Writer and Artist

Recent articles

Fighting Fires in the Amazon (article, Treehugger)

The Puma Years (article, Writers Rebel)

Yuma (short story, The Dark Mountain Project)

Stand with Nena (article, ONCA)

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Praise for THE PUMA YEARS

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“THE PUMA YEARS is a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the animals rescued by a sanctuary, Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi, in Bolivia. And it is the heartwarming story of the relationship that grew up between Laura Coleman and a puma, a relationship that only deepened over the years. I visited the sanctuary years ago—what a wonderful place, dedicated staff and passionate volunteers. Engaging and inspiring—you will love this book.”

 

Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace

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"THE PUMA YEARS is an utterly wonderful book. It is a memoir, a love letter to a puma, and through that love comes the utter heartbreak of the forests. It is not just astonishingly good as a book, but it brings to life the full earthy reality of the forests, its swamps and iridescence, its wild beauty and rottingness, while so poignantly articulating its destruction. It is quite brilliant."

 

Jay Griffiths, author of WILD: AN ELEMENTAL JOURNEY and WHY REBEL

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"Wow. THE PUMA YEARS is one of my favourite books of recent years. It is a stunning, moving love story told in such vivid, alive and poetic prose you can smell the mud of the jungle and hear the symphony of animals coming off the page. I couldn’t put it down but didn’t want it to end. Coleman is a brilliant story-teller who generously invites us into her relationship with Wayra and in so doing tells us something profound about respectful kinship between species - and how much our damaged world needs a new way of looking at other-than-human animals. This book will stay with me." 

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Lucy Jones, author of LOSING EDEN

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"Brave, tender, thrilling and inspiring. Coleman is a fresh, vital and powerful voice."

 

Charles Foster, author of BEING A BEAST

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"A funny and compelling true story of courage, endurance and self-discovery. THE PUMA YEARS is a hymn to the sorrows and joys of finding kinship with the animal world." 

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Gregory Norminton, author of THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY

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"A book about being consumed by the wild, in all its difficulty and damage, with a vivid cast of humans and animals. Impassioned, honest, unexpected and often very funny."

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Nick Hunt, author of WHERE THE WILD WINDS ARE

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"Laura Coleman has given us a wise and wonderful and deeply moving book. After reading it, I now find myself even more in love and awe at the furred and flippered and feathered things with which we share this glorious and fragile planet." 

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Niall Griffiths, author of STUMP and KELLY + VICTOR

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“Coleman’s adrenaline rush–inducing debut transports readers along on her 2007 adventure to the Amazon jungle of Bolivia…Coleman’s purpose-finding journey also offers a call to action for addressing the heartbreaking circumstances of wild animals in peril.”

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Publishers Weekly

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"Readers will be hooked by Coleman's compelling storytelling right from the opening pages. There are poignant breakthroughs, unsettling setbacks, terrifying dangers, narrow escapes, heartbreaking separations and reunions, and hookups and relationships, all channeled through Coleman's honest, wry, self-effacing, and always entertaining narrative. This is an amazing tale, one that readers will remember."

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Booklist (starred review)

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And a note from the editor...

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"It is said that the key to happiness is three things: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. Laura finds all three in the unlikeliest of places, and none of them is quite what she expected. I challenge you to read the first page of her memoir and not want to continue spending time with her as she stumbles into a makeshift camp full of misfit humans and animals in the middle of the jungle. She is so completely out of her comfort zone, so terrified of the jungle and everything in it, but she also finds herself uncharacteristically driven to stick it out. And when she does, she is rewarded beyond anything she could have imagined. How could she have known, for example, that the most important relationship of her adult life would be with a heartbroken and highly neurotic puma who would finally teach her how to trust and be trusted?

Oh, the animals! You come to know and love them all. Lorenzo, the parrot who is afraid to fly and infatuated with a human; Panchita, the kleptomaniac pig you don’t want to get on the wrong side of; and of course, Coco and Faustino, a quirky pair of monkeys with a backstory who keep a stash of stolen bras in the roof, sulk when scolded, and cuddle up with the humans in their sleeping bags at night...invited or not. And then there is the jungle, described by Laura in such vivid, lush, and beautiful language that it seems to be a living and breathing thing—a force of nature with the power to change your life, as it did for Laura, who learns that once the jungle finds its way into your soul, there is simply no going home again."

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Liza Darnton, editor of THE PUMA YEARS

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