Artist Bio

After graduating with an M.A. in English Literature from State University of New York at Stony Brook, Leah Stenson worked as an assistant editor in New York City for Hawthorne Books and School Library Journal. In 1977, she moved to Tokyo to pursue a spiritual quest to deepen her understanding of Buddhism and spent 16 years teaching English at a Japanese university and a women's junior college. In 1993, she moved to Portland, Oregon where she served for several years as the managing director  of Oregon Peace Institute while continuing to do freelance editorial work. She is an actively practicing Buddhist and a member of the Interfaith Council of Greater Portland. She serves on the board of Friends of William Stafford and hosts the Studio Series, a monthly poetry reading and open mic. 

Leah has published essays, editorials and feature articles for various newspapers and magazines and co-authored a textbook for Japanese students of English in addition to publishing poetry in literary journals and magazines. Her chaptbook, Heavenly Body, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2011 and "The Turquois Bee and Other Love Poems" is scheduled to be published by the same press in 2014. She served as a regional editor for Alive at the Center: Contemporary Poems from the Pacific Northwest (Ooligan Press, 2013) and is co-editor of "Reverberations from Fukushima: 50 Japanese Poets Speak Out," to be published by Inkwater Press in 2014.