AHS Class of 1967 - Contact List

Austin High School alumni
Name		Years Attended
Solana d'Lamant		1963 - 1967

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.

She writes in Dallas, TX and in Mexico. She teaches writing workshops in the U.S. and Mexico. She has retired from her bilingual kindergarten classroom and will soon complete her M.F.A. in Creative Writing.

She is currently a Ph.D. student in the interdisciplinary program of Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. Solana earned her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology/Philosophy from Southern Methodist University. She holds an M.F.A. in Modern Dance. Equal focus on writing led her to achieve an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. She has poems published in many national and international anthologies (print and on-line) such as Red River Review, The Raintown Review, Ironwood, Gypsy, Rock & Sling, Listening To The Birth of Crystals. Solana has three chapbooks published and two poetry manuscripts currently out for publication.

Solana is a teacher with experience in the education of bilingual children as well as creative adult education in rhetoric and creative writing. She has been invited teacher/reader of poetics at a number of national conferences. Always an active community member, Solana has participated in a variety of civic and corporate boards, holding various offices, such as Artistic Director of the Dallas Morning News Dance Festival, The Writer’s Garret Board Member and Board Member and Workshop Facilitator for the Dallas Poet’s Community. When she has a spare moment, she makes cloth dolls which depict the characters of her friend’s novels.