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Elizabeth
Laird has always been a traveller. Born in New Zealand,
of Scottish and New Zealand parents, she came to this country
as a child. She set off again as soon as she'd finished
her education, and lived and worked (as an English teacher)
first in Malaysia, then in Ethiopia.
She
met her husband on a plane in India, and as soon as they
were married they went to live in Iraq, where her husband,
David McDowall, was working for the British Council. They
moved on to Beirut (during the Civil War), and were evacuated
to Vienna, where their second son was born. Rather exhausted,
they returned to Richmond with their two sons in 1979, and
both began to write. They have lived and worked in Richmond
ever since, though Elizabeth makes frequent visits abroad,
especially to Ethiopia, her favourite place in the world.
Elizabeth
Laird's first novel, Red Sky in the Morning, is the
story of a disabled child. It was higly commended for the
Carnegie Medal. Like Hiding Out , Secret Friends
and Jay it is set in Britain and deals with contemporary
family issues. Other novels reflect Elizabeth Laird's experience
of foreign travel. Kiss the Dust, which won the Children's
Book Award in 1992, as well as the Dutch Royal Geographical
Society Glass Globe Award, is set in Iraq and Iran. Forbidden
Ground is a love story set in Morocco. She is has also
written the Wild Things series of ten novels set
in Africa, around wildlife and conservation themes. These
have taken her to many parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Zambia,
and led to close encounters (not all entirely friendly)
with elephants, rhino, zebras, chimps, parrots, turtles
and baboons. Her latest novel, Jake's Tower, is on
the shortlist for the 2001 Carnegie medal.
Personnal
Profile
I was born in New Zealand. Is that why I've always had a
burning desire to travel? Anyway, as soon as I was eighteen,
I flew off for a year to teach in Malaysia. (I was bitten
by a seasnake there and nearly died). I came home and got
a degree, then I set off again, for Ethiopia this time,
and worked there as a teacher for two years, travelling
in the holidays to the remotest parts of the country by
bus and on horseback. I started scribbling then, just letters
and diaries, but I enjoyed it more and more.
Two
years later I went off to India, to teach in a summer school.
On a plane between Bombay and Bhopal I was horribly airsick.
The man in the seat next to mine was so sympathetic I took
to him at once. A year later, I married him.
We started
our married life in Baghdad, where I got a job as a violinist
in the Iraq Symphony Orchestra, then we went on to live
in war torn Beirut. We were evacuated from there to Vienna.
When our second child was born, we came home to London to
bring them up. They have grown up now, and I've started
travelling again, not to teach this time, but to gather
material that will go into my books.
I started
writing for children when my own sons were small. For a
while I stuck to themes that were close to home, but increasingly
I'm writing on international themes, and I'm loving it.
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