About Leigh

Leigh Rastivo is a fiction writer, essayist, and literary critic.

Her narratives explore identity, rupture, and the emotional aftermath of leaving home and tradition behind, and examine how memory shapes survival.

Originally from New York, Leigh moved 17 times before finding her home in the mountains of Appalachia—an odyssey that informs her recurring themes of dislocation and reinvention.

Her writing has appeared in L’Esprit Literary Review, MicroLit Almanac, The Arts Fuse, and other journals. She holds a BA from Old Dominion University in Virginia and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars in Vermont, where she later returned as a postgraduate fellow.

In addition to her literary work, Leigh leads the strategy and development of high-stakes business proposals—a background that lends her fiction its structural clarity and urgency.

She is currently seeking representation for her debut novel while finishing her second.