On one of my parents’ first dates, they dressed up and attended the opera in Paris. What always stuck out for my father was not the production they saw, but rather that my mother, a young American student at the Sorbonne, had pinned up her stockings with safety pins. I’m pretty sure they fell madly in love that night.

When I was born, they chose the name “Leonore” the protagonist in Fidelio, Beethoven’s only opera. I’ve since gone by “Lee,” for reasons that should be fairly obvious. San Francisco, the Salinas Valley, Santa Barbara, Tucson, Arizona, and France have been home base over the years. My current home is Portland, Oregon, where I’m working on stories, personal essays, and a new novel. 

My first novel The Love We All Wait For was awarded “Best Novel” at the 2007 East of Eden Writers Conference. Some of my creative non-fiction work has appeared in Nostos, Creative Dreamers, and other places.