Self-Portrait With an Unwilling Landscape

Blauner, Laurie

Owl Creek Pr

Children of Gravity

Owl Creek Press

It Looks Worse Than I Am

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

What Books Press

"Blauner never shies away from the grotesque, or the beautiful. . . . Courageous and innovative and mesmerizing, Frankenstein for a new age." —Helen Phillips, The Beautiful Bureaucrat
"A statement about the nature of evil and its inevitability, even necessity, that reveals the tragic essence of [Blauner's] vision and her adroitness with metaphor." —Jerome Gold, The Moral Life of Soldiers
"If Solace was like its protagonist—built from others' body parts—it might draw its parts from Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and, naturally, Frankenstein. In the end, Solace is its own weird and wonderful creation, the story of the fifth version of a daughter who, despite being haunted by lives she never led . . . simply wants to be herself." —Mark Brazaitis, The Incurables
Created by a grieving father, Mara F. is haunted by previous Maras. One day she escapes into the world. The Solace of Monsters contrasts the creation of life with its ending. How does an artificial creature discover life? What do her adventures tell us about "natural" life and our own attempts to survive—and find solace—in the world?
Laurie Blauner is the author of three novels and seven books of poetry. She received a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship and Seattle Arts Commission, King County Arts Commission, 4Culture, and Artist Trust grants and awards. She was a resident at Centrum in Washington State and was in the Jack Straw Writers Program in 2007. Her work has appeared in many literary journals.

The Solace of Monsters (Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize Winner)

Literary

Leapfrog Press

In 1924 New York, Lil (short for Lillian) Moore, an artist, and Leon Shaffer, an accountant, narrate this Jazz Age story of triangular love, art and its future, willing and unwilling sacrifices, heroes and heroines, dreams, visions and illusions, music, insanity, insomnia, fame and the lack of it, and how each era is similar and different from our own. Lil's patrons, Mr. and Mrs. Becker, have interesting, themed parties at their country home. Their lion, Herbert, is wise and a good companion. Alice Thompson, a talented visual artist, and George Holman, an attractive older man and owner of the 191 Gallery, are loosely based on Georgia O'Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz. Marco, a piano player, and Izzy, an African American singer, are also members of the Bohemian group. Lil's desires and needs, as well as Leon's attraction to her, form the plot, which includes philosophical discussions at a Chinese restaurant Round Table, a women's art exhibition at George's gallery, a beauty contest, Lil's wish to act in moving pictures, a visit to a museum to see King Tut, and swimming in a lake. The novel is studded with historical figures and other characters, including F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, a Freudian analyst, gangsters, absurdist artists and art lovers, and Mary Beach, a 191 Gallery assistant with her daughter, a long, white scar, and a criminal husband. 1920s slang, the experience of art creation, psychiatric notes, newspaper advertisements, headlines, articles, reviews of popular cultural events, and current events like the Leopold's and

The Bohemians

Black Heron Press

I WAS ONE OF MY MEMORIES is a collection of lyrical nonfiction that includes essays, poetry, prose, lists, postcards, and memoir. "I wasn't always like this,"Laurie Blauner writes in her first creative nonfiction book. In this book houses fly, the Wizard of Oz reveals himself, a recipe for fur is shared along with how humans recreate themselves as animal hybrids, Nabokov's Lolita infatuation is observed, and the author describes having been seen outdoors in her underpants. The twenty essays cover a variety of topics, obsession, telling lies, outer and inner spaces, myths and facts, evolution, aging, the death of a beloved cat named Cyrus, and the definition of what it is to be human. In the book secrets surface concerning how to talk to yourself, good and bad familial relationships, pretending to be another religion, and a mother lying about her age. "I love this book's fragmented and looping storytelling, its sense of humor, and its amazing, strange, and smart sentences."--Caryl Pagel, author of Out of Nowhere into Nothing "...so strange and true, structurally organic, surprising and moving."--Polly Buckingham, author of Expense of a View Nonfiction. Essays. Memoir. Hybrid.

I Was One of My Memories

Essays & Correspondence

PANK Books

A Theory for What Just Happened

Poetry

FutureCycle Press

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Books by Blauner, Laurie