Leigh Alder likes to tell people she’s living proof that you just keep trying until you get it right.

Early on, Leigh tried her hand in the business world, rising to the mid-level position of supervisor, but it caused many qualms, and she got out of there. She then entered the classroom, this time as the teacher. Career Number Two worked out well for her and the kids and lasted a long time. Finally, she left the classroom and sat down at her computer and pulled up a blank screen. After staring for a while, she typed out, “It was a dark and stormy night, ” laughed at the joke, and began her first short story. (Which is now fulfilling its highest calling by sitting in a dead document folder somewhere on her laptop.)

Eventually after many tries and retries, the blank computer screen turned into Own Voices sapphic/LGBTQ published short stories and finally longer works. Turning a Paige is Leigh’s debut novel.

During her earlier careers, Leigh collected master’s degrees and holds them in Liberal Arts, Education, and Professional Writing. (And it still took her more than ten years to begin telling stories.)

Leigh lives in the intemperate humidity of the mid-Atlantic region and attempts to reason with her unhinged and clingy cat.