Leanna James Blackwell is a writer, editor, and playwright. Her new novel, The Sinners of Santa Ava, is forthcoming from Orison Books in the fall of 2027. A generational saga featuring a struggling Catholic family in California (and a trio of unconventional saints), Sinners explores the aftermath of catastrophe—and the mystery of how three close siblings survive the unthinkable. Read an excerpt here.

Leanna began her career in theater working as an actor and director in experimental theatre companies in San Francisco. Her theater experience, along with her childhood education in Catholic schools, instructed her in the art of ritual, imagination, and the music of language, all of which inform her writing. She has written plays about subjects ranging from mixed-race adoption to the depiction of “evil” women in fairy tales to the inside world of Shakespearean actors. Leanna is a 15-year member of the Northampton Playwrights Lab and co-producer of a biannual new play festival, Play by Play, funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.