Leslie Leyland Fields is an international speaker, teacher, and the multi-award winning author of fourteen books including Your Story Matters, Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers, Surviving the Island of Grace, and Crossing the Waters: Following Jesus through the Storms, the Fish, the Doubt and the Seas, which won CT's "Christian Living Book of the Year." Her books have been translated into nine languages. Her essays have appeared in Christianity Today, Books and Culture, Belief.net, The Atlantic, Best Essays and many others, earning her a number of Evangelical Press Awards. With three graduate degrees, Leslie has taught extensively, including being a founding member of Seattle Pacific University's MFA program. Currently she leads faith and writing retreats around the world and directs the Memoir Masterclass, a large online community for spiritual memoir. Since 2013 she's been leading The Harvester Island Writers' Workshop on her family's island in Alaska (with guests Philip Yancey, Ann Voskamp and many others) as well as Your Story Matters Retreats in Kodiak. She lives on Kodiak Island during the winters, and summers, lives on a wilderness island, Harvester Island, where she works with her family in commercial salmon fishing.