Elizabeth Holden (5 June 1943 – 6 December 2013), better known by her pen name Louise Lawrence, was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

author best known for her work published in the 1970s and 1980s. She has been classified as a writer for

young adults A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...

. She died on 6 December 2013 of a heart attack in her home at Kiltimagh in Ireland, after suffering from heart problems a number of years earlier.

Biography

Born Elizabeth Rhoda Holden on 5th June 1943 in

Leatherhead Leatherhead is a town in the Mole Valley District of Surrey, England, about south of Central London. The settlement grew up beside a ford on the River Mole, from which its name is thought to derive. During the late Anglo-Saxon period, Leathe ...

, Surrey, to bricklayer Fred Holden and cook Rhoda Edith (née Cowles), she and her younger sister Catherine attended Poplar Road Primary School, Leatherhead, between 1948 and 1954. The family then moved to the

Forest of Dean The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to ...

, where her mother had been born and grew up, and there Lawrence attended Lydney Grammar School between 1954 and 1961. Her first published poem, “The Moon”, appeared in the Lydney Grammar School magazine in 1958. Between 1961 and 1963 she worked as a junior assistant at the Gloucestershire County Library, then left to marry Keith Wintle. She had three children with her first husband, and at this point began to write, in part as an escape from being "totally isolated socially and environmentally in a remote farmhouse, with a husband who had no time for me", as she later put it. She resumed local library assistant work in 1969, and wrote four ("very bad" by her own estimation) unpublished novels before '' Andra'', her first published novel. She then left her husband and set out on a career as a professional writer. ''Andra'' was serialised in 1976 by

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

for Australian TV. She married Graham Mace in 1987. In 1998 they moved to County Mayo in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, where Lawrence continued to be active in writers' circles and festivals. She died in 2013.

Books

*'' Andra'' (1971) *''The Power of Stars'' (1972) *''The Wyndcliffe'' (1974) *''Sing and Scatter the Daisies'' (1977) *''Star Lord'' (1978) *''Cat Call'' (1980) *''The Earth Witch'' (1981) *''Calling B for Butterfly'' (1982) *''The Dram Road'' (1983) *''Children of the Dust'' (1985) *''

Moonwind ''Moonwind'' is a 1986 science fiction novel by English author Louise Lawrence about two teenagers winning a trip to the Moon. One of them, Gareth, a rebellious Welsh child, falls in love with an alien Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law) ...

'' (1986) *''The Warriors of Taan'' (1986) *''Extinction is Forever and Other Stories'' (1990) *''Keeper of the Universe'' (1992) *''The Disinherited'' (1994) *''The Llandor Trilogy'': ** ''The Journey Through Llandor'' (1995) ** ''The Road to Irriyan'' (1996) ** ''The Shadow of Mordican'' (1996) *''Dream-weaver'' (1996) *''The Crowlings'' (1999) *''The Witch and the Weather Mage'' (2013)

References

External links

* – "welcome to the author's approved webspace", no date
Louise Lawrence
at Fantastic Fiction – bibliographic data with cover images * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lawrence, Louise 1943 births 2013 deaths English science fiction writers English women novelists People from Leatherhead Writers from County Mayo