Louise Wareham Leonard

Louise Wareham Leonard (born Louise Wareham) is a New Zealand-American writer of British and Maori descent. She immigrated with her family to New York City in 1977. Her books and writings concern family sexuality, sexual abuse, the interior lives of women and relationships between men and women. Set often in Manhattan, as well as New Zealand, they explore "the search for sanity"(Dame Fiona Kidman) in a world of "priapic narcissism" (Stout Scholar John Newton). She is a founding member of the New Zealand Academy of LIterature and, as an American citizen, winner of the James Jones First Novel Award.

Early life

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Leonard immigrated to New York City in 1977 with her family. She attended Dalton School and The United Nations International School and was graduated from Columbia College, New York, with a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Society.

Career

Under her maiden name, Leonard wrote for newspapers and magazines, beginning as an intern reporter at age 15 in Manhattan, and a junior reporter at 17 and 18 at the capital city newspaper in New Zealand. At 20, she was an intern in the New York bureau at TIME. As an adult, she lived and worked in places such as Mississippi, New Zealand, New York, Europe, the Caribbean and outback Western Australia. In 1999, she won the American James Jones Literary Society's First Novel Award for her work-in-progress Since You Ask. She was twice a finalist for New Zealand's Prize in Modern Letters (2006, 2008)[1] and is a Founding Member of the New Zealand Academy of Literature (2016).[2][3]

Creative writing

Leonard was discovered by Poetry in 1995 under her maiden name Louise Wareham;[4] her first novel, Since You Ask, also under this name, won the James Jones Literary Society First Novel Award < and was published by Akashic Books, New York in 2004.[5] Her second novel, Miss Me A Lot Of was published under the name Louise Wareham Leonard in 2007 in New Zealand where it was a bestseller.[6] Leonard's third novel, 52 Men, (Red Hen Press, 2015) is a humorous work of metafiction drawing on her romantic life and imagination. With blurbs from writers Will Eno and Kurt Andersen, it also contains cameos of public figures including Jonathan Franzen, Michael Stipe, Lou Reed and Jay Carney. It is reviewed in essay by Amanda Fortini in the Spring 2016 Los Angeles Review of Books.[7] Leonard has also published in various literary magazines and is a reader for the journal Tin House.

Private life

Leonard is one of four siblings, one of whom is musician and writer Dean Wareham. She is married to Investigative Editor with USAToday network Matthew Leonard.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.victoria.ac.nz/modernletters/about/history/prizes
  2. ↑ http://www.anzliterature.com/
  3. ↑ http://www.anzliterature.com/member/louise-wareham-leonard/
  4. ↑ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/search?q=louise+wareham
  5. ↑ http://www.akashicbooks.com/author/louise-wareham/
  6. ↑ http://vup.victoria.ac.nz/miss-me-a-lot-of/
  7. ↑ https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/why-cant-you-be-sweet/
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