Leslie Freeman-Dykesen is a poet, nonfiction writer, and experienced creative writing facilitator, with deep roots in both disability community and expressive arts education.  Her publication credits include work featured or forthcoming in make/shift magazine and Visible:  a Femmethology: Writing on Queer Femme Identity, edited by Jen Burke.  Educated at Goddard College, where she earned a BA in Liberal Arts with concentrations in Gender and Disability Studies, and in the University of Iowa's prestigious Nonfiction Writing Program, Leslie has also been trained in the Amherst Writers method.  She returned to Goddard College in 2006, to complete an MA in Transformative Language Arts, which focuses on personal and social change through creative writing and oral traditions.  She is an active member of the TLA Network.

TouchStone Writers grew out of Leslie's personal experiences of creative writing as liberatory practice, and out of fieldwork with recently disabled trauma survivors, including Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.  Leslie founded TouchStone Writers because she believes that art, and especially storytelling, is key to connecting disability as a diaspora. “Writing in community,” Leslie says, “strengthens the community as well as the craft. Writers are culture builders.”

Leslie lives with her partner and children near Burlington, Vermont.


Other TouchStone Writers Contributors and Recent Guests:

Lauren Berrizbeitia
Mark Pekar, aka Mickey Western