Leigh N. Gallagher debut novel, Who You Might Be, was published by Henry Holt in 2022. She’s had fiction, essays, poems, and reviews published in The Brooklyn Rail, Lit Hub, Full Stop, American Short Fiction, Beloit, Salt Hill, and other journals. With an interest in alternative modes of publication, she’s occasionally collaborated with painters, filmmakers, and musicians in print projects and live readings. A graduate of the Helen Zell Writer’s Program at the University of Michigan, her work has been supported by the Zell Fellowship, the Hopwood Program, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, the Ox-Bow School of Art, Hawthornden Castle, Lighthouse Works, Marble House Project, and other residencies and institutions.

As a teacher and facilitator, Leigh has coordinated workshops and events through many organizations, including Blue Stoop, InsideOut Detroit, the Front Street Writers, and as part of the Detroit Art Book Fair. She’s taught writing at the Pratt Institute, the City University of New York, the University of Michigan, the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, Room Project Detroit, Blue Stoop, and The Athenaeum of Philadelphia. As a freelance arts writer, she regularly produces exhibition essays, press releases, artist bios, and other texts for top-tier galleries.

Originally from Northern California, she sort of lives in Philadelphia.