LauRajOhRowland.com
Title
Laura Joh Rowland
Description
I wasn't one of those lucky people who know from a young age that they want to be writers and begin preparing themselves early. When I was growing up, I loved to read, but I associated writing with boring things like term papers and essay tests. People in my family tend to become teachers, librarians, engineers, and such. That was the example I was supposed to follow.
When I went to the University of Michigan, I marched straight into a science curriculum. I earned a B.S. in microbiology and a master's in public health. I worked as a chemist on an EPA research project on pollution in Lake Huron. I was a microbiologist for a company that manufactured media for growing bacteria. In 1981 my husband and I moved to New Orleans, where I became a sanitary inspector for the city (I issued citations to people who had junk cars and trash in their yards). Then I got a job as a quality engineer with Lockheed Martin at the NASA facility where the fuel tank for the Space Shuttle is built.
My favorite leisure pursuit was painting and drawing. I started doing freelance illustration and design and decided that I'd like to illustrate children's books. So I enrolled in a class to learn how to write one that I could illustrate. Much to my surprise, I found I liked writing better than illustration—and a lot better than science. And I found that I wasn't really suited to children's literature. I wanted to explore a wider range of subject matter than I could in picture books.
Contact
- Laura Joh Rowland
-
- Riverside RI
- United States 02915
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- (401)829-3724
