Leah McNaughton Lederman is a writer and freelance editor who lives in Hancock County with her husband and an assortment of children, cats, and dogs. Although she wrote and journaled and pen paled her entire life, it took her a long time to start taking her writing seriously. She circled around it for years, earning a master’s in literature, becoming a writing instructor and then an editor… Finally, in 2018 she said, “It’s my turn.”
Curious about the way women write about the things they fear, Leah started off by creating two volumes of Café Macabre: A Collection of Horror Stories and Art by Women (SourcePoint Press, 2019; 2021), which feature the work of nearly four dozen women. She also published her own collection, A Novel of Shorts: The Woman No One Sees. These nine stories interlace to show the life of Esther, a tragically deranged but endearing cleaning woman who collects dust.
Leah’s true love is creative nonfiction, which has been published in The River and South Review, Defenestration Mag, Flying Island, and The Wrath-Bearing Tree. In 2020, her essay “My Bleeding Heart” was nominated for a Pushcart and chosen to be choreographed by DanceKaleidoscope. The memoir she co-wrote with her cousin, Beautifully Broken: The Katy Hayes Story, about becoming a quadruple amputee, releases at the end of 2022. Currently, Leah is working on a memoir about growing up with a combat veteran father.
Leah is active in several writing communities in the Midwest: she is a volunteer with the Lafayette Writing Studio, Social Media Coordinator and instructor for the Indiana Writers Center, and the Assistant Director of the Midwest Writers Workshop. She is also the fiction/nonfiction editor and ardent supporter of the online magazine, Of Rust and Glass: A Midwestern Creative Community. (She’s a bit of a zealot when it comes to Midwestern creatives.)
When she’s not doing something writing related, you can find her folding laundry, refilling sippy cups, and visiting the Hancock County Public Library with her children. If she has a free afternoon, she likes doing crossword puzzles in pen. You’ll find her taking walks in downtown Greenfield, Beckenholdt Park, and her country road in Buck Creek (it’s not a warehouse yet!). Leah also enjoys scrubbing tombstones with the Hancock County Historic Cemetery Commission.
You’ll find Leah on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Her books are available at her online store.
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