Jon Lawrence
Jon Lawrence is a writer from South Wales now living in the east of England who is the author of the acclaimed novel The Pastoral. He has written a novella, a number of plays, collections of poetry and comic essays and this year will release his follow-up novel Playing Beneath the Havelock House.<.... more
Jon Lawrence is a writer from South Wales now living in the east of England who is the author of the acclaimed novel The Pastoral. He has written a novella, a number of plays, collections of poetry and comic essays and this year will release his follow-up novel Playing Beneath the Havelock House.
"Writer's block is the best thing that ever happened to me. Following the release of an album called The Girl in the Spotlight I had nothing to say as a songwriter. It was 2009 and for the last ten years I had been writing constantly. Suddenly, it all halted. The title track of the album gave me the curiosity to find out more about the characters I had written about in my songs. There is only so much depth you can go into in a lyric and I wanted to get to know these characters a little more. This led me to writing a play, which led on to poetry which in turn led to writing essays, short stories and a novel.
My writing has been informed by many of the subjects which my songs explored - my difficult relationship with my father, my depression, my sense of the comically absurd, the anger I feel toward organised religion, the love of my family and the death of my friend in the 9/11 attacks in New York - but now as a playwright and novelist I have been able to delve a little deeper into these issues. "
Jon Lawrence - October 2013
Jon is also a music education specialist and and ethnomusicologist