Frances Edmond and her mother, poet Lauris
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Description
Even a three-volume autobiography doesn't come close to telling the full story of poet Lauris Edmond OBE. So her daughter and literary executor, Frances Edmond, is filling in the gaps in a biography called Always Going Home. This includes assessing in depth the death of another of Lauris's daughters, Rachel, left emotionally damaged by a childhood assault, and its impact on the whanau. Lauris didn't publish her first poetry collection until she was 51. Ten more followed, plus the autobiography, a novel, dramas written for radio and theatre and her work as an editor. She was 75 when she died in 2000. Frances published Night Burns with a White Fire: The Essential Lauris Edmond with co-editor Sue Fitchett in 2017 - but, as she tells Lynn Freeman, Always Going Home is very much the personal story of a mother and daughter, both writers with strong personalities. Frances Edmond's Always Going Home is published by Otago University Press.
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