Exploring creative lives with writers, artists, and women curious for more
A map for the creative life you’re craving
Playful prompts + easy conversations
ON HER WRITINGS/TRAVELS/ART
With a lifetime on the road, Leamy focuses on encouraging others to explore more By publishing Wanderlust Journal, an online hub for personal travel stories, the podcast of the same name, and managing Wild Dog Press which publishes a select few travel memoirs.
Sarah also presents at Overland Expo and other such travel expos on such topics as being a solo explorer, taking pets along, the Southwest Backroads, and the business of writing and publishing.
Sarah’s artwork captures her quirky style and observations, whether the cartoon-like dogs and cats, the urban sketches or the colorful folk art paintings. You can find her work here on the website and it’s for sale through Etsy.
Sarah Leamy is the author of the award-winning books, When No One’s Looking, Lucky Shot, and Lucky Find, as well as Van Life, a travelogue from exploring the Northwest with two dogs and a cat called Stephen. Her shorter work has been published in Los Angeles Review, Hunger Mountain, Santa Fe Writers Project, Ad Alta Literary Journal and others.
Photo: Eric Cousineau. c. 2019
Sarah has a MFA in Writing and Publishing from Vermont College of Fine Arts (2019) and she presents at various colleges and conferences on writing from a gender-queer perspective. She is passionate about sharing the importance, the craft, and validation. She loves these conversations about representing outsider experiences through storytelling.
Recent and Upcoming Projects:
G’Dog, a collection of flash fables inspired by Old European Folktales, published March 2022. https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/gdog-by-sarah-leamy/
Hidden, a fictionalised genderqueer narrative prose poem, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021. https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/hidden-by-sarah-leamy/
(For a sample, please listen to this public reading of poems from the chapbook. Read at VCFA, May 13, 2021. https://soundcloud.com/sleam-leamy/hidden-3-poems-from-the-new#t=1:05)
STAY is a hybrid visual story of a British tomboy & clown negotiating place/ identity, trauma/neurodiversity, gender roles, sexuality and violence. It came out with Madville Publishing in 2023. Works from this collection have been published in 2020 at Los Angeles Review, Immigrant Report, Passenger Journal, Dunes Review, Z Press Best Emerging Poets of New Mexico (2019). STAY was worked on with the help of Lidia Yuknavitch.
Various micro-essays/prose poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies over the years, most recently with Los Angeles Review, Immigrant Report, Passenger Journal, Dunes Review, Z Press Best Emerging Poets of New Mexico (2019), Devils Party Press (2019) as well as The People’s Apocalypse (2014). Sarah also writes book reviews and author interviews, found on Hunger Mountain, National Book Critics Circle, and Santa Fe Writer’s Project Quarterly. International publications include https://issuu.com/adaltabjl/docs/ad_alta_2020-21Ad Alta Journal in England, 2021.
Lucky Shot (2012) and When No One’s Looking (2016) won Best Gay Fiction in the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. Lucky Find was a finalist for the same award in 2014. Van Life won Best Non-fiction/ Grand Winner Award in the Great Northwest Book Contest of 2017 and was a finalist in the NM/AZ Book Awards 2018. Finishing Line Press is publishing Hidden, a chapbook in the form of a queer narrative prose poem in March 2021.
The following books are currently looking for representation:
ROCKET
After fighting back when a neighbor attacked her and her rescued dogs, Rocket hides out in an abandoned homestead in rural New Mexico only to be trapped there during a winter storm.
Rocket explores ideas of rage, identity, family, belonging, and the tensions between locals and newcomers. Rocket adapts to life with blackouts, wondering what had happened after her neighbor tried to rape her and kill her dogs. She’d reacted but can’t remember for sure how but the dogs are alive so that’s a good sign. This novel is not the normal happy-ever-after story glimpses into the hardscrabble truth of trying to find a home in a seemingly unwelcome landscape.
In this novel, and my other completed work, the characters navigate complex themes of gender, sexuality, class, power, poverty, drugs, and mental health in unexpected ways. With vivid descriptions of the American Southwest, its landscapes, animals, and lifestyle, you’ll have the visceral experience of those struggling to find a sense of connection.
Passing Through is a short-story collection, dealing with addiction and the cost on individuals and communities, and the tension between locals and newcomers along the Rockies. Saved, a short story, was published by Devils Party Press. Since then, the manuscript was worked on with the help of Lidia Yuknavitch. Here is a video of Sarah reading from the manuscript. https://youtu.be/5J9VTAOdODk
In other words, Sarah stays busy.
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