Formal Bio
Estelle Laure is the author of ten published and/or forthcoming picture books and young adult novels, including acclaimed novel This Raging Light and Disney's City of Villains trilogy. She has been an Indie Next pick, a BEA Buzz Book author, a Junior Library Gold Standard Selection, and has worked for nearly a decade as an agency associate and editorial consultant with Folio Jr./Folio Literary Management. She holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA in Theatre Arts from New Mexico State University. She lives in Taos, New Mexico (the best place on earth) with her family, and has been translated into more than fifteen languages around the world.
Estelle Laure is represented by Emily van Beek at Folio Literary Management/Folio Jr.
Informal Bio (and kittens)
I moved to the U.S. from London when I was six. I proceeded to attend nine schools, skip two grades, and live in four states in twelve houses. I spent a lot of time in VW buses, one of which had orange shag carpeting that grew mushrooms. I also spent most of my childhood in stories of my own creation. I was extremely sure I was a fairy queen kidnapped into the wrong world and/or a Solid Gold dancer (if you don't know what that is, don't look it up). This is still a thing. I also always felt like an outsider, someone not easily understood. This is also still a thing, although the older I get the more I understand it's a thing for most people.
I have two brothers, three sisters, five cats, one dog and, most importantly, two children. I come from a really big family and used to think I would have a lot of kids. That's why I keep getting cats.
I've been a video store manager, a barista, a waitress, an office manager, a teacher, a writing coach, and an editor. I read and loved books the whole time I was doing all those things. Books are how I process life and make sense of all the confusion, and the fact that I get to tell stories for a job still feels like a miracle.
Some other things: I don't like meanness or tyranny or racism or any system that judges people based on race or sexual orientation or gender identity. Keep your boxes to yourself. I do like animals, plants, humans, and the Oxford comma.
Some other things I like are collaborations, grace, movies, laughter, rainbows, dancing, dreaming, museums, my friends, good food, really actually kind people, loud music, listening to my daughter sing, anything with wings, and most of all (after my family) stories of all kinds.
​
​
​
​
