Rita Leganski

I grew up in northern Wisconsin, where a love of books set my imagination on fire as I waited out the long, cold winters (though, in truth, they had a beauty all their own). Southern writers were my favorites because they took me from the plains of my northern home to a landscape vined in lushness, where people had names like Scout, Calpurnia, and Battle Fairchild to name a few; where places had names like Yoknapatawpha, and where a streetcar was named Desire. I got lost in those places of different constellations with their mint julep, velvet evenings, and a readiness to accept magic. It wasn’t until my children were grown that I finally earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at DePaul University and determined that I would be a writer.