Lauren Roche
I am 63, author of ‘Bent Not Broken’ and ‘Life on the Line’, Mila and the Bone Man and Julia Eichardt. A Life of Grit and Grace. I retired from working as a doctor in August 2019 after suffering a spinal cord injury during routine back surgery. I am a graduate of the Masters of Creative Writing program through AUT. Mila and the Boneman is my first novel, published by Quentin Wilson in October 2022. It isn’t autobiographical as my father begged me when my second book was published to ‘please pick on someone else’s family next time’. Julia Eichardt A Life of Grit and Grace is my first historical novel. It reached number 1 on the NZ fiction list. I am a two-time Ironman finisher and now read stories of long treks as I can no longer do them. Have always been a word nerd. My partner Graham is an artisan coffee roaster, his brand is Manaia espresso. In 2020 my short piece The Graverobber's Apprentice was highly commended in the Lilian Ida Smith Award. In June 2022 my micro-fiction piece Arise took 1st prize in the Whangārei Library Flash and Micro Fiction competition.
Genre:
- Adult Fiction
- Autobiography / Memoir
Skills:
- Novelist
- Public Speaking
Branch:
Northland
Location:
Whangarei
Publications:
Bent Not Broken
Autobiography. published NZ, UK, China (translated into both simplified and complex Chinese), Germany (as Schattenlicht), and Sweden (as en andra chans)
Life on the Line
Autobiography. Published NZ and UK.
Time Capsule
A collection of prose, poetry and graphic story-telling from the A. U. T. Masters in Creative Writing cohort, 2020.
Anagram, Aotearoa Press, 2020.
ISBN 9-780473-548-780
I have two prose pieces and a poem in the anthology.
Mila and the Bone Man
Mila is set in the forests of Tai Tokerau.
The protagonist is a young woman descended from healers. Her best friend, Tommy-next-door, is a quirky kid passionate about bones and skeletons, which he reconfigures into models and mobiles.
It's a novel about grief and guilt, about love and redemption.
Mayhem Journal
Issue 10, December 2022
Prose piece Bird Man, an excerpt from the upcoming Songs to Sing to the Dying.
Live Encounters: Aotearoa Poets and Writers
April 2023, guest editor Lincoln Jacques.
Stilled Life with Blue Slippers. Short fiction excerpt from my Masters thesis, Songs to Sing to the Dying.
Julia Eichardt. A Life of Grit and Grace.
An historical novel set in the goldfields of Victoria and Queenstown. Julia Shanahan / Eichardt was an early hotelier who was instrumental in the development of the Queenstown tourist industry. Her eponymous hotel is now a 5 star destination in the shores of Lake Wakatipu.
Published by Flying Books, August 2025.
ISBN 978-1-067-02713-1