Leanne Sowul is an award-winning writer whose fiction and creative nonfiction publication credits include Juxtaprose Magazine, under the gum tree, Barnstorm Journal, Confrontation, Hippocampus Magazine, and Rappahannock Review. In early 2020, Leanne gave a live reading of her essay “The Band Room” at Lincoln Center in New York City, as part of Read 650’s “Gratitude” series. In 2017, she won the Scott Meyer Award for personal essay.

Leanne is also an accomplished music teacher and winner of the All-American Dream Champion Award. As an elementary band teacher, she has directed more than two hundred student performances and can play every band instrument (just don’t give her a cello). Her master’s degree in Humanistic and Multicultural Education led her to restorative social justice work, and she recently served in a leadership position on her school district’s Equity team. As part of that role, she became one of the founding members of a local My Brother’s Keeper chapter.

Leanne lives with her husband and two children in the Hudson Valley area of New York. Besides writing, reading voraciously, and playing music, she also enjoys running, baking, exploring history and geography with her son, and dancing to Disney songs with her daughter.