An insatiable longing for freedom and art has always driven Tamara Leonhard to write, make music, express herself, and constantly reinvent herself.
Even as a child, she was always a little different; too headstrong, too quiet, too lost in crazy dreams and somehow alien everywhere. Born in 1982 in the Bernese Oberland, with family roots in the Ruhr region and eastern Switzerland, she grew up in Saarland from the age of 13 and later lived in England and France. Being able to feel at home anywhere has shaped her; she has never really understood boundaries, neither between countries nor between people.
Writing was her refuge from an early age. At the age of eleven, she rescued an old typewriter from the trash, wrote her first novel—which remains in a drawer to this day—and won her first writing competition at sixteen.
Today, Tamara Leonhard is the author of several novels and has published contributions in anthologies. What interests her in writing are genuine emotions.
From 2018 to 2022, she published stories about love, followed by a change of genre in 2025: “Rock in Peace” is her first drama, in which the artist also gives space to dark feelings and serious topics.
I am involved with Climate Fiction Writers Europe because there is no Plan(et) B, and without us speaking up, too little will change.
Imagine that the person who shared everything that was ever important to you is suddenly gone overnight. And you blame yourself for it …
“Guitarist Erik Neuhaus is dead.” The news, which deeply shocks the fans of the punk rock band EXIT SixTwenty, completely knocks frontman Simon off his feet. Erik was not only his bandmate, but also his best friend since childhood. And it was only because of Simon’s hotheadedness that the accident happened in the first place!
The band was Erik’s big dream. While they now have to decide whether and how EXIT SixTwenty will continue, Simon plunges into ever deeper pain in search of himself. And just when he finds a straw to pull himself back onto the stage, his world threatens to shatter once again.
A novel about music, friendship, loss, and the way back to life.
With poems by poet Jennifer Hilgert.