Solana d'Lámant

Solana grew up in the border town of El Paso, Texas into a family of doctors who were also ranchers. Even in childhood, she devoted herself to her love of art, piano, ballet, reading and writing poetry. As a corollary of this creative spirit, Solana has taught bilingual children as well as creative adult education in dance, choreography, and writing.

In a compromise between the healing arts and dance, Solana earned her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Philosophy from Southern Methodist University with the intention of earning a doctorate in that discipline. However, her love of dance led her to Texas Christian University to

study under the masterful tutelage of the internationally renowned choreographer Jerry Bywater Cochran, and there Solana earned her Master of Fine Arts in Modern Dance.

Injuries moved her to focus on choreography and intensify her writing, which ultimately led her to Vermont College 's esteemed writing program where she earned her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Her novel in poetic form is entitled It's A Long Dive Darlin'. In addition to hundreds of poems, many of which have been included in literary reviews and magazines, she has written three chapbooks of selected poems (You Get It By Breathing ; Dancing On One Leg While the Other One Signs ; Lost High) and is currently in the process of writing another novel. Four of her poems will be included in the upcoming Listening to the Birth of Crystals, an international poetry anthology to benefit deaf children, edited and published in England.