Every summer, since 1978, I move to another island off the west coast of Kodiak Island, near Larsen Bay, where my husband and I and our six children are the island’s only inhabitants. Here, on Harvester Island, we work in an extended family fishing operation, Fields’ Wild Salmon in an intensive four month season of commercial salmon fishing. (Photos) 

My life is defined by these two island geographies, but not confined by their boundaries. In the 1980’s, I traveled via expedition truck, double-decker bus, backpack and local transport  throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia, S.E. Asia, and Africa. Currently I travel and speak throughout North America (and this winter, Central America as well) at conferences, seminars and retreats on matters of faith, literature, the integration of faith and learning, wilderness and nature writing, family relationships, and the writing life. (See link for topics)

As a faculty mentor, I teach Creative Nonfiction in Seattle Pacific University’s Master of Fine Arts program, the only MFA program in the country rooted in an exploration of the nexus of faith, art and mystery. (low-residency: (www.spu.edu/prospects/grad/Academics/mfa/People_Saying.asp) .

Between my own teaching and writing, I also run a professional writing business, The Northern Pen, performing manuscript critique, mentoring and editing in all stages of creative, professional, and academic writing. (Northernpen)

Through the threads of my own improbable and seemingly divergent life---a life in the Academy, in wilderness, in ocean harvesting, in publishing, speaking, and mothering---it is Language that has gathered each strand, binding and braiding to a single cord. It is Language that is uniquely performative, leading to discoveries of new truths--and new selves--in the midst of inherited assumptions, consuming demands, and challenging geographies.

Through writing, I find not only a way of saying, but a way of living: when wilderness, work, the chaos of culture divide me from myself and others, the call to words and Word brings the means and power to forge cohesion, to literally construct a linguistic lattice between nature, spirit, and body, all that feels disparate. 

Leslie is the author of five books including Surprise Child (Waterbrook Press, div. of Random House) Surviving the Island of Grace (Thomas Dunne) Out on the Deep Blue: Women, Men and the Oceans They Fish (St. Martin’s), The Entangling Net: Alaska’s Commercial Fishing Women Tell Their Lives (Univ. of Illinois Press), and The Water Under Fish (Trout Creek Press).

Her books have been reviewed in the (London) Times Literary Supplement, The Chicago Tribune, Sports Illustrated for Women, The Portland Oregonian, The Seattle Times, Women and Health, the Utne Reader, Oregon Review, and many others.

Her essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, Orion, Image: Art, Faith, Mystery, Best Essays Northwest, Christianity Today, It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters,  On Nature: Great Writers on the Great Outdoors, A Mile in Her Boots: Women Who Work in the Wild, America and the Sea: A Maritime History, and many others. Her poetry has appeared in The Seattle Review, the Bellingham Review, the Northern Review,  Patches of Godlight: Father Tim’s Favorite Quotes, and many more.

Books

• Surprise Child (Waterbrook Press, div. of Random House)

• Surviving the Island of Grace (Thomas Dunne)

• Out on the Deep Blue: Women, Men and the Oceans They Fish (St. Martin’s),

• The Entangling Net: Alaska’s Commercial Fishing Women Tell Their Lives (Univ. of Illinois Press),

• The Water Under Fish (poetry;Trout Creek Press).

Reviews have appeared in the (London) Times Literary Supplement, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, Sports Illustrated for Women, The Portland Oregonian, The Seattle Times,  Women and Health, the Utne Reader, Oregon Review, and many others.

Essays

•  The Atlantic Monthly,

• Orion,

• Image: Art, Faith, Mystery,

• Best Essays Northwest,

• Christianity Today, 

• It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters, 

• On Nature: Great Writers on the Great Outdoors,

• A Mile in Her Boots: Women Who Work in the Wild, and many others.

Poetry

• The Seattle Review, The Bellingham Review, the Northern Review,  Patches of Godlight: Father Tim’s Favorite Quotes, Passages North,  

• She is the winner of the Virginia Faulkner Award and a nominee for the Pushcart Prize.

• Leslie holds degrees from Cedarville University, the University of Oregon (M.A. in Journalism, M.A. in English), and Goddard College (M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction).