About Leigh Glenn

Leigh likes to joke that she writes about “food, farming, fiber and finance,” but her humor belies the breadth and depth she brings to these and many other subjects, whether she’s writing a magazine article or a speech or editing a story, fiction or nonfiction.

For many years—ages 8 to 13—she wanted to work for NASA as an astronaut. She wrote to the space agency to learn what was involved. They wrote back: candidates needed perfect vision and a love of math. Leigh had neither, so she had to rethink her plans.

At the time, she loved to write poems, and two years later, her English teacher, new to her school, shared in that love and worked with Leigh on many of the ones she had written. Poems aside, he brought the same depth to his teaching that Leigh brings to her writing: He helped students develop research skills, writing chops, and, overall, shared the importance of critical thinking—not only in English class, but in life. He was for her a Thoreau teacher, who emphasized how important it is to be engaged with life.

Leigh’s life has been a petri dish for experimenting with this sort of engagement. One way she did that was through writing—for her school paper, for her local weekly, then branching out to the Clearwater Sun and the St. Petersburg Times.

Having caught the “writing bug,” as her tenth-grade English teacher put it, she succumbed, living in Petersburg, Russia, after college and conducting interviews in Russian and translating into English for English newspapers and magazines; then back in the States, serving as a beat reporter covering city government in Sebastian, Fla.; a newsletter editor for a regional trade association outside Washington, D.C.; a magazine writer/editor and then speechwriter for executives at a national trade association; then as a blogger for her own herbal business, Art of Earth; and now as a full-time freelance writer and editor and a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and Phi Beta Kappa.

Her credits include GAMA International Journal, Acres U.S.A., Gainesville Sun, St. Petersburg News, Moscow Times, Washington Post, Fauquier Times-Democrat, Vero Beach Press-Journal, the WANADA Bulletin, AutoExec Magazine, Nation’s Business, Rug Hooking Magazine, UpStART Annapolis, Bay Weekly, Energy Bulletin, and others. She is the author of a reference book, Victims’  Rights, published by ABC-Clio. 
Leigh has a master’s of fine arts in nonfiction from George Mason University, Fairfax, Va., and a bachelor’s in English/minor in Russian from the University of Florida, Gainesville. She holds a certificate in community and clinical herbalism from Sacred Plant Traditions, Charlottesville, Va., and a permaculture design certificate from the Blue Ridge Permaculture Network.

In her spare time and depending on the season, Leigh enjoys gardening, visiting local and regional farms, making soups, and hooking “paintings” in wool.