Laurel Brunner has had a long and rewarding career as a technical writer and journalist. Now with her first novel, the Draftsman, published by Unbound in April 2021, she is metamorphosing into an author under her real name, Laurel Lindström.

In her previous life following a series of false starts Laurel went travelling and got caught up in the Desktop Publishing revolution. She worked in California for the Seybold organisation and was instrumental in developing the Seybold conferences and brand. Her specialisation is in digital prepress, digital production and digital printing. She is managing director Digital Dots (www.digitaldots.org) which provides international consulting and educational services. She has qualified as a Lead Auditor for ISO 14001 (Environmental management systems).

For money she still specialises in digital prepress, printing and publishing technologies and provides consulting and editorial services . Over the years clients have included a wide cross section of publishers, manufacturers and industry associations. Laurel Brunner’s work regularly appears in publications and on websites around the world. Laurel is a regular speaker at industry events in North and South America, Europe and Asia. Laurel Lindström is a relative nobody.

Laurel Brunner is also a Visiting Professor at Shenzen Technical University in China and one of a small cohort of Women of Distinction selected by US publishers Output Links. She works with several ISO working groups and convenes a group responsible for standards relating to the environmental impact of graphics technology, including print media. Agfa Graphics has awarded her its Sustainability Award for her work in sustainability and the Indonesian printing industry association, ATGMI, has also recognised her for this work. No one has recognised Laurel Lindström for anything, yet.

Laurel is married to Paul and together they have three grown up children, Hannah, Morgan and Matilda.

A not so serious biography

Laurel Lindström is a nobody in the novel-writing world. Her shape is something though, borne of many things some good, some not so good: a Mary Poppins album under the Christmas tree; a cowbell for the front door and a chiming grandfather clock; building a snow woman and planting a pear tree; laughter; uprooting shock; a cat called Satch; a new baby sister in a sunlit yellow room; the scent of roses and lupins and lilies of the valley and tarmac and bus fumes; a German schoolroom and no words; cold, hungry, friendless and alone; aged three waking up to live jazz in the middle of the night; anger and a stranger who never left; passing the 11+; silence in a Brooklyn school; “you can be in our group but we’re not your friends”; sex; kota, kaseri, lachano; spite and meanness, fights and loss; power of driving; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates; UCLA and persistence; work; fear; Greece; learning to love and be loved; unmatchable wonder of a child called Hannah; dancing with a stranger; Sweden; three amazing siblings who keep us rich in love and loving; an Albino squirrel and horses, music, books, work, obsessions, family, laughter . . . and the sounds and words that dance in my head all the time, sometimes happily, sometimes not.

Mandatory Boasting Section

I am uncomfortable talking about myself, rather than talking about Laurel Brunner who has done all the achieving. And I have noticed that in the literary world everything seems to be about achievement and recognition and hypety hype hype. Laurel Lindström author has yet to achieve anything or be recognised even slightly, and she’s useless at the hypey thing.

But Laurel Brunner, the professional earning version, has achieved considerable success and even been recognised for efforts to raise environmental awareness within the graphics industry and its supply chains. If this is of interest to you, click here verdigrisproject.com to read some of the nearly 400 blogs Laurel Brunner has written about matters environmental in the graphics industry. These blogs include updates of various ISO standards for making the environmental impact of print more accountable, first hand info since Laurel Brunner is an ISO working group convenor, and along with many other individuals (all blokes) represents the UK at ISO international meetings.

If you want to know more about making good PDFs, processless platesetting or how to manage digital colour data and why it is important, go here: digitaldots.org.

People who matter: my family and especially Hannah, Morgan and Matilda, and of course Paul. The Grey Horse and Birdy are also extremely important people in my life.

Things which matter: chocolate, kindness, patience (hah), sleep, exercise, time, food, alcohol, waking up every day at least once.