Hi there. I’m Laura J Carroll, a writer and visual artist living in Naarm, on unceded Wurundjeri country.

I’m a middle-aged woman, a parent, and my heritage is Celtic. My great-grandfather, the most famous person in my family, was known as the King of Collingwood; that doesn’t make me working-class royalty, but it’s pretty great just the same.

I have been a member of a union all my working life, which has included stints in retail, academia, local government, and museums.

The first years of Covid - typified for me, as for many in my city, by the surreal slog of extended lockdowns - brought me back to drawing, which I’d studied thirty years before. This time around, doing drawings is enhanced by the wonderfully midlife condition of not being inhibited that my technical skills aren’t perfect.

Making the Shrine is my first book. I loved doing it so much, and learned an enormous amount. My next project is a smaller book of drawings with the working title of Victoria - The Finest State. It’s about the fines issued, with a side serve of public shaming, to people who got caught breaking curfew and stay-at-home rules in Melbourne in the winter of 2020. The book after that is going to be about something so amazing that I’m keeping it on the lowdown for now, in case someone beats me to the punch (while I’m occupied with the Finest State one.)