed poetry installations and commissions including the world-infamous
QUANTUM SHEEP, an Arts Council-funded project spray-painting random haiku onto live sheep to celebrate quantum theory, which has been a media sensation for some years. She featured in BBC2 TV's ‘Why Poetry Matters’, with Griff Rhys Jones, and live at Royal Festival Hall, London with another quantum haiku on inflatable beach balls. St Thomas’ Hospital, London, has her computer-controlled illuminated WINDOW OF ART ‘embedded haiku’. Her animated poetry AV installation SLICING THE BRAIN has exhibited throughout the UK and across Europe. Her animated film poem APOPTOSIS also receives great acclaim and its text is included in FACEBOOK OF THE DEAD.
RESIDENCIES:
She has had many Writer’s Residencies including:
Gordon Pathology Museum, London/ Kings College London (funded by Wellcome Trust Arts Award)
Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle University (funded by Changing Age)
Leeds Hospitals for TONIC (cancer & long-stay patients)
Evolving Words (Wellcome Trust-funded national project for Darwin 200)
Ilkley Literature Festival Poet in Residence
El Gouna 5* Hotel, Red Sea, Egypt
Dilston Physic Garden, Northumberland.
PLAYS:
She has written 12 commissioned plays for stage and BBC radio. Her BBC Radio 3 play NOWT TO LOOK AT is available from Audiogo.
BACKGROUND:
Writing since childhood, she did an English degree specialising in Anglo-Saxon, Old Icelandic, and other useful skills, before becoming a teacher, being disabled in a car crash, then doing a Maths/Theoretical Physics degree while bringing up her two children. Eventually an MA (Creative Writing) got her writing seriously, also lecturing on the MA for a time. She recommends divorce after long marriage and subsequent dating of (sometimes much younger) men for both inspiration and creation of time and energy for a writing career. She’s been a full-time professional writer for over 12 years: poetry, performance and sci-art and novels. She continues to chase sudden obsessions and new
challenges.
She’s an obsessive swimmer (five miles a week); wildlife spotter, skull collector, traveller, snorkeler in foreign seas, and lives on her native Northumberland coast.
CONNECT WITH VALERIE:
On Amazon: Valerie’s author page with links to her books
Amazon
UK
Amazon
US
On Twitter: @ValerieLaws
On Facebook
On Pinterest
(for book locations, installations, info etc)
On Youtube
playwright, sci-art installation specialist, performer, mathematician,
swimmer. She performs her work at readings, events, festivals and signings live and in the media world-wide.
BOOKS: (see pages listed left for full details)
Her 13 published books include crime (two Bruce and Bennett novels) & comedy fiction, 4 full collections of poetry, non-fiction/polemic, and drama. Two language course books she co-wrote became surprise best-sellers. Several of her books are also available as ebooks. Check out her Amazon author page for an up to date list of available Kindle books.
NOVELS:
Her first crime novel THE ROTTING SPOT (Read Regional Choice, Northern Promise Award, shortlisted for McKitterick Prize) was endorsed by Ann Cleeves and Val McDermid. The second in the series THE OPERATOR is endorsed by Ann Cleeves, Phoef Sutton, Alex Marwood and Chris Longmuir. Her comedy novel is a ‘Clueless in corsets’ Austen inversion, LYDIA BENNET’S BLOG, endorsed by Linda Gillard, Catherine Czerkawska and Paul Magrs.
SCIENCE AND POETRY:
Valerie often writes (and performs) funny poems about sex and dating, and moving science-informed poetry about dying and pathology. Recent years of intensive research via funded Writer’s Residencies at a London Pathology Museum, Kings College London Anatomy Department, and Institute for Ageing and Health Newcastle University, have involved working with human dissection, neuroscientists and pathologists on dementia, and the science of dying: the result has been poetry collections THE FACEBOOK OF THE DEAD and ALL THAT LIVES, sci-art poetry installation SLICING THE BRAIN (now on Youtube), BBC radio play NOWT TO LOOK AT and forensic knowledge which has informed her crime fiction, THE OPERATOR and THE ROTTING SPOT. Her many prizes include a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, twice prizewinner in National Poetry competition, two Northern Writers' Awards, many poetry competition prizes. She has a first class degree in Maths/Theoretical Physics.
SCI-ART POETRY INSTALLATIONS:
She devises new forms of poetry, science-themed poetry installations and commissions including the world-infamous
QUANTUM SHEEP, an Arts Council-funded project spray-painting random haiku onto live sheep to celebrate quantum theory, which has been a media sensation for some years. She featured in BBC2 TV's ‘Why Poetry Matters’, with Griff Rhys Jones, and live at Royal Festival Hall, London with another quantum haiku on inflatable beach balls. St Thomas’ Hospital, London, has her computer-controlled illuminated WINDOW OF ART ‘embedded haiku’. Her animated poetry AV installation SLICING THE BRAIN has exhibited throughout the UK and across Europe. Her animated film poem APOPTOSIS also receives great acclaim and its text is included in FACEBOOK OF THE DEAD.
RESIDENCIES:
She has had many Writer’s Residencies including:
Gordon Pathology Museum, London/ Kings College London (funded by Wellcome Trust Arts Award)
Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle University (funded by Changing Age)
Leeds Hospitals for TONIC (cancer & long-stay patients)
Evolving Words (Wellcome Trust-funded national project for Darwin 200)
Ilkley Literature Festival Poet in Residence
El Gouna 5* Hotel, Red Sea, Egypt
Dilston Physic Garden, Northumberland.
PLAYS:
She has written 12 commissioned plays for stage and BBC radio. Her BBC Radio 3 play NOWT TO LOOK AT is available from Audiogo.
BACKGROUND:
Writing since childhood, she did an English degree specialising in Anglo-Saxon, Old Icelandic, and other useful skills, before becoming a teacher, being disabled in a car crash, then doing a Maths/Theoretical Physics degree while bringing up her two children. Eventually an MA (Creative Writing) got her writing seriously, also lecturing on the MA for a time. She recommends divorce after long marriage and subsequent dating of (sometimes much younger) men for both inspiration and creation of time and energy for a writing career. She’s been a full-time professional writer for over 12 years: poetry, performance and sci-art and novels. She continues to chase sudden obsessions and new
challenges.
She’s an obsessive swimmer (five miles a week); wildlife spotter, skull collector, traveller, snorkeler in foreign seas, and lives on her native Northumberland coast.
CONNECT WITH VALERIE:
On Amazon: Valerie’s author page with links to her books
Amazon
UK
Amazon
US
On Twitter: @ValerieLaws
On Facebook
On Pinterest
(for book locations, installations, info etc)
On Youtube
