Lorna Landvik Biography
Writing and theater were Lorna Landvik's twin passions when she
was growing up in her home town of Minneapolis, Minnesota. After graduating from
high school, she and her best friend traveled in Europe, settling in Bavaria
where they supported themselves as hotel chamber maids and English tutors. When
she returned to the States, Landvik briefly attended the University of Minnesota
before moving to San Francisco, where she performed stand-up and improvisational
comedy. Another move took her to Los Angeles, where she worked as a stand-up
comic at the Comedy Store and The Improv, supplementing her income with a
variety of temp jobs--including one at the Playboy Mansion ("I felt like
Margaret Mead studying a secret society") and working for Atlantic Records.
In California, Landvik married her high school sweetheart. Their
first daughter was born in 1985. A year later the trio joined the Great Peace
March for Global Nuclear Disarmament. "A thousand people started the march on
the West Coast, but we were stranded in the desert and a core group of about 400
decided to go on," Landvik recalls. "It ended nine months later with a
candlelight vigil at the reflecting pool in Washington D.C." After the march,
Landvik and her family moved back to Minneapolis and she began working on what
was to become her first novel. Their second daughter was born in 1991.
Landvik has continued to nurture her interest in theater;
appearing with the nationally-acclaimed improvisational group "Dudley Riggs,"
and acting in plays such as "Bad Seed," "Lunatic Cellmates," "Valley of the
Dolls," "On the Lam with Do and Rae," "The Smelt Princess," "And the Winner Is,"
and "My Backyard Party."
Landvik made her debut as a novelist with the critically
acclaimed Patty Jane's House of Curl. She is also the author of Your
Oasis on Flame Lake, The Tall Pine
Polka, Welcome to the Great Mysterious,
Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons,
Oh My Stars, and The View From Mount Joy.
This biography was last updated on 07/23/2011.
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