About Leanna James Blackwell

Leanna James Blackwell is a writer, editor, and playwright. She began her career in theatre, working as an actor and director in experimental theatre companies in San Francisco. Her theatre 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.

Leanna’s short stories, essays, and articles have appeared in Creative Nonfiction’s True Story (Pushcart nomination), Full Grown People, Multiplicity Magazine, Literary Mama, Brain: Child, 580 split, and in the anthologies A Ghost at Heart’s Edge and Toddler, as well as in numerous academic publications. Her most recent work is a novel, The Sinners of Santa Ava, a generational saga featuring a struggling Catholic family in California and a trio of unconventional saints. Spanning the years from 1962 to the present, Sinners explores the aftermath of catastrophe—and the mystery of how three close siblings survive the unthinkable. Read an excerpt here.

Leanna graduated from Mills College with an MFA in creative writing. She has taught writing, literature, and teaching pedagogy for more than 20 years, and also worked as an in-house writer for Amherst and Mount Holyoke colleges. She served as a writing professor at John F. Kennedy University in California and most recently at Bay Path University in Massachusetts, where she directed the MFA in Creative Nonfiction for over a decade. At Bay Path, she mentored more than 100 writers on their personal essay and memoir writing; co-founded and executive edited the literary magazine, Multiplicity; created a new certificate program in narrative medicine; and organized and hosted dozens of writing events and conferences with visiting distinguished writers, including an annual international summer seminar.

Leanna currently works as a writing coach for a small number of private students. A 30-year practitioner of meditation, Leanna is known for her holistic approach to teaching and her ability to help writers fulfill their full creative potential.

Born and raised in California, Leanna moved from the Bay Area with her husband and young daughter to western Massachusetts, where she became active in the local writing, theatre, and social justice communities. She is also a daily presence at the dog park with her exceptionally friendly Lab mix, Gus.