BIO:

Leigh Anne Williams grew up in Camrose, Alberta, and completed a B.A. in English with a minor in Art History at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. She worked as a teaching assistant at Alberta Vocational College (now NorQuest College) where she particularly enjoyed working with First Nations students. Leigh Anne then moved to Halifax where she did her M.A. in English literature at Dalhousie University and then a Bachelor’s of Journalism degree at King’s College in the following year. While living in Halifax, she worked as a copy-editor at The Chronicle Herald, taught survey literature courses at Dalhousie and began freelance writing.

In 1999, she moved to Toronto to work as the editorial assistant at the Canadian bureau of TIME – assisting the bureau chief with research and reporting – and was later promoted to reporter, writing articles, book reviews, as well as suggesting and managing the first of TIME Canada’s Canadian Heroes features. After TIME closed its Canadian office in 2006, she became news editor of Quill & Quire, a trade magazine covering Canada’s book publishing industry. In 2008, she began freelancing full-time.